In part two, I show you how to set up your scene to render for compositing. We set alpha passes, depth of field passes, AO and GI passes. Then, In After Effects, we composite the scene using curves, colored solids, blurs, Frischluft Lencare, and Red Giant Knoll Light Factory.
WATCH PART 1 HERE
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81 Comments
whoaaa
nice man, im waiting for this one
was expecting this but not so soon! since you are leaving chicago for stokholm in few days, anyway. thx for making cool shit so fast !
enjoy your trip to europe, too bad you don’t come to france :p
very nice. hey, how it’s made the 3d text explode like SYFY logo.thx.
Awesome as always Nick. You got my heart racing when you started rendering in Cinema and AE at the same time… I’ve had some bad nights playing that game…
Thanks for this great tutorial!
I appreciate the time that you invest on this.
Have you tried before PhotoMatch C4D plugin?
The Gorilla on January 14th, 2010 said...
I will have to check that out, Thanks!
Juan Pablo Reyes on January 14th, 2010 said...
This is the link to the site that develops Photomatch for Cinema 4d
http://www.vreel-3d.de/plugins/PhotoMatch/links.html
love how you sort of do all sorts of stuff at the same time. depth of field, projection, dynamics, lightning, text, color correction, everything!
But I’m still stuck at part one! Help!
The Gorilla on January 14th, 2010 said...
I made a comment on your other post about part one. Make sure you have Mograph 2 and are NOT using the fracture object. Cheers!
Tiffer on January 14th, 2010 said...
i think on the mograph 2 text object you have to go to rigid body go to collision and put it to all
MarcyVF on January 15th, 2010 said...
hey it worked! thanks a lot Tiffer!
Thanks for the tutorial Nick … good stuff!
Just out of curiosity, how beefy is your hardware? What are the specs on your video workbox?
The Gorilla on January 14th, 2010 said...
I use a 8 Core Mac with 10 gigs of ram and an Internal Raid. Check out the latest episode of Keyframe TV where we talk more about Hardware. http://keyframetv.com/
Hy Man! You know the word…..Aaweeeesome!
Great tut thank you Nick
Great set of tutorials, lots of great stuff covered render-wise.
Also ended up with a pretty cool looking piece, love the colors!
At a risk of using some overused words, both totally amazing, awesome tutorials. I just upgraded MoG and C4D to 11.5 and just bought the AR module as well. Really great to see a project from start to finish like this. Looking forward to more!
wow! awesome, this technique has helped me think of some new ideas. thanks
Did not know it was possible to open the project while rendering. Time saver!! Great tip, very useful tut. Thnx.
why didn’t you render .rla from c4d in order to have information like object id and zdepth?
The Gorilla on January 15th, 2010 said...
Never tried that before, actually. I may try.
@ mojo ? think that like this he couldn’t have good control of the highlights for the zdepth
@ The Gorilla: Great tutorials! These two were perhaps of your best tutorials. It would be very nice if we could see also a workflow for the Projection Man system inside c4d 11.5. Thank alot!
hi Nick, this is it. This tutorial is massive, well done
Thanks Nick well worth taking the time out to watch, could you do one for video next time including tracking?
Same style, just integrating some of the dynamics from the destruction tutorials reacting with footage.?
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Additionally, i would be interested as to how quick you would have to do this at industry standard. Taking into consideration your doing a tutorial, i would guess you would knock this out {render permitting} at about the same speed from concept sketch to finish. You make some very specific decisions instantly off your own knowledge and skills. I always love to play around with the balances and image correction but it when a 3 hour project becomes a whole day slog it becomes a little too easy to fall behind. What advice would you give to help with the speeding up of your work flow?
The Gorilla on January 15th, 2010 said...
Time spent doing this work is rarely long. It’s the thought process, problem solving and design that takes the longest to do. Pressing buttons in order is never takes too long.
