In this tutorial, I show you how to make a fun cascading text effect shown below using Cinema 4D. Mograph, shader effectors, step effectors, and extrude nurbs. I also show you how to light the scene by using some reflective white cards and my upcoming Studio Light Kit.
Based on this animation
Final Render
[...] Watch Part 1 of this Tutorial Related posts:How to make a Cascading Text Animation With Cinema 4D and After Effects – Part 1 [...]
[...] ????????????????????Mograph?Extrude nurbs???????????????part1?C4D?part2?AE???????????????????????? [...]
[...] ma dovevo mettere anche il link del tutorial che ho seguito How to make a Cascading Text Animation With Cinema 4D and After Effects – Part 1 | greyscalego… __________________ Salmen | Blog | Flickr | Twitter | Become [...]
[...] great link from Nick Campbell this week is a great Cinema 4D/After Effect tutorial entitled “How to make a Cascading Text Animation With Cinema 4D and After Effects” which creates the video below. If your into Cinema 4D then it’s definitely worth [...]
[...] Campbell, the GreyScaleGorilla with a tutorial on how to create this nifty cascading text effect by using cinema 4…. I find this particularly interesting coming from an autodesk maya world where the simplicity of [...]
[...] Tutorial Link [...]
[...] per week then take that work and put my own spin on it.The first one I attempted was the fabulous ‘Cascading Text tutorial’ from the Nick (HE is the gorilla) at http://www.greyscalegorilla.comHere is my render of Nick’s [...]
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105 Comments
its funny i was just about to leave after downloading some tuts…then i saw this…and the heavens opened up and angels started to sing
In engineering a “fillet” is a rounded edge/corner and is pronounced “fill-it.” It sounds like the redneck pronunciation of the French culinary term “filet.”
The Gorilla on February 16th, 2010 said...
Yeah, I learned about Fill It after I did this tut. I have been doing pronunciation exercises to prepare for my next tut…
“Fill IT, Fill IT, Fill IT.”
Jay Smith on February 19th, 2010 said...
In Canada we say “fill – eh?”
really nice animation, render is also great.
Just saw that animation the other day on behance and wished i know how to do that. Wish came true. Thanks!
I Love you !!!!!!
Very Very Thank you
hell yeah!!! This is the tut I’ve been waiting! You Rock Nick!
part 2 – http://vimeo.com/9396620
Bryan on February 16th, 2010 said...
OMG! Its like you can see into the future!
The Gorilla on February 17th, 2010 said...
Cheaters…
Skandar Baakili on February 17th, 2010 said...
haha.
that’s so owned nick
great tut as always! realy impressive how you make something damn fine out of this simple idea within minutes.
love it!
Viktor on February 17th, 2010 said...
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
Sooo unfortunate, Nick.
Great tutorial again, Nick! Bring on pt.2
Does anyone know if this or something similar is possible in Blender 3D?
Dimitrisc on February 26th, 2010 said...
It could be done in any app. You could try text with alpha channel map that controls opacity or boolean operation. Give it a try, think about it b4 you start working.
BTW C4D Rocks! & Blender Rocks!
Thanks Nick!
Really nice Nick! U are the best.
O Yeah, the typography effect of the Year
Great one Nick! You can use “constrain” in the filtet caps for the color text so you’ll get same bevel for the color and silver type.
Once again great on!
remmac on February 17th, 2010 said...
can’t help to see the rest of you (your avatar) at the end of a waterski, with something happening to the left of you…
great work amateurmedia!
Hey guys after some quick research I found the link to the video that inspired this tutorial.
http://vimeo.com/6492482
Let’s show them some love!
Enrique on April 12th, 2010 said...
Does anyone know how the original got the splines to have different solid colors on both sides . . . the top and the bottom?
Well done Nick!… As always
Maybe could you post your project?…..
Yoshi on February 17th, 2010 said...
Lame ass XD
Alessandro Boncio on February 17th, 2010 said...
Yoshi is from Oxford …
LEGEN….wait for it….DARY!
Again, really useful tutorial.
Finally i know for what the spline mask is good.
luv ya
That is such a nice animation.
Thank you for sharing!
NIce work man, you are definitely my favorite 3D guy on the web. Thanks a lot for your efforts you put in to this…what the heck…you might even make me understand Cinema 4d one day
for the spline mask set the intermediate point to natural and up the number to around 50 to get a better looking render if your close, the spline tends to become a bit squarish if you don’t….
great great tut again GSC!
