In this tutorial, I show you how to make a Radio Wave animation that animates around a sphere. First, I will show you how we can do this in After Effects. Then, I show you how to animate this scene in Cinema 4D where we have a bit more control over our scene. Of course there are many ways to do this type of animation. Do you have a formula you use?
Final Render
Oh Man I’ve been wanting to know how to do this.
Thanks Nick!
Hey Nick I got a question for you, I’m a designer out of Toronto Ontario, and I’m really interested in getting into 3d modeling. Ive notice you used cinema 4d alot rather than software like 3d max and other application. My question to you…… Is there a reason you prefer to use cinema 4d rather then the other leading apps. And second what apps would you recommend a designer with strong design background looking to get into the world of 3d model and motion graphics.
PS love this site, on it daily keep it up
Nick, this was a great tutorial, and I loved every second of it. I am a novice, and I was doing fine with everything up until 5:00. At that point you had the stripes render onto the cc sphere and animated them. Unfortunately I animated the stripes onto the cc sphere, but the sphere moved and stripes moved together. How do I get the stripes to animate on top of the sphere? I have replayed this a dozen times, but I still can’t get it to work like you did.
Reed
??··
Nice tutorial Nick! you just need to enable Animate Preview in the Editor tab of the Material to see the movie animate in the viewport.
Briliant!!!! Thanks.
Ah Man! I finally had a tip to share that Nick didn’t know and you beat me to it… Well played sir.
What a great sub-tip!
Thanks Rick.
And thank you GSG
Was just trying to figure that out yesterday. Thanks!
thanks man! great tut. I m just start with C4d some weeks ago
Awesome tutorial, it’s nice to see the integration with After Effects and C4D
Nice tutorial! Was interesting to see the same concept done in two different applications. Would like to see more of this!
Nice tutorial Nick!
I think this kind of speedy tut’s works best, because you can show more info and more trial and error.
exactly, YEAAAHHHHHH !!!!
great tutorial..can’t wait to experiment with this.
Ha! I’m from the UK. I see that intro everyday for the BBC News, and i’m glad to see that you’re doing a tutorial for the effect.
Whoa! Speedy is right, but good stuff none the less. Loved the dual build in AE & C4D. Got a good chortle when you used the word ‘garish’!
Love the word chortle! And garish.
One of my favorites so far. Love seeing how to pull off the same kind of stuff in both AE and C4D, and seeing which components integrate when necessary. Thanks NIck!
I just saw a tutorial like this a week or so ago, just can’t put my finger on who it was…
Of course, he wasn’t doped up on caffeine like you, man was that speedy but at the same time very ‘followable’ …is that a word?
Again great stuff, Nick! Much appreciated. Drop by Toronto, Canada if you ever feel like freezing your buttocks off!
I was messing around a few weeks ago with an idea like this and instead of using an alpha channel, I made a couple squares, animated them, and put those along with the sphere in a boole object. Same effect. Good stuff.
Gotta love that oldy CC Sphere.
BTW – if you really want to, there’s a way to make it (kinda) work with AE camera system using the LookAt expression. More details can be found here: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/227/11894
Hi Eran!
Thanks for tip.
Nice one Nick.
Got one workflow tip for your ’cause i’ve seen you flip the slider in the gradient bar in c4d. You can actually do a right click into the little bar to get the flip option and two more options. All those little things build into c4d – making a workday easier.
P..:
More on CC Sphere comp camera linking here:
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/227/452
and here:
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_keyframes/story/retro_3d/
and here:
http://objectmix.com/adobe-after-effects/216902-cc-sphere-3d-camera-aware.html
I work with the designer who led the BBC News rebrand. It was all 2D.
http://www.lambie-nairn.com/work/case_study/bbc_news
Another fantastic tutorial! Learned some cool new tricks from this one, thanks nick!
Greeeeat tutorial, as always! Thank you a LOT!
Hey! how did you get that small Dope Sheet window underneath your timeline??
