How to make a globe radio-wave animation in After Effects AND Cinema 4D

November 19, 2009

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

RadioWaveRings

54 Comments

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  1. KJ on November 19, 2009 said...

    Oh Man I’ve been wanting to know how to do this.

    Thanks Nick!

    Syn

    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

  2. jiaoshao on November 19, 2009 said...

    ??··

  3. Rick Barrett on November 19, 2009 said...

    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.

    The Gorilla

    Briliant!!!! Thanks.

    Nick Jones

    Ah Man! I finally had a tip to share that Nick didn’t know and you beat me to it… Well played sir.

    Maor Bar

    What a great sub-tip!
    Thanks Rick.
    And thank you GSG :-)

    Dave Koss

    Was just trying to figure that out yesterday. Thanks!

  4. _AnibalC on November 19, 2009 said...

    thanks man! great tut. I m just start with C4d some weeks ago

  5. Harry Mitchell on November 19, 2009 said...

    Awesome tutorial, it’s nice to see the integration with After Effects and C4D

  6. Karim on November 19, 2009 said...

    Nice tutorial! Was interesting to see the same concept done in two different applications. Would like to see more of this!

  7. Yimbo on November 19, 2009 said...

    Nice tutorial Nick!
    I think this kind of speedy tut’s works best, because you can show more info and more trial and error.

  8. Galen on November 19, 2009 said...

    great tutorial..can’t wait to experiment with this.

  9. Samuel on November 19, 2009 said...

    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.

  10. Richard Williams on November 19, 2009 said...

    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’!

    Max

    Love the word chortle! And garish.

  11. VancouverMan on November 19, 2009 said...

    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!

  12. Chris on November 19, 2009 said...

    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!

  13. Ryan Butterworth on November 19, 2009 said...

    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.

  14. Eran Stern on November 19, 2009 said...

    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

    Stark

    Hi Eran!
    Thanks for tip.

  15. prayas on November 19, 2009 said...

    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..:

  16. treehouseturtle on November 19, 2009 said...

    Another fantastic tutorial! Learned some cool new tricks from this one, thanks nick! :D

  17. Andréa S. on November 19, 2009 said...

    Greeeeat tutorial, as always! Thank you a LOT!
    Hey! how did you get that small Dope Sheet window underneath your timeline??

  18. Lawrence on November 19, 2009 said...

    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

    Christopher S. Knell

    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.

    Matt Frodsham

    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

    Lawrence

    Thanks Matt, I’m just giving that a try now.

  19. Gabriel Menezes on November 19, 2009 said...

    thanks for the C4D part! I need to study more how the materials work in it

  20. CMS on November 19, 2009 said...

    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:
    -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 ;) (hehe, sorry for Alexia)

    -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.

    Max

    In C4D maybe try animating the Movie Start Frame under the Animation Tab inside the movie texture?

    Rich

    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!

  21. nate on November 19, 2009 said...

    I think my favorite part of your tutorials is when you wave goodbye.

    maybe not favorite but pretty damn near close.

  22. DatARobot on November 19, 2009 said...

    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

    The Gorilla

    That looks like it’s made with a TON of deformers and boole objects.

  23. JoshuaV on November 19, 2009 said...

    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

  24. remmac on November 20, 2009 said...

    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

    The Gorilla

    That is a great technique. I would LOVE to see the project file if you could share it.

    Cheers!!!!

    remco

    all yours at remco.erwindeleeuw.com/greyscalegorilla
    file is called ‘the other way.c4d’
    cheers!
    remco

    The Gorilla

    Thanks for the file. That works well. It’s a slightly different look though. Thanks!!!

  25. Aditya on November 20, 2009 said...

    Hi Nick thanks for the fantastic tutorial!

  26. dsp on November 20, 2009 said...

    Bitch’n tutorial…..I bet you’ll see this on some peoples show reels.

  27. vjorchid on November 20, 2009 said...

    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 :D

    Lawrence

    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.

    vjorchid

    thanks lawrence! :D

  28. Stef on November 20, 2009 said...

    Thanks Nick! I love your c4d tutorials. They are clear, great stuff.

  29. Rickard Bengtsson on November 20, 2009 said...

    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

  30. idigitize on November 20, 2009 said...

    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 :) ?

  31. Stark on November 20, 2009 said...

    Nice tutorial, Nick!
    Love it.

  32. Willem on November 20, 2009 said...

    BBC News intro is my all-time favourite and this tutorial is just a brilliant idea. Cheers mate

  33. Chris Martin on November 21, 2009 said...

    Sweet!

  34. Michael on November 22, 2009 said...

    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!

  35. JJU on November 22, 2009 said...

    Great tut, thanks Nick!
    It definately worth to watch.

  36. Matteo on November 23, 2009 said...

    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

    The Gorilla

    hmmm… Not sure about that one. Anybody else?

    Jake

    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.

    The Gorilla

    Thanks, Jake!!

    Matteo

    Thanks the tweak worked greatly ;)
    when i can i will post the final result.

    Matteo

    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..

  37. stphn on November 24, 2009 said...

    Enormous thanks !! Nick is the idea generator always turned on . If you come in Belgium i offer you a couple of good beers.

  38. Luispsotfx on November 24, 2009 said...

    Man you were flying… I could keep up in AE, but in Cinema I had to go back several times, but its all good!!!

  39. Dan on November 24, 2009 said...

    Great tutorial nick!!

  40. Lysander on November 25, 2009 said...

    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

  41. Brian Smith on November 25, 2009 said...

    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

  42. Yai on November 25, 2009 said...

    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.

  43. Serge on November 25, 2009 said...

    Wow, great tut Nick…I got to spend more time in C4D….

    Thanks

    Joe

    Hi! there, you look are very a handsome–do you want to date me…;) Hot’Hot’Hot! Man!

    Joe Lopez

  44. ZY on November 26, 2009 said...

    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?

    The Gorilla

    Hmmm, hard to know without seeing. Did you try rendering the scene. It may just be hidden in the viewer.

  45. Daviid on November 28, 2009 said...

    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.

  46. ovidiu on December 7, 2009 said...

    hei..i realy like your work and i like to know how to create 3d text explode like syfy logo animation.thx

  47. haf on December 10, 2009 said...

    Mr Gorilla, just for the records. You are a rock star.

    Tx,

  48. toim on December 16, 2009 said...

    Nick, real nice tuto.
    Screen real estate is free.
    Why is the gorilla cage so small?

  49. toim on December 17, 2009 said...

    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

    The Gorilla

    :)

  50. Andrius on January 4, 2010 said...

    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!

    smile

    hey andrius!
    same error here!
    i tried different renders but it still doesn’t work :’(

    smile

    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.

  51. Gent on January 20, 2010 said...

    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!

  52. tariqdesign on January 24, 2010 said...

    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

  53. Ryan Roehl on February 28, 2010 said...

    Thanks for the tut Nick! I took this tut, and made this, http://vimeo.com/9725143 Thanks for the inspiration.

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