Hi Nick. Great tut!
I’m having some trouble though. When I apply the step effector and enter a time offset value, the stacking animation never completes. It gets halted half way through. I have tried several values for the time offset, but nothing helps.
Any ideas?
remmac on February 17th, 2010 said...
move your spline further up….
Onskin on February 17th, 2010 said...
I’ve the same problem Jesper, my animation stop when the current frame is my spline animation’s end, so I have to move my last key more further, why ? If I want a quick animation with a large time offset, How I have to do ?
many thanks, you ‘re the best !!!
I learn a lot with you.
Nick. You rule. This is going to be so helpful.
Wow nick! You just keep on raising the bar! Another great tutorial this is why everybody keeps comming back to the gorilla!
AWESOME COMBO – you ROCK!
A quick request if i may, as I wasn’t sure where to post tutorial requests…
what’s the best way to create cell / bacteria like material?
I was playing Metroid Prime on the cube and the intro screen looked awesome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ED1oGjFUo4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6oOCDJImSw
stphn on February 17th, 2010 said...
try this http://www.3dfluff.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47 to check how its made or take a look at the body textures in cinema
Deelan on February 17th, 2010 said...
Thanks Stphn for the hook up.
stphn on February 17th, 2010 said...
you welcome
Nicholas Maroussas on February 17th, 2010 said...
You might find this thread on CG Talk useful. I had to model a flu virus recently and I used the HAIR Module….
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=47&t=804826
Holy crap this is nice! Thanks a lot Nick!!!
How long do you spend finding out how to do all this stuff? Google?
Thanks again, this is delicious.
Can’t you make a tutorial about water and that stuff? gr8 tut anyways! =)
Best Tutorial so far in my opinion. I really liked the excitement and fun you had doing that tutorial. Where can I get or how can I set up my c4d Interface you like yours?
Oooh yeah! Great guy great tuts !! But as always trying something diferrent with the same technique .Here’s my problem Nick i want different materials on each extruded text.Materials with displacement and so and so i try to figured this out with the shader effector but… .Let’s kick out this problem.in fact and to be clear i want to make a body like effect you know like first bones then muscles then grease then flesh .I know i can do this by hand but i’m pretty sure i can do this with mograph effectors the thing is i don’t know how maybe you do
thanks again for your precious help
remmac on February 17th, 2010 said...
Check out this link, here you’ll learn about textureshading…
http://www.3dworldmag.com/page/3dworld?entry=tutorial_files_for_3d_world3
helped me out… cheers!
stphn on February 17th, 2010 said...
allright !! thanks
The Gorilla on February 17th, 2010 said...
Good for you to take it a step further. That’s ALWAYS the best way to end a tutorial!!
I would duplicate each object and shade it separately instead of using the Shader Effector. The Cloner Object will iterate between multiple items in the cloner hierarchy. Then use the step effector to delay the animation on each. Does that make sense? If not, maybe I can do a screenr cast on it.
stphn on February 18th, 2010 said...
yep! it works
and doing this by hand gives you more control of your animation. with the help of easy cam i got a pretty cool visual effect but a bit disgusting with the body shaders:) i’ll try colors
thanks again for your help and all. I learn a lot when i come here.
it looks awsome
Awesome!!
MERCY! Thanks for posting
Looks like Luxology have taken your idea of lighting rigs to who other level. The light are physically modeled too
http://www.luxology.com/store/SLIK/
When’s your coming out? Can’t wait.
Dang…….. that’s good!
Hi Nick,
Really great tutorial, good fun, plus a client walked in just as I was finishing the tutorial and it was a great project to show off C4D’s potential so if I get some work out of it I owe you a pint!
Looking forward to seeing your Skylight setups. Came across these Studio HDRs the other day which I thought worked really well: http://fav.me/d1lzo9m
PLUS, did you know…you can create a new material just by double-clicking in the empty space of the Material window?
Klas on March 1st, 2010 said...
Thanks for the link to the HDRI´s. Suuper!
Great stuff once again Nick. Your tuts really gave me a C4D jumpstart after being ‘away from the game’.
But now…REALLY release that lightning kit soon!
Great tut. Best so far I think. Can’t wait for the studio lighting kit – I’ll buy two!
Hello Supergorilla! please, please, because we do not give away how to perform this effect with pblurb please, you can, we will follow, thank you very much.
http://www.korb.lt/PROJECTS/showreel08.htm
The second 44 “KEMS” animation.
took time trying but I can not, thanks again.
rob redman on February 17th, 2010 said...