I knew what my outcome would be going in. So, redoing the scene was effortless. It was all the time spent trial and error that really is time consuming. This is exactly why I am experimenting with Live Tutorials. Sure, the outcome isn’t too pretty, but at least you can see some of the struggle and effort that goes into problem solving on the fly.
Speeding up your workflow only happens when you get really good at recognizing and solving problems. 1 hour jobs turn into two days when you have too look things up or keep playing with a design until it looks good. Get good at solving problems and you will be faster!
Nick, very well done. It was fun to watch. I don’t get to work with other designer/animators, so seeing the process is enjoyable.
Also congrats on your engagement. I wish you two all the best.
one of the coolest tutorial ever seen.
thumbs up!
The Gorilla on January 15th, 2010 said...
Thanks, Campa!
Okay, I got a little lost when you were explaining about all the passes and stuff… so I just tried out some stuff in After Effects. I’ll just have to try out the whole tutorial again, to see if it gets any clearer, but so far here is my result: http://vimeo.com/8760670
Thanks again for this tutorial man, it was awesome!!!
The Gorilla on January 15th, 2010 said...
Looking nice!
I just got CD4 this week but I have been watching your tuts for months which has allowed me to step right in and make cool shit. This is really the topper on the cake!
Thank you
Nick this has got to be one of my favourite tutorials I have ever done. I must say the way you do your tutorials are the easiest to follow.
I was wondering, Would this work for animated character with a walk cycle?
If I can use this tutorial instead of having to track some video footage then composite my character into the footage using after effects/C4D then this will save me a lot of rendering time, as I only have a macbook pro to do all this work on! lol
I’ll probably email you if you wanted a little more information on what I am trying to do.
Cheers man!
Love this tutorial!!!
The Gorilla on January 15th, 2010 said...
Hmmm, that sounds pretty difficult. You want to project footage of a person onto a character? That would need a ton of roto and hand animation of the 3D character. It’s really not the same thing. This is a pretty simplified version of camera mapping.
Thanks Nick, great tutorial!
That is very nice tutorial , It’s really helpful.Hope you can make more cinema 4d and after effects integration tutorials . thanks Nick
Hey Nick,
I got a little question. As I scrub through my animation, the still is projected onto the planes and the camera is animated, but when I go to batch render, my text and shadows rendered with the camera, but my background/everything else does not. What can I do to make sure my whole scene renders with the camera?
Please help me!
Thanks,
Kevin
The Gorilla on January 15th, 2010 said...
I would double check your compositing tags.
Hi Nick, it’s always nice to see (how) others work
A few notes, if it’s ok?
For the scale issue, adjusting the Gravity and Time Scale in
Project Settings -> MoDynamics can be another way.
When adding a AO pass, make sure to uncheck the “Apply To Scene”
(in the AO effect) not to stamp the AO into the beauty pass.
The DepthPass is a little confusing using the Front -and- Blur
of the Camera. You get a White to Black(Cinema Focus) to White again.
This locks the focus in post to the full black since -one- grey value
represents -two- “depth”. You have the same gray both infront of
subject as well as behind it.
To get a “true” DepthMap (White to Black) using the Cinema camera,
only use Front Blur. The Front Blur “End” parameter is full White and
Target Lenght is full Black. (Keep Front Blur Start at zero)
(The White To Black To White is really only for Cinemas own DOF stuff.)
Hope you don’t mid my notes
Have a nice stay in Sweden! (I live here in the snow)
Cheers
Lennart
The Gorilla on January 15th, 2010 said...
Great ideas, Lennart! Thanks for all the tips.
Off subject a little, can you tell me what some of your menu bar programs are, it’s driving me crazy. Oh, and what are those finder add-ons as well. Great looking tut and really informative. Thanks!
The Gorilla on January 16th, 2010 said...
