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In this tutorial, I go though the process of modeling, animating and lighting an animation I did for a Five Second Project called “Balloons In Black And White.” Follow along in Cinema 4D as I use particles, HDRI lighting and reflective textures to create this scene.
Original Animation…
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50 Comments
Hi nick loved the Tutorial but can you add the HDRI file so I can try this out for myself ?
Keep it up
This was great! Thanks Nick
OK. This puts GSG over the top as my new #1 site.
I’m practically developing obsessive-compulsive disorder visiting here daily! Keep up the awesome!
thegorilla on June 23rd, 2009 said...
hehe. Thanks Michael! Keep watching!
Hi Nick,
Been sowing this around the office today and people are blown away.
I have one question, is it possible to do this with an alpha on the balloons so I can compost them in AE with out the HDRI background for example?
Cheers, Garus
thegorilla on June 23rd, 2009 said...
Toward the end of the tutorial, I go though how to export the balloons with an alpha for compositing. I do it in photoshop, but the process is the same for AE.
Garus Booth on June 23rd, 2009 said...
Thanks! Guess I should have gone home and watched the full thing
This is the type of stuff I’m talking about. The new schedule format is working great. Again, thanks for taking the time to do this. You’ve got more style than a fashion designer that knows CSS.
Great tutorial! Being able to connect a modeled object with a particle system is going to come in handy!
Here is my attempt at this tutorial:
http://bit.ly/fjVUS
The edges are a bit ratty, I may have forgotten to set the anti-aliasing or I didn’t have enough segments. The three balloons in the bottom right corner were added in Photoshop, since that corner was a bit empty.
Thanks again – great tut!
Adam
thegorilla on June 23rd, 2009 said...
Really Nice. The Antialiasing settings will help with that ragged edge for sure. Thanks for sharing.
Nice One. I’ve strayed from particles in C4D cause they seem to confuse me to much. Any chance you could post a quick comment on how you would achieve detection between each balloon, so if they touched while flying they would bounce off each other.
Thanks dude.
thegorilla on June 23rd, 2009 said...
I haven’t played around with collision detection. I think we may need to use Thinking Particles for that.
Great tutorial. I was wondering if there was a reason that you choose to add more geometry instead of using HyperNURBS? Great site. I’m a big fan.
thegorilla on June 23rd, 2009 said...
having hyperNURBS on many instances of geometry will slow the scene down dramatically. If you bake the object, it should be quicker.
Trione on June 24th, 2009 said...
Could you use hyperNURBS instead of increasing the instances of geometry?
Hey Nick I was looking for a photoshop tutorial on your website and suddenly a suggestion came to my mind, it would be great if instead of one link called “more tutorials” there were 4 different ones called “photoshop”, “after effects”, “cinema 4d”, and “all tutorials”. That way it would be much easier to find them, unless I have been searching bad.
Cheers! keep up the good work : )
thegorilla on June 23rd, 2009 said...
Thanks Xavier! I’m always struggling to find a way to keep my blog better organized. Try using the “Categories” picker to choose specific tutorial categories. I am also working on a secondary navigation bar with sections for each program. More to come as always.
Hi nick one more fantastic tutorial, i would love to know what plug in do you have to PS AE and C4D
thanks
thegorilla on June 23rd, 2009 said...
Do you mean, how do I get the files between all of those applications?
SuperTosta on June 24th, 2009 said...
No, apart of this tutorial i would like to know if you have plug ins to this 3 aplications and what are they
Hey Nick I noticed that you updated to C4D R11. I also updated this week and was wondering how did you get the render settings to look like R10. R11 render settings are set up a little different by default.
Markusw on June 23rd, 2009 said...
I just got through the rest of the video and realized you were using 10.5…lol…hey you should do a tutorial about the R11 render settings…its a bit different.
thegorilla on June 24th, 2009 said...
hehe. Yeah, I will have some R11 videos soon for sure. I am still getting my head wrapped around it too.
CAn you do a tutorial showing how to do a Transformer type of animation. Where something folds out into something new. Thanks
Do you think your original Balloon Null would have worked if you were to ‘Unhide’ the grouping?
Great tutorial by the way, thanks so much.
illd on June 24th, 2009 said...
No it wouldnt, I tried it by myself
illd on June 24th, 2009 said...
Oh, I was wrong! I just doublechecked it and yes, you can use the Group inside the emitter. I just forgott to set the particles to be seen inside the emitter…
Cool Nick!