I have a tutorial coming very soon for how to use the Pblurp Node in C4D. Look out for it soon.
The Gorilla on February 17th, 2010 said...
That will be DOPE! Can’t wait, Rob.
eyedesyn on February 17th, 2010 said...
always wanted a comprehensive pBlurp tutorial to be made. I’ve seen only one and from the way it was presented, I had a hard time trying to follow and make it do anything useful. Can’t wait, Rob!
Kieran on April 5th, 2010 said...
hey for that original kems logo reference i did my first tutorial just gone up trying to have a go at a similar sort of effect with mograph here http://www.ispeakinpictures.com/2010/04/05/reforming-3d-text-tutorial-part-1/
Csmcastellar on April 5th, 2010 said...
thank you very much for helping me find this! I was looking for a long time, thanks
Cool tutorial Nick. Great results from a simple concept. Always works.
Speak soon dude.
Haha, uploaded 5 days ago. You sly motherhugger xD
Anyway, Ima just wind up and go:
AAAAAAWESOME.
Sweet nick! Your lighting setup, is that a dome with a gradient controlling lightdome colour. Its not lighting it using GI is it?
Very nice!
Thank you so much nick!
I thought I requested this tut as well
I’ve done my own version
Very awesome!
Nick, great tutorial (both C4D and AE). It seems like everything is so much easier to do in C4D compared to other 3D packages. I wonder what other stuff we’re going to see.
The Gorilla on February 17th, 2010 said...
The Mograph module makes it so easy to do these fun things. Stay tuned for way more.
Nick you know where you set two colours (orange, pink) for gradient, rather then we use that as colour can we use picture ?
Suuper!
Thanks for the tut Nick. By far the sweetest thing this year!!!
When is the light-kit coming out?
MarcyVF on February 17th, 2010 said...
I think he said by March :O
The Gorilla on February 17th, 2010 said...
Yeah, should be sometime in march. I’m getting PUMPED!
Klas on February 18th, 2010 said...
Brilliant!
What C4D versions will it work with?
What is going on with the step effector? The last iterations do not finish.
Viktor on February 17th, 2010 said...
EDIT: If you play it backwards, it works.
The Gorilla on February 17th, 2010 said...
Do you have to extend your timeline?
Bran on February 17th, 2010 said...
Move the spline mask up higher in the last frame /60 or so../
Don’t let it touching the letters in final animation frame.
The delayed mask got stuck and didn’t cover all your letters.
I had the same problem.
Hope you get it now
Cheers
Viktor on February 18th, 2010 said...
No Nick, it’s well behind 90 f.
Also, thanks Bran, I think it’s going to work.
Onskin on February 18th, 2010 said...
How did you do Viktor ?
WOW awesome effect
Great tutorial Nick as per usual straight forward and easy to understand.
Made a quick effort and it gave me a chance to quickly test CS_Easy Cam.
http://vimeo.com/9530678
Need to work on my AE skills though but only recently managed to purchase it so following your tuts on that as well.
Bran on February 17th, 2010 said...
for me the cam is waaay fast.
but for a certain editing might be fine
Werido question : how to make ur c4d like tabs and stuffs
Nick hi! Thank you very much for your tutorials, you do amazing job!Thanks a lot man.I would like to ask you a few questions, please answer on them. 1) what differences between Cinema 4D and 3D MAX, and which one do you prefer the most? and 2) which program is the best for you Motion or AE,and why?
The Gorilla on February 17th, 2010 said...
1. Cinema 4D!!!!
2. I think that both of them integrate well with AE. But I think that Cinema is easier to learn and makes it easy to go to ae without plugins. It’s not as popular, but it’s WAY more fun!! I wouldn’t worry too much about it though. If you learn Cinema and then end up with a job that needs Max, you can transfer knowledge really well.
Great tutorial. So simple, yet so AWESOME. Thanks!
Tina
Best tutorial yet! Super easy to follow, very customizable…easy to adapt to other projects!… WIN
What type of Mac computer do you uses ?
Awesome tut Nick!!! Thanks as always. I can see this being useful for so much more.
I took a quick go at it but ended up with a couple of glitches that remind me of Z-Fighting in AE. Anyone have some ideas on what is causing this?
I’m uploading to vimeo now.
http://www.vimeo.com/9541118
Thanks Again!
Brett Brinkerhoff on February 18th, 2010 said...
