Texturing Objects and Lights in Cinema 4D

July 2, 2009

In this tutorial, I will go though the steps in texturing objects in Cinema 4D. I also play with using textures to actually light the scene. I get this specific tutorial request a lot and I decided to just jump in and go though the process without too much set up or goal in mind. With that in mind, let me know what you think.

46 Comments

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  1. Tim From Belgium on July 2, 2009 said...

    these tutorials are just amazing!
    It’s strange to see that there is so little amount of good constructive cinema 4d tutorials like this one.
    Keep it up nick !

  2. illd on July 2, 2009 said...

    Thanks for this tuto nick. I learned a lot about those shader stuff, Displacement is in my fave-five now! But there is still a big question to me: How to do goodlooking glass in C4D? I tried a lot and everything looked like crap…
    Any suggestions?

    LOL @ the end I thought you wanna sale some gum…

  3. ITV teacher on July 2, 2009 said...

    Thanks for sharing.

    thegorilla

    Hi Scott, I tried to email you, but it didn’t go through. Here is the answer to your “What screen capture do you use” question…

    I use Screenflow to record the tutorials. It does all the capture, editing and export.
    After export, i go directly to upload to vimeo.

    I will be doing a tut about this soon I swear.

    Garus Booth

    You have inspired me to try out Screen flow. I am using my digital video camera hooked up with fire wire, works great!

    Just wondering if there is a microphone you would suggest I use?

    I have a lapel mic but screen flow doesn’t pick it up that well.

    Cheers!

    ITV teacher

    Thanks for the answer. I didn’t recognize it. I use captavate and some camtasia. Want to get the new camtasia for MAC but must save the pennnies.

  4. Joshua on July 2, 2009 said...

    again. great tutorial.
    gonna mess me up some crap and make more cool crap.

    hard drive- check
    gum – check

    thanks again.

  5. Anna on July 2, 2009 said...

    Orbit is the shit, my fav passtime when I’m working is chewin some gum.

    Great tutorial too! Thanks GSG!

    ~Anna

  6. jeremiah on July 2, 2009 said...

    Clicking on HD is taking me to a video not found page on Vimeo. I have checked three other videos on your site and it is doing the same thing on them as well.

  7. bastian on July 2, 2009 said...

    Hi,

    thank u for another great tutorial. I played around in cinema an used your light setting to play around. finally i came to the point where i was moving things through space.. now my question is: if i animate my stuff, how do i set the light up to get thouse good looking car model materials? Do i need to place seperate lights or is there a simple way to handle that problem?

    bye

    bastian

  8. _Tristan on July 2, 2009 said...

    Good tips. It’s a good basic overview of the thing ! I personnally would really like to know more in-depth stuff relative to the textures/lighting set ups used in the pro world since it seems to be a BIG part of a good 3D creation.
    I love the “workflow way” of showing your stuff ! Nice !

  9. Rick on July 2, 2009 said...

    The script you are referring to around 14:30 is imageplane. Theres actually 2 scripts, one that loads into the Color channel and one that loads into the Luminance channel. They’re both awesome and I use them all the time. Another great tip via mograph!

    http://mograph.net/board/index.php?showtopic=11634

    Use the most recent versions located here:

    http://www.kaufeldt3d.com/plugs/

    thegorilla

    Dude! That is it. Thanks for finding that. I’ll have to install that and use it again. Thanks!

  10. Jeremy Ian Thomas on July 2, 2009 said...

    Thanks Nick.

    Great stuff!!!

  11. Jeremy Ian Thomas on July 2, 2009 said...

    Also in R11 you can raise the gamma of the scene right in the GI settings.

    Awesome stuff

  12. James Wicks on July 2, 2009 said...

    Nick, what kind of computer do you record your tuts on? iMac, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro?
    I can see you have a lot of HD’s. How much ram does your computer have?
    Who cuts your hair?
    What’s Chicago like?
    What do you want to do when you grow up?
    So many questions….
    ;)
    J

    thegorilla

    I use a Mac Pro 8 core for my tuts.
    I have 10GB or ram
    Snap Hair cuts my hair. It’s across the street.
    Chicago is great when it’s not too hot or cold.
    I want to solve problems when I grow up.

    hehe

  13. jeff on July 2, 2009 said...

    loved it. thanks a bunch. i’m new to c4d and learning a ton from your site.
    @illd- try looking into the presets in the content manager. thats a good place to start. they have a whole scene setup.

  14. Pete on July 2, 2009 said...

    so there was a recap followed by a critique of the recap followed by a recap of the critique of the recap… well done sir..