Great Screencast Nick, like everyone on here I appreciate a good breakdown of professional methods. Also it didn’t strike me as particularly speedy to be honest, I think if you needed to, to get something covered you could easily crank it up a notch with the spice-weasle and it’d be perfectly ‘followable’, like a cordial that people can dilute (or download) to taste – especially if you’ve alot to get through. Anywho’s this has answered alot of questions for me but also revived an old one that I’ve been thinking of for a while… Is it possible to animate, or use a movie for your HDRI, so you’re reflections move to match live footage? I’d be very interested to hear what yourself or anyone has to say on this.
Warmest
Lawrence
I’m thinking we all need to learn SynthEyes. Looks really cool for matching to live footage. Been playing around with the demo today. There’s a Tut on the COW for it.
You can put a QT in any texture.. so you can put it in a sky and have it reflect off materials. BUT.. because it isn’t a High Dynamic Range Image (a technically impossible thing as of now pretty much I think) it won’t be true HDRI lighting… but you can use it for reflections, see my crap test using that here: http://vimeo.com/6201475
Thanks Matt, I’m just giving that a try now.
thanks for the C4D part! I need to study more how the materials work in it
Massive tutorial there!
No problem with speed at all, right to the point!
It’s cool to see the process of it, I had a few tweaks in mind throughout the watching and you actually made them along.
Pretty cool to have to think of pushing it a bit further.
Just two questions:
(hehe, sorry for Alexia)
-In After Effects, when you try to get the second “sphere” feel inside the first one, why not pickwhip (not sure how you spell that) the scale parameter to link them both. You’ll get the perfect match
-On this question, I’ll be a lot shy.
How could you delay the beginning of the movie’s alpha channel in C4D. Sorry if this is a dumb question, I very new to C4D, and you amongst others got me into it.
BTW, keep going dude, it’s awesome.
In C4D maybe try animating the Movie Start Frame under the Animation Tab inside the movie texture?
Great Tutorial and great feedback all up!!
AE:
A quickie from me, instead of linking the scale in ea. layer, re-size the inner sphere without keyframes and then pick-whip the inner (yellow) CC Sphere’s radius to either of the outer CC sphere’s radius and apply simple math to keep the downscaling uniform:
thisComp.layer(“Stripes Comp 1 F”).effect(“CC Sphere”)(“Radius”)/1.5
Nice!
I think my favorite part of your tutorials is when you wave goodbye.
maybe not favorite but pretty damn near close.
Hi Nick excellent tut..again.
i was just wondering after watching this if the effects (around about the 1 min mark) in this awesome FMK/Mathematic video were working on a similar, all be it more complex principle?
http://www.vimeo.com/6996147
That looks like it’s made with a TON of deformers and boole objects.
Nice tutorial once again. Just discovered this site a while ago as I try to improve my Motion Graphic techniques and learn C4D.
As for the little dots you see before the animation plays on your sphere in C4D. I was able to find a solution, though I’m sure there are other ways.
Shrinking the overall size of the UVs that are automatically generated when you create the Sphere to be not so close to the edge will make the dots disappear.
For those learning as I am (though I came from a Maya background):
Make the sphere editable
Change to the BP UV Edit layout
Select the ‘Use UV Point Edit Tool’
Command or Control + A to select all.
Scale them down in the companion window of the flat UV.
That fixed it for me.
Cheerio
Works perfect Joshua! Thanks for the tip.
Hi Nick, great one, i found another way of doing this, using an emitter, i’ll try to explain.
I made a disc, made it into a polygon object, used the ring selection to cut out all but the ring at the edge of the disc. so a flat ring was left.
Then I took the emitter and and made the ring a child of the emitter. the size of the emitter set to 1×1, birthrate to 2, end scale up to 3 or so.
So now the emitter is spitting out discs, then I put the emitter into a null object.
Then I made spherify deformer a child of the null object.
Now the emitter spits discs that hit the spherify deformer.
The effect is made a little more interesting by adding a sound effector on the X-scale of the sphere, so that it rocks around a bit….