Check out this post I made on my other Site, MakeCoolShit.com where I talk about some of the software I have sitting on my dock and menu bar. http://makecoolshit.com/what-software-do-i-use-here-ill-show-you/
You can try this plugin as well
http://www.vreel-3d.de/plugins/PhotoMatch/links.html
This is the best tutorial ever….
Thank you Nick!
Pretty impressive what you offer the community here! A very useful and beautiful example, especially as you show the AE comping too!
Will be hard for you to top this i guess =)
Hey Nick
Thanks for the brilliant tutorials. Unlocked some niggling secrets and can’t wait to try them out on projects.
Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for posting this, along with the content on the rest of the site. Watching your tutorials has always been helpful and appreciated. I’m wondering if you would consider allowing the videos on vimeo to be downloaded, however, as I frequently want to watch them in fullscreen on a second monitor as I work alongside them. I realize that there is a fullscreen setting in vimeo, but you cannot be using another app while doing so, as vimeo reverts it back to regular size. If we were able to download them, you could open the video in another player app and continue to happily work side by side. I’m sure there’s a number of reasons that I’m unaware of as to why you don’t do this, but thought I would ask.
Cheers.
Zwoep on January 18th, 2010 said...
You need to make an account on Vimeo. Once logged in you can download the original mov file at the bottom of the page. http://vimeo.com/8732479
The Gorilla on January 18th, 2010 said...
Thanks, Zwoep. That’s exactly what you need to do. Cheers!
Huerequeque on January 18th, 2010 said...
Oh, awesome, that’s going to help me out so much. Thanks for informing me about that, I clearly had no idea.
Cheers
Oh my!!!
Thanks Gorilla!
I’m from Brazil and i learn a lot with you.
Thanks!
Thanks Nick!
I just got into cinema 4d and I’ve learned a lot with your tuts.
Here’s my attempt on this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtobcbdMULU
It’s for a contest I just used the GI and ambient oclussion techniques
Thanks again!
Julio
Awesome tutorial.
However one thing i think you should really touch on is UV mapping and bump mapping in Cinema 4D. I think that being able to take that 3D text and texture it in Photoshop so that it looks like metal or rock would be awesome.
Here is my version:
http://vimeo.com/8813990
Great tutorial Nick. Just what I needed.
just a quick question tho… I need an alpha on my export. I ticked the alpha channel in the render settings but when i bring the whole project into AE the main render has no alpha on it.
Any ideas?
Cheers,
Ben
The Gorilla on January 18th, 2010 said...
There won’t be an alpha in this situation. You need to set an object buffer for every object you need an alpha for.
Nice tut! Have you ever tried doing the same with projecton man? It seems it has even more ways to cheat camera movement.
Cheers!
The Gorilla on January 18th, 2010 said...
I haven’t tried that yet. Sounds like I have to give it a whirl. Thanks!
Hi !
I had a little further question: Is it possible to change the move of the camera right in Ae, after the render ? (It sounds too good to be true but I had to ask anyway ^^) And have you got any idea why I can’t actually see my camera keys in Ae ? (Because we can see them in your comp…)
Thanks for the tut anyway !
That is a great tutorial, I’ve been waiting for it since the first KeyframeTV episode with the “Believe” spot.
The final effect looks cool but don’t you think the DOF looks rather like a tilt-shift?
It seems a bit shallow for a real world camera.
Thank you for the tutorial anyway!
Cheers!
I have 1 question about the depth pass.When i get my pass rendered it’s a moving depth pass. Is there a way to keep it static,and not moving? Thanks
Hey thanks again Nick, love this stuff.
Here is my take animated
http://www.vimeo.com/8838715
hey gorilla, thanks for your work but I’m stilla having trouble since I don’t have MoG2 on my 11 release.
so I tryed to animate the Mograph text in my scene with traditional Dynamics tools, but I cannot fix it…for two resons:
1. Nothing moves =(
2. If I succeed to animate it (don’t really know how), than it sticks to frame 90 even if I make the project longer than 90 frames…
could you please tell me where am I wrong? I’ve seen also your intro to Dynamics (’cause I’m quite new to animation) but text animation is pretty different isn’t it?
ok, thanx a lot!
byeeee!