  15. thilo on July 2, 2009 said...

    great tutorial, learned a lot…
    thanks

  16. Roi on July 2, 2009 said...

    A couple of quickies for transparency in C4D:
    1. Always use refractions. Use 1.33 for water, 2.4 for diamond, 1.4-1.6 for glass.
    2. Use fresnel – both in the check box and in the texture, where you should reverse the black-white gradient. Make sure the material is not getting 100% transparent at any point (hardly any material ever will in reality)
    3. Try playing with the fresnel mix values.
    4. Try tinting with a touch of colour.
    5. If you don’t mind much longer render times try playing with dispersion. It will scatter the transparency and add some blur.

    Good luck…

    illd

    Thanks! I´ll give it a try!

  17. Bruno on July 2, 2009 said...

    Ex-ac-tly what I wanted to see!!! WOW!
    Really love the C4D tuts! I’m learning a lot.

    Thanks Nick!

  18. Aleksey on July 3, 2009 said...

    Hey,

    First a small hint. with the specialized shader, you could open the content manager and it has a bunch of examples for each shader.

    Rugged hard drive? did someone buy you?

    Orbit…. mmm…. i miss orbit, all we got here is this stupid Extra.

    Nice tut. Knew most of the stuff, but might be using the enviroment channel in some complex animations, see what happens.

    cheers

  19. Zwoep on July 3, 2009 said...

    Great tutorial, again.
    Little idea: give us a little project that has to do with the tutorial (maybe not this one) and then pick out a few and give a few pointers? Like “maybe use less fresnel” or “you should have positioned your camera more like this”.

    Could sound like homework – teacher. Dunno. :)

  20. m-_g on July 3, 2009 said...

    As always great tutorial,
    it’s pleasant to see good tut’s.

    What’s interesting in your tut’s is that they are targetting people wants to create thing not become an ingener.

    I’ve bought a french dvd to learn C4D and there’s just 3 or 4 things i’ve learned, the rest is not creativ, it’s just basics.
    Nothing about MoGraph, nothing about dynamics, nothing about keyframes, render, camera, etc… it’s not good at all.

    In few mounths here i’ve learned much more.
    So thanks a lot, keep continue your blog,
    m-_g

  21. S3B on July 5, 2009 said...

    I just wanted to thank you Nick or Gorilla whatever, your tips are very useful. You’re a great tutman. Long life to the Gorilla !

  22. Jay Smith on July 6, 2009 said...

    Man if there were videos like this everywhere I wouldn’t have gone to school. Thanks a ton, you’ve made the transition to Cinema4D from Maya really, really easy.

  23. Jeremiah Sherrill on July 6, 2009 said...

    Thanks a lot for these tutorials, I remember you asked for suggestions, could you do like a tutorial on modeling a room with objects. Especially covering texturing?

  24. brandon on July 7, 2009 said...

    this was exactly what i wanted to learn. thanks nick!

  25. Petar Pavlov on July 8, 2009 said...

    To adjust the size of the brick pattern, you need to select the material icon from the Objects Manager, and then play with the Tiles X and Tiles Y settings at the attribute manager.

    thegorilla

    Ahhhh yes. Thanks Petar. I think i learn more in the comments than i do with books. :) Thanks again!

  26. craig nelson on July 8, 2009 said...

    best. c4d tut. evar.

    thanks! keep them coming!

  27. Brian on July 13, 2009 said...

    much thanks man, this is great! much appreciated as i’m a complete novice with c4d.

    one issue i’ve got- when rendering the floor light, my entire scene is lit instead of just the area of the floor light/”soft box”(photo: http://i28.tinypic.com/1id9iu.png) – is there a setting i’ve mistakenly checked? any help would be awesome.

    The Gorilla

    Make sure you have your Default Light turned off.

  28. Dave on July 13, 2009 said...

    Great tut. Probably a stupid question: how would one make the light planes not appear in the final render but still light the objects?

    thegorilla

    Try using a “Compositing Tag” and uncheck “Seen By Camera” That should do it. You gave me a good idea for a tutorial. Thanks!

    Dave

    Thank you/’re welcome!

  29. Brian on July 26, 2009 said...

    Nice tut NIck. One question though….I mapped an image onto a plane. Followed your alpha directions. All is great. But, how do I get rid of the black color of the plane? I just want my logo that I applied to my plane to show. Not the plane too. Thanks!

  30. Brian on July 26, 2009 said...

    Update…I have found that when the logo is standing up I can see through it. The odd part is that it needs to be part of the floor. So I do a -90 so it is laying on the floor. The floor has reflection on it. When I look at the scene rendered I can see the black plain because it is interfering with the reflections. I do not get it.

  31. Cesar on July 30, 2009 said...

    Nice blog Nick. I like places like this where you can find really useful stuff. Please post something about uv mapping with Cinema 4D or how to animate textures.
    Good job man

  32. Baldur Helgason on August 7, 2009 said...

    Hey Nick, thank you for your brilliant tutorials. I laugh my ass off most of the time! I love your natural approach! Those kind of tutorials are the best! You truly are a joy to watch. I’m so glad I found your site. Keep up the good work!
    Cheers from Iceland!

