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[Bash]

C4D - Abstract Shapes - Technique #1

I've posted this quite a while ago on some graphics sites (e.g. iced-designs.net and gamerenders.com), so i thought i might as well post it here too.

This is just one way of making abstract shapes in C4D, it's a new technique which I have come across lately and I don't think many people know about it, so I made a tutorial for it.

I've tried to go into enough detail so that people who haven't used C4D before can use this tutorial.

Here is something you should get as a result of this tutorial:



And here's how to make it:

1. Create a sphere by going to 'Objects > Primitive > Sphere'.

2. Change the size of the sphere so that it has a radius of 50m instead of 100m, as shown below:



3. Next, click on the 'Make Object Editable' button, and the 'Use Polygon Tool' button, as shown below:



4. Right-click the sphere and click on 'Smooth shift' in the menu:



5. Zoom in (if you need to), and then just select any polygon at random. You should see that the axis arrows appear on that polygon only.



6. Press AND hold the mouse down, anywhere on the screen, then drag right. Keep dragging the mouse enough for the polygon to extrude as much as shown below.



7. Press any one of the polygons again, at random, and then repeat step 6 - but extrude the polygon to a different length than you did in step 6.



8. Repeat step 7 many more times - rotate around the sphere so that you extrude polygons all around the sphere. What you get should look roughly like what is shown below:



9. Right-click the sphere again, and choose 'Matrix Extrude'.



10. Press on a polygon that's at the tip/end of one of the segments that you've extruded:



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11. Hold down SHIFT and repeat step 10 for EVERY segment you have extruded!



12. Release the SHIFT button. Press AND hold the mouse down, anywhere on the screen apart from on the polygons that you have selected, and then drag the mouse to the right so that you get something that looks like what I have below:



13. Now this is the bit where you can make something more unique. Press on one of the polygons which have been made as a result of the 'Matrix Extrude'. An example of one is shown below:



14. Press AND hold the mouse down, anywhere on the screen apart from on the polygons that you have selected, and then drag the mouse to the right so that you get something that looks like what I have below:



15. Repeat step 14, many times, on other extruded segments, until you get something that looks good enough. Note: with the 'Matrix Extrude' tool, if you press, hold, and drag, then stop and then do the same thing again without selecting new pixels, you can make the extrusion a lot more curlier:



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16. Add HyperNURBS to the sphere, by going to 'Objects > NURBS > HyperNURBS'. More detail is shown in the pictures below:



The 'Object' window should look like this now:



The sphere should look more smooth now:



17. Now it's time to add some material. This is optional, but it makes the object look a lot better. I'll be adding the 'Chrome' material for this tutorial.

Firstly, load the materials as shown in the pictures below:





18. Click on the 'chrome1' material and drag it on to the sphere.



19. Now all you need to do is export the render. I'll describe this quickly, since most of you already know:

Firstly, go to 'Render > Render Settings'. Pick the 'Output' tab. In the 'Resolution' field, choose the 800 x 600 option.

Then pick the 'Save' tab. In the 'Format' field, choose 'TARGA'. Then tick the 'Alpha Channels' box at the bottom.

Close the window. Go to 'Render > Render in Picture Viewer'. Wait for the render to finish loading. Then go to 'File > Save Picture as...', make sure all the settings are correct and then press 'Ok'.

Save the .tga file anywhere you want, then open it in Adobe Photoshop, and VOILA! You've finished!

I hope this was useful!

[Becca]

WOW excellent tutorial.... That is a mouth full dude,.. , your tutorial is simular to how you make the same effect but in 3Ds Max because I use that, looks VERY cool thanks for sharing this absolutely amazing technique...
it is realllly long though... o.O this deserves a rep I think...

[Bash]

hehe, thx. lol, i no it's really long... but i tried to go into a lot of detail so that newbies to cinema 4d would be able to use it without needing to do anything else.

oh, and, sry bout the 3 posts in a row... but it's that damn image spamming protection thing