Cool stuff nick, to bad i do not have after effects but seeing your workflow i’m considering off buying it because it looks like a great piece off software.
Here’s my take (no dynamics , just the scene)
The Gorilla on January 20th, 2010 said...
After Effects is the BESTTTTTTT!
http://www.vimeo.com/8813759 (oops forgot the link
)
Nick, what a tut to start off the new year.
Really enjoy the tuts that marry C4d and Aefx for a complete production work flow. Most helpful and appreciated.
Good on you mate!
This has really been great, I’ve dedicated a few hours to following along with my own project and I’ve really learned a lot. Especially this second part on exporting the different layers to After Effects…really good to know. Seriously thanks so much. I’ll post my project soon.
David on January 20th, 2010 said...
Here’s my final product:
http://vimeo.com/8874043
Here’s my version of the falling text.http://www.vimeo.com/8920415
Here’s my version.
Here’s my version.See if i can get the link right. Sorry.
http://www.vimeo.com/8920415
hi, thanks a lot for the cool tutorial. espacially the after effects part was very good. i dont have c4d R11.5, thats why i went for some vray car animation. but the camera projection and after effects skills are yours.
http://www.myvideo.de/watch/7276082
http://www.vrayforc4d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6169
The Gorilla on January 25th, 2010 said...
Great work. Looks nice with the car!
yougop on January 25th, 2010 said...
thanks. the quality is somehow really bad. dont know much about export movie material. but myvideo is worst. here youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXI6U9wZtDg
a bit better. thanks gorilla.
Thx Nick…Fabian here…CHECK OUT the one I made w/your help & tell me what you think if u can: vimeo.com/9052178
http://vimeo.com/9052178
Thanks for the awesome tutorial!! I’ve had a great time experimenting with the technique.
After some playing around I got this done
http://www.vimeo.com/9111538
I’ve been wanting to buy Frischluft Lenscare for a while now, so once I got the money I’ll get it for sure. In my example I just used Lens Blur which works pretty well too
Kiitos!
Kerry
Keitto on March 26th, 2010 said...
Yep, Lens Blur does a pretty decent work!
my version – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AAp6v7v-7g
Is there a forum anyone can recommend?
I’m on my third attempt from scratch, but I am not getting any kind of shadow casting (using GI) from the type/objects I place on the floor.
In a new scene with a couple simple objects, and GI, I GET shadows… so don’t know where I’m going wrong with the camera mapping process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq0xHzEjSGs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0smAg9vWW0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Puyu7O6VMM…can use for tv channel
http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=SCRL1YIwrwI…dedicated to andrew from videocopilot.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Puyu7O6VMM
Thank you a lot Nick, this was a freaking awesome tutorial
I enjoyed every minute, this is what I came up with
Cheers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXN3ZFt4vhk
The Gorilla on February 8th, 2010 said...
Great lighting on that one!
Hey, thanks it’s a really good tutorial. to begin with cinema 4d (at least for me). I’m trying tu use the mograph effect on the fracture object, it works, but the textures I used changed, only the first is used for my 5 extrude nurbs (they are all in a null object because i used envelope). Do you have an idea, a solution? Thanks in advance…
Is there anywhere where i can make a Tut Request because i would really love to see how you can do the effect off the D.A.N.C.E Music video by justice i have an idea on how jsut need a lil more visualization
well yea h:D
This is a nice tutorial btw i learned so much! thank you
wow, everybody does this better than me.
http://www.vimeo.com/9467686
great to see the variations
thanks GSG
I only get one pass layer even though i checked DOF and the others before rendering in C4D. Did I miss something?
Thanks for the tut learned a lot!
gr8 tutorial
is it possible to load a footage instead of the image for projection
The Gorilla on February 18th, 2010 said...
