In this Cinema 4D tutorial, I get into lighting a scene with the Ambient Light and Area Light CS Tools. Drop any questions or images made with these tools in the comments. I would love to see them. Have fun!
Download the scene file and follow along
Download the CSTools Here
Watch all of the CS Tools Tutorials
How To Install the CSTools



25 Comments
YE!!! i really like these CS tools tutorials..! great, Nick ;D ;D
Great stuff.
I’ve been playing with these a lot. Used the ambient in my PB&J piece.
The tip at the end is genius.
Dude the fresnel on the reflection page has changed my life.
Thanks for sharing the scene file.
I was always putting it on the alpha and it kills render time, this helps the reflection so much.
I know it used on alpha for different reasons, I just had to comment.
Hey Nick,
what is the next c4d tut… maybe some rendering?
like how to use the render settings?
Great tutorial as always – you have a really nice pace to follow along.
I worked myself through the whole C4D series on cmivfx.com – but i never got so much Information out of a few minutes of tutorial.
Keep it up!
Hey nick,
Having trouble installing the cs-tools. I’m using c4d R11 and there isn’t an objects folder in library folder.
Any Suggestions?
Ricky
Your cinema tuts are great. Ricky you have to just use the content browser in C4d11 to navigate to them.
check his first post on the CS tools. He discusses this problem right there
The most useful 10 minutes I’ve had in a long time. Thanks Nick!
I keep getting errors when opening the scene files about missing plugins inlcuding random effector, and cloner object. A google search hasn’t turned anything up, anyone know whats going on?
Your probably missing the mograph module ?
Ah cool, does that come with cinema 4d or is it a seperate download from somewhere?
Matthew, There is a link in the post to get the cstools.
Yer, i downloaded them and installed them, at least i think i did! I’ll check again!
Thanks for this one more time usefull video !
Very cool to finally see some (more) tutorials on CS tools. This makes it a lot easier for me to see how powerful CS tools actually is. Even more than I thought! Thank you very much for your tutorials.
Awesome CS tools wish I had them sooner!
Great stuff! On a semi-unrelated note: how do you customize the layout to include the Render Setting dialog box, Content Browser, and so on as tabs behind your main Viewing window?
great tutorial sir.. but im having a problem.. everytime i choose from CStools, it always create a new file.then i must copy it to the file im currently working on.. what im suppose to do? thanks
thegorilla on July 12th, 2009 said...
In the Objects Tab, Go to File > Merge Objects to merge the file into the current project.
Also, you can install them into your interface as well… Here is how to do it in version 10: http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/2009/04/10/cinema-4d-tutorial-cs-tools-part-1-3d-stroke/
And 11: http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/2009/06/19/how-to-install-cs-tools-in-cinema-4d-version-11/
it’d be awesome to hear some pros/cons of using these tools vs lighting with hdri?
i guess i just love learning about lighting in cinema…
Hey Nick.
I noticed you use a pen and tablet with C4D. I tried using my little wacom bamboo set up.. however everytime I click down to make adjustments to an object ie. scale / rotation / postion. My numbers skyrocket! are there certain settings you are using? or maybe I need to update my drivers? what kind of tablet are you using?
thegorilla on September 21st, 2009 said...
There is a setting in the C4D preferences that says, “Use Tablet” or something like that that should help.
Is it just me or is the area light rendering really slowly?
I didn’t use your scene file but the same sort of set – and rendering with the area light takes 36 seconds (on a intel quadcore 2.3ghz)
As far as I can see yours takes round 7 seconds, right?
Anders Hattne on September 22nd, 2009 said...
……..the explanation came at 9:11.
Good stuff though. I’ll try to build a soft-spot right some day.. This lighting thing can be so complicated!!
Cheers
???
,..] greyscalegorilla.com is another relavant source on this topic,..]