I hope you understand the steps, if not, i’ll mail you my project file or some screenshots.
Give it a try.
Kind Regards,
Remco, Holland
That is a great technique. I would LOVE to see the project file if you could share it.
Cheers!!!!
all yours at remco.erwindeleeuw.com/greyscalegorilla
file is called ‘the other way.c4d’
cheers!
remco
Thanks for the file. That works well. It’s a slightly different look though. Thanks!!!
Hi Nick thanks for the fantastic tutorial!
Bitch’n tutorial…..I bet you’ll see this on some peoples show reels.
i just loveit.!
but how can i loop the material in cinema 4d if the timeline of the project is more longer than texture?
thanks
If you click the thumbnail of whatever you used as the texture, it takes you to a menu system for animation where you can specify loop, ping-pong etc.
thanks lawrence!
Thanks Nick! I love your c4d tutorials. They are clear, great stuff.
Nick, do you only use c4d for 3d or any others?
I’d like to see some 3ds max tutorials but I guess most of the stuff could be translate into max without too much trouble
Thanks for the tutorial, one issue im having is with netrender and the animated texture. It seems to do anything but natch up, ie 2 comps rendering 0-75 76-150 respectively, 25fps, ae file 6 secs long, but the comp starting at 76 sometimes seems to render the animated texture as if frame 1, sometimes not at all.
?
Anything i should be doing other than not using net render
Nice tutorial, Nick!
Love it.
BBC News intro is my all-time favourite and this tutorial is just a brilliant idea. Cheers mate
Sweet!
As I watched the cinema portion, I pulled up 3ds Max, and you can do the same thing! I just don’t know how to do color correction. Thanks Nick!
Great tut, thanks Nick!
It definately worth to watch.
Great tut, but i have a problem when i render…
it makes a lighter sphere where it should be transparent …
an example:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2601/4128675466_8e2f4fee80_b.jpg
i just started to use cinema 4d by a couple of week so i’m a complete noob :p
hmmm… Not sure about that one. Anybody else?
Try making a new material with the only attribute being 100% transparency, and put that in front of your material with the alpha in it. Ran into a similar problem on a project a while back and that fixed it.
Thanks, Jake!!
Thanks the tweak worked greatly
when i can i will post the final result.
Argh the tweak works only in the render view when i try to render to picture viewer the globe comes back :p
BTW thanks a lot i think i will start again the project maybe i’ve done something wrong in AE..
Enormous thanks !! Nick is the idea generator always turned on . If you come in Belgium i offer you a couple of good beers.
Man you were flying… I could keep up in AE, but in Cinema I had to go back several times, but its all good!!!
Great tutorial nick!!
Hey Nick and viewers,
If you like to preview a movie on the object in the viewport just go to the “material editor”, go to “editor” and select “animated preview”.
See ya,
Lysander
Thanks Nick!
This was a good one! I went off on little bit of a tangent:
http://www.vimeo.com/7820312
Keep em’ coming!
Brian
You know ur let’s know lot more idea! i haven’t seen this tutors and many tut thing getting me going and going to learn more in c4d, wow ur rock guy, also I’m was playing around in c4d that i love.
Wow, great tut Nick…I got to spend more time in C4D….
Thanks
Hi! there, you look are very a handsome–do you want to date me…;) Hot’Hot’Hot! Man!
Joe Lopez
Hmmm.. I guess I got lost on the way. After I bring over my rendered lines to C4d, make a material, then I try to add my alpha in and my stripes come up damn near transparent…where did I go wrong? in ae?
Hmmm, hard to know without seeing. Did you try rendering the scene. It may just be hidden in the viewer.
you can have the textures animate in the viewer if you go to the material settings- under eidtor- then hit the button that says Animate Preview. Thats in 11.5. It’s actually just under Illumination in previous versions. Thanks for the Tuts. Love the Blog.
hei..i realy like your work and i like to know how to create 3d text explode like syfy logo animation.thx
Mr Gorilla, just for the records. You are a rock star.