  33. Guillermo on August 18, 2009 said...

    Amigo! no sabes cuanto estoy aprendiendo de esto.. recien estoy empezando con cinema (antes usaba maya) y gracias a ti las cosas son mucho mas faciles! un abrazo desde argentina! y de nuevo.. mil gracias!

  34. Julie on September 9, 2009 said...

    Can you tell me how to make a “hole” or a “cave” in a solid object in C4d? As if part of a cube had been carved away.
    A job calls for something that absolutely has to be 3d and I’m totally scrambling trying to learn C4d overnight! :) Any tips would be much appreciated! Your tutorials are lifesaving.

    thegorilla

    Try using a Boole object or learn how to do basic modeling. Select a polygon and push it back into your object to create a hole.

    Julie

    Thanks a bunch!

  35. naveen on September 15, 2009 said...

    Hi Nick.
    I am right owning a graphic designing studio for print media. Want to open a Motion graphic department.

    Could you guide me in choosing the right tool for MG. I hear lot of stuff about c4d , but I am a max and after effect user from past 4 years and I want to open a motion graphic studio, would want to know, what if I switch to c4d for good after spending 4years with 3ds max.

    After seeing lot of MG related stuff done in C4D I am getting tempted to switch but I fear I won’t be able to start my studio with confidence with the new package, it would take a lot of time in learning tool in one hand and using it in a professional manner is a different thing.

    I am confused, please advice.

    Thks

  36. Ali on October 1, 2009 said...

    Awesome tutorial, big ups! One thing, though, as with some video tutorials, try not to make too much slopping sound when talking ;)

    thegorilla

    hehe. Thanks!

  37. David Caro on October 9, 2009 said...

    Hey great tut,
    ok i just want to add a tip.

    you can hide from camera does panels, with a cinema tag that that its named: Compositing Tag. I know its a beginner!! :)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLt-a-lRuC8

    ITV teacher

    Very nice David. I just played with this to see how far away I could make them and still light the objects, it did not work, they need to be close to light things up. But this composite tags works like a charm. And the video reply is great.

  38. arnel on October 19, 2009 said...

    is there a maya tutorial on how to do this

  39. Raivan on November 1, 2009 said...

    I was able to texture and light the sphere, box, and pill objects fine, but when I tried to use text the reflectivity wouldn’t work with the planes (only with actual C4D lights.
    Anyone have any ideas? Is there a difference between textured polygons and the shape objects C4D creates?

  40. alex on November 3, 2009 said...

    your so cool mr. gorilla!!

  41. remmac on November 6, 2009 said...

    this was the first tut i saw, thanks for not taking showers, too much coffee, a house full of smoke, cats that are starving and a baby that suddenly needs to sleep a lot… i’m hooked.
    Remco

  42. creativehelm on November 19, 2009 said...

    Hi Nick~

    Just came across this awesome tutorial and I’m having a helluva time with Material and Render settings in r10. When I turn Reflection off and turn on Environment to load an HDRI or use a gradient as the reflection, I’m still getting the reflection of the planes on my sphere; any idea why this may be happening?

    ~Michael

    The Gorilla

    Hmmm that is weird. Try posting your scene file to Mograph.net. They may be able to pick it apart.

  43. MarcyVF on November 29, 2009 said...

    lmao great recaping, I love it. nice gum and stuff.

    great tutorial. I learnt a lot, BAM!
    stay in there Nick!

  44. Lucia on December 20, 2009 said...

    Great tutorial.
    Btw, you can drag the imported texture from one option (like Color…) to another (just wait so that it opens the other option)

  45. Brian on January 7, 2010 said...

    Great tutorial! But I can’t find the global illumination settings on my render settings! It’s not in the effects either. What seems to be the problem? Thank you!

    The Gorilla

    You have to have the Advanced Render Module.

    gray

    might be the version you’re using. I’m using R10 and the GI settings aren’t the same. in fact, in the tut when he begins the GI explanation and renders, the light is solely from above. when i use it, i still get light from the camera. haven’t figured out why yet. still working.

    gray

    maybe i should pay more attention to detail. turning the “auto light” off in ‘options’ of GI works like a charm.

    B_Dubs

    Is there a way to get the same effect without the Advanced Render Module? I’m brand new to C4D, but could you use spot lights and the white planes as virtual bounce cards?

  46. gray on January 13, 2010 said...

    dude.

    you are my hero.

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  1. [...] below.Creating Car TiresThis tutorial will teach you how to make beautiful car tires step by step.Texturing Objects and Lights in Cinema 4DIn this tutorial, artist will go though the steps in texturing objects in Cinema 4D. He also play [...]

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