I’d like to point out one thing regarding the wind deformer. Wind deformer in your scene didn’t have any effect on the particles, because the shape of emmiter is set to box by default, which means it only affects particles inside that box and your particles didn’t really fly trough it.
One more thing, wind deformer is working in Z+ axis, so if you want your particles to fly up you should rotate it around so the Z axis of deformer is pointing the way ou want it.
Just my two cents
Keep those videos comming in, it’s good to get off work for a moment and just watch those tutorials
thegorilla on June 24th, 2009 said...
Thanks Jejc! I will be playing with more particles more today. I have a lot to learn. Hehe
hi,
Great tutorial. that wind backwards thing was buggin me all the way through =P
Small things though. In the part where you try to reduce the amount of balloons and increase the size of the emitter, you could just decrease the size of the baloon =D
And lastly you should check your emitter, there appears to be something wrong with it. Mine takes null objects just fine.
Oh yeah, and gravity isnt infinite it’s defined by a box by default. you have to change it to unlimited in the “shape” tab.
but cheers on all the regular posting!
thegorilla on June 24th, 2009 said...
Thanks for the tips Aleskey! I usually play around until it works and then stop. I definitely need to learn more of the finer details and workflow of C4D. You comments help. Thanks again!
Aleksey on June 24th, 2009 said...
No Problems.
If you have any questions about c4d, just shoot me an email, i’ll do what i can to help. I’m really inspired by your site and your effort! I’ve been trying to start making tutorials again for like 3 years now, just can’t get off my ass and make em.
Just had an idea for your 5 second project, hope i can get myself to do that.
Brilliant. Thanks Nick. I actually managed to create something in C4D that looks pretty stunning.
One suggestion for something I’d like to see covered in a future post is how to use depth of field in C4D. I’ve seen the option in the rendering settings, but haven’t really been able to get it to work.
Keep up the good work.
J.
Hmm. Looking closer at my render, it doesn’t look like the transparency is working. I’ve tried lots of different settings, but still can’t get it to work properly (reflections and lighting looks great, but not transparency).
Looking again at your tut, it looks like it’s not working for you either? Works in you original animation though.
Any ideas?
thanks.
illd on June 24th, 2009 said...
I thought the same when I saw my render first time. But render it out and open it in AE and you´ll see the transparency. Its not obvious on every frame, but here and there you will see some nice shinethrough/refraction of the ballons in the background.
Jules on June 25th, 2009 said...
Ah, OK. I don’t have AE, just rendering stills and tweaking in PS. Thanks though.
Hey Nick,
Recently stumbled upon your blog but, Im already a humble fan.
I have a question about the HDRi file, I loaded the file into the material>Luminance settings and applied that material to the sky layer, but it only showed up as black.
I opened with photoshop and the file look as it did on your screen. Not sure what to do.
Thanks
illd on June 24th, 2009 said...
Try to rotate the sky object in its rotationsettings, maybee you just show up only the dark part of the Hdri-image…
Jules on June 25th, 2009 said...
Same thing happened for me – think it must be a r11 thing? You’ll need to open the file in PS, save it as a 32 bit tiff and then import it. Hopefully that should do the trick.
hey nick saw this @ CGTalk maybe is usefull
http://mvpny.com/R11GITutorial/R11GITutorial_Part1.html
My attempt to this tutorial, thanks for this site, thanks for tuts!
http://img87.imageshack.us/i/dogs.jpg/
thegorilla on June 27th, 2009 said...
Dude, Thats really cool!
Nice information for those beginning. Really nice to see cinema 4D users helping each other on the web. Great job
Hey nick! Once again a great tutorial!
What software do you use to record your tutorials? Its great that we can see exactly what you are hitting on the keyboard! Thanks
SuperTosta on June 27th, 2009 said...
he uses camtasia i tink
thegorilla on June 27th, 2009 said...
Actually, I use Screenflow. It works really well for me. It captures key commands and allows me to zoom in and stuff. Highly recommended.
Hi Nick,
Would you be kind and doe a soft schadow ttorial for C4D.
Thanks man,
Hi Nick, great tutorial.
Good to see that also great men ’stumble’ sometimes
. The reason your ballons are not showing in the emitter is you turned off the visibility on the balloon-object, with the red dots.
Wonderful textures on the balloons. You’re doing a great job with the site.
But why it doesnt look like the original one?
Thanks anyway, I’ve learnt a lot.