Tx,
Nick, real nice tuto.
Screen real estate is free.
Why is the gorilla cage so small?
Ok….so I didn’t realize I could watch the tuto in Vimeo at full screen..dah!
The Gorilla is free to roam.
thanks, Nick
Hi Nick,
First of all Happy new year and best of luck with greyscalegorilla and any other projects you are and will be involved this year!
Now something, regarding your tutorial: it’s excellent; got inspired and started applying it to my own short project, but after I have rendered out my .mov and uploaded to cinema I cannot render it out from cinema as I keep getting Texture Error. Meaning if I want to render preview I need to go to material and calculate animation and only then I am available to view current frame.
Anyone has got any idea what I am doing wrong?
Thank you!
hey andrius!
same error here!
i tried different renders but it still doesn’t work :’(
heey i found it!
dubbelclick on your material and open in its ‘editor’ the texture preview size…i set it to 64×64
also check the ‘animate preview’ option.
Hi Smile –
My render from AE won’t work. It’s got the alpha, I tried several times. Went to Material Editor and checked ‘Animate Preview’ set it to 64×64, and Default. Tried different Mappings. Any ideas?
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Great tutorial!
I wonder how the BBC London graphics ident is done (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cAXE-or9Fo) ?
Perhaps a tutorial on this would be appreciated!
The Gorilla
I found something this plugin
Try using (http://www.conoa.com/)
(Conoa 3d Plugin)can used with AE camera it its almost like 3d (Conoa sphere wrap)
camera can in and out
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Thanks for the tut Nick! I took this tut, and made this, http://vimeo.com/9725143 Thanks for the inspiration.
Hey i am new to C4d .. not so new to After Effects and i am trying to learn trow your tutorials… i have already made the fisrt 15 and know i tried to make the Mograph 2 scene with some camera angles , an epic song and Optical Flares from Video Copilot.. i am still learning.. but loving it..
u can see the vid here http://vimeo.com/11292626
trying to force myself to watch and try every one of your tutorial on C4d. I started learning by going to FXPHD.. Tim C. is a master. So Im getting to that point where things are almost making sense, what with GI and AO and Materials and making the Parametric images editable. Man theres a lot to learn not to mention MOGraph OMG where has that been all my life? Anyways Heres my attempt. Liked the technique.
http://www.vimeo.com/11603579
I made 2 sets of animated masks 1 set going up and the other down. made for some nice changes, I also had my animation either looping or ping-ponging or even inverted the alpha on one just to see the changes.. thanks Nick. Im really bummed I missed your presentation at NAB.. I did catch Mike the monkey’s and he did some awesome stuff as well..
Nice Tutorial , Nick! But those dots…
Hey, Just wanted to say thanks, i picked the BBC intro for my final in my cinema 4d class and had no idea how to make it. This should help alot. Thanks lee
Anyone having issues with Alphas trailing? This seemed to start happening once I installed Leopard. It’s really making this tutorial not work anymore. As you scroll through the animation, the alpha from the previous frames stays.
I’ve been googling this for a while now, and nobody’s referenced it.
Correction: Since I installed Snow Leopard.
radio
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VERY THANKS !
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEPcUWk8xEo&feature=related
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Great stuff Nick.
Someone please help…
My render from AE won’t work. It’s got the alpha, I tried several times. Went to Material Editor and checked ‘Animate Preview’ set it to 64×64, and Default. Tried different Mappings. Any ideas?
Thanks!
I LOVE your tut. Really great, am kinda new to AE, unlike Flash. tanxs
In AE you can parent the rotation values for cc sphere to the rotation values for your camera, or the null object you attach your camera to, and then just auto-orient the cc sphere object to the camera and it will fake the 3d almost seamlessly.
Haha, nice tut Nicky Gonzales. Thanks a bunch! I’m so pumped up to try it out
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Is there any way to make this globe animation in 3d Max ?
am about to try it and i like what you are doing for new designs like us,keep it up