Sorry vimeo screwed up. Here is the new link.
http://www.vimeo.com/9541123
Lawrence on February 18th, 2010 said...
Hey Brett, I had similar trouble on my first go, but found it changed when I used different text. Try a different shape first, then try smoothing out your cutting spline, I think I can see a kink or two that may for some reason cause this. Also, experiment with your intermediate point options and angles.
Lawrence
Great stuff! Over the past couple years C4D has become my fav 3D tool. Hopefully Autodesk doesn’t buy them!
Nicks that’s a lot for your info! Best luck to you
Hi Nike
nice work and it’s easy to follow
great goodlooking and straight tut nick, thanks
little workflowtip
rightclick on the graident to flip it
The Gorilla on February 18th, 2010 said...
Nice one!
Thanks Nick, I can’t wait for the next tutorial!!
here is my go at this one :
http://www.vimeo.com/9548285
Hello
Don’t check the render instances. If so the Time offset will not function properly
Bye
and thank for your great tutorial. It’s like always: brilliant!
thanks for another great tutorial!
and thanks for switching on the iphone-checkbox on your vimeo-videos finally we can see your tuts on the go!
Awesome tut Nick! Here is my try: http://vimeo.com/9538014
Thanks a lot for the tutorial!
As always, very informative and educational.
Looking forward to hearing more about your lighting products. Would be nice for us to buy it and give something back.
Kudos fella.
Very cool tutorial.
Here’s my version: http://vimeo.com/9552538
One question; Is it possible to use this technique with other shapes? I tried importing text from Illustrator, but the spline mask wouldn’t work. Ended up using type tool in C4D.
Certainly would open up some cool possibilities.
Nemo on February 24th, 2010 said...
Hi John,
You need to use the connect (or connect and delete function) on your AI paths…
Neil
Thanks Nick,
you’re the man!
I’m just a hobby user without AE, but your c4d tipps got me to buy the R11.5 upgrade because your ideas gave me inspiration and power to carry on with all those buttons, for I was stuck in confusion and pain
Keep on rocking and I’m really exited about that lightning thing of yours…
Cheers from Germany!
Hi, please can show me where I can get the plugins for the lighting of the scene, but I am looking to find them, because without them I can not finish the project. Thanks
The Gorilla on February 18th, 2010 said...
The lighting Kit should be out in March. For now, why not try how to learn to light your scenes. The tutorial shouldn’t look EXACTLY like mine anyway. Try to make it your own.
This looks so goddamnfreaking good I can’t wait to try this out. Damn work!!
Awesome tutorial…opens up a lot of doors.
My first go: http://vimeo.com/9552119
Good stuff as always, thanks Nick!
Gave it a go and played some with the shatter deformer on the cloner object, maybe i’ll post it here when i get a satisfying render.
Great tutorial nick, as someone who has been trying to grasp the whole mograph thing for a long time now its really refreshing to find a really practical tutorial with great results instead of a near bullet point description of each of mographs modules and effectors. This has filled in a lot of missing gaps in my knowledge, thanks a million mate, really appreciate your effort and keep it up!
nice tutorial thx nick ^^
some questions now u finish for me ^^
my mind is clean so slowly
Great tutorial.
Thank you Nick!
Brilliant, way over my head, etc. (as always) can’t wait to upgrade beyond my old macbook so renders don’t take the entire weekend…
But who made that clever “one is us” print behind sensei Campbell?
just curious.
Hi Nick, you are amazing!! i’ve only one question.. how i can show the expresso editor panel?? i need some plug-in??
Thanks so much for your tutorial.
Graphicmas
hey nick, love the tutorial, however i have a quick question as far as c4d rendering is concerned. about every 10 frames i get chunks of blocks that overlap the text. theyre like jagged glitchy blocks that just cover up a portion and im just wondering if this is due to rendering options, etc.
any advice you could give me would be great, thanks!
Awesome tutorial!
I really loved it!
Thanks!
Thank you very much! So easy to learn!
Hi Nick!
I saw that video on Motionserved and tried myself to make something similar:
http://vimeo.com/9640822
Then I stumbled on your tutorial and was I delighted to see the way you did it.
I have learned a lot from your tutorial!
Thank you for the hard work and for sharing!
One thing to be aware of with type of trick using Spline masks is that the effect is still a boolean, and being such is reliant on the resolution of objects, which in this case is a spline. You may notice errors when animating, and the best way to fix this is to 1) have more drastic curves (rather