Should work. Have you tried it?
Thanks for sharing.
Though I really waited for a realistic motion blur to get applied by using Cinemas MotionVector Pass. I’m always getting problems with that, since I kind of need to apply the motion blur to my objectbuffers too.
I ended up blurring the final result at once using RealSmart Motion Blur but that way iam getting incorrect blurriness sometimes.
Maybe you could show us how to add that little extra to this Comp?
Anyway, thanks for sharing.
greets from germany
Here’s what I was able to finish thanks to this tutorial, was trying to do it for a long time and now it’s done, thanks Nick !
http://vimeo.com/9619288
Hey Bro . AMAZING WORK . i just love your stuff ! i just started with C4D and ur tuts really helps . i have 1 Quistion .when i hit the render . i get this ( GL ANIMATION PREPASS ) update passes 0 of 12 and it starts to render . is that normal ?
coz i did another tut . and i didnt get that msg . and its taking alot of time to render :/
Haven’t you forget to increase the ambient occlusion you’ve reduce for ease purpose before final render ?
+1 for the save before crash, an eternal usefull topic ahah.
It’s a great tut, I’ll check others for sure ! Thanks a lot.
Great tutorial Nick. I’d been experimenting with vanishing point in AE and this method makes things a hell of a lot easier. Cheers.
dude you realy helped me a lot with both techniques and inspiration ! this is what i made thanks to this tut’ its a work in progress but i hope you like it! cheers
http://www.vimeo.com/10488623
Nick do you know why it won’t render my camera movement? I turn on the camera and selected, still won’t render only the letter dropping that is it. By the way great website!
Hi, firstly THANKS for all this awsome tutorials! I have never seen such good tutorials on Internet about C4D.
Do you know why ?
But i have a problem when i save the c4d project for AE.
In fact, the .aec file i saved in render options can’t be opened in my After Effects
Thank you
Florentin on April 13th, 2010 said...
…I have C4D R11.5 and After Effects CS4
Matt Frodsham on April 20th, 2010 said...
Make sure you drag the C4D.plugin into the after effects folder from your cinema folder! Needs it to talk to the .aec files
Here’s a fully realised project using the technique. Went a bit further into pulling and pushing some geometry to fit with the photo like cutting windows out and bevelling frames etc. http://vimeo.com/11023691 there’s a project blog o see the development/process too if you click through from the vimeo link.
Cheers Matt
The Gorilla on April 20th, 2010 said...
Great work!
Great tutorial I used this so i could lean about passes and better renders in cinema 4d to after effects, I was wondering when you preview your clip in after effects by dragging the timeline tool through it, it runs through it normal but on mine, it will go frame by frame, so if i one to move to a section of my clip it wont play back it will just skip to that frame, is it the amount of ram you have?
Thanks for the awesome tutorial really opened my eyes to a whole other spectrum of graphics I can do with just C4D and AE. Thanks again!
Thanks for all your help Sensei! I used this tutorial to make this for Texas Tech:
thedeadsee.com/Media/RedVsBlack_Final.mov
Keep an eye out for the “Sheol” music video I made for my band The Dead See!
thedeadsee.com/Media/Sheol.mov
-Marcos
You should do video on a term I use called ’specific illumination’, the study of illumination of specific objects and how they affect a scene as opposed to ‘global’ illumination.
D Rivera Jr
harlemdrum@gmail.com
http://www.myspace.com/davedeveloper
when i try and give motion to my move camera and i move it i end up getting double images over everything. why is this and what can i do to stop it so i can move around the scene with out this double projection.
thanks so much
Ryan D on June 20th, 2010 said...
and now it wont open my files in AE it says unsupported file type are extinction…
Here is my version : http://vimeo.com/13053997
Thanx for the tut man Peace !
PS : i made this photo of my railway (Cergy-Pontoise-France)