J
The .exr file is not working for me. Anyone know why? i am able to apply it in the luminance channel, but for some reason it does not show, i can’t see it.
happening to me aswell, the exr is not showing in the luminance channel, any ideas???
thanks
the reason it doesn´t show the ballons is cos you have to click show objects in the the particle settings, no need of so many connects stuff.
thanks, nice tuto.
Hello Mr Gorilla;
Thx for sharing knowledge I never thought of entering the 3D so easily but if you have time maybe you will answer this question. I followed this tutorial step by step cheking all the thing and i still have a problem (problem solving right? =)
when i put my Tiff render in after effect and just hit play i have a fog in my balloons a black fog exactly. it look like its too fast . I render it @ 30 fps and everything is setup @ 30 fps in AE .when i import the Tiffs in AE i let AE do the alpha thing . With a still image everything is ok but in motion, bam i have this damned blackfog .Keep up the awsome thx again
regards from Belgium
thegorilla on July 12th, 2009 said...
Hmmmm… Can you post an example?
STPHN on July 13th, 2009 said...
yes i just uploaded a piece with a white bckgrnd http://www.vimeo.com/5572183
maybe you’ll have to download it to see the thing .
thx again for your help
Hey man!
Love your video’s. This one is truly amazing. I’ll stay around for more video’s to admire.
Thx,
Phili
Nice job Nick!thank you for share with the knowledge.i’ll keep in watch you exciting tutorial!
you know you can turn that crappy “flick panning” off in photoshop yeah?
hey great tutorial. helped me a lot! but like somebody mentioned above I can´t apply the .exr file to the scene nor use it in another test scene. any ideas what is wrong there?
would love to use it and test the turoial by myself!!!
Thanks!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinfernandeztv/3794993174/in/set-72157621836538105/
Not sure if you still check the comments on older post, but i’ll try anyway.
I was wondering how to add collision detection to this tutorial? Has anyone figured it out?
im still working on 10.5
Thanks!
Here is what i’ve got: http://www.vimeo.com/6636956
Pretty week, i confess, but for a two day C4D user, it’s ok for now.
Greetings!
Heres my attempt. This was a fun tutorial and only the 2nd thing Ive done in C4D. Thanks for the ideas and knowledge. The model was based off AdN’s work.
http://www.vimeo.com/6663072
Thanks for the tutorial, inspired me to do my own balloon project! Here’s my test I did in XSI.
http://www.vimeo.com/6472812
Cheers
I need some advice on my file I can render my animation, I think it wouldb e better served if someone were to look over my file and tell me where I went wrong.
Hey, nice tutorial! I have a question though, for some reason, i cant see my segments, you know what you call in this video “resolution”, if i turn them up, i can see it getting rounder, but, I cant see the white segments, any idea? Thanks!
i have a very….newbie kinda question…i havent gotten the new version of c4d just yet and i am very new at using it and trying to teach myself…i guess my question is…how do you expand the keyframes if you want to make a animation longer than 90 frames?
The Gorilla on October 13th, 2009 said...
Just type where it says 90 and make it however long you want. Extend the slider to the left to see the entire timeline.
speachhammer on October 13th, 2009 said...
thank you…i will try that
Hi, I want to say great tutorial, soon I will send you some questions about cinema 4d or suggestions too, inspires me that people like you spend time doing these things, thank you.
Greetings from Argentina
hey! have you seen these balloons on the new skunk anansie’s video? pretty close nick’s.
por favor dime donde puedo descargar la imajen hdri…. nesesito esa imajen, no la encuentro en ningun lugar… me puedes decirr donde descargar es imajen… porfavor el archivo hdri no lo encuentro… ayudame… hel my please
inspired me to do this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gslqbHp7usA&fmt=22
Hey Nick,
do you have a tip how to prevent the balloons from overlapping ? It seems not to be easy i think ..
Thanks,
Fabian
The Gorilla on February 17th, 2010 said...
You have to add some Mograph Dynamics to keep them from touching. I am working on a tut now actually. Stay tuned
Fabs on February 19th, 2010 said...
Hey Nick,
i found in one of your tutorials, that you can use effectors like wind and gravity to a clone objects with mograph, that was the missing link ! So i got it working in a pretty simple way, keep on your work i really love it.
Cheers,
Fabian
Hey nick,
can you post where i can get your hdri, please…
Thanks a lot for this awsome tut.
Here is my try…. Could have been better!
http://vimeo.com/9784214
Learning a lot with you Nick! Thank you so much!
I love the tuts by the way! But i had a quick question…is there a way you can make the particles interact with each other. Instead of just merging, to make them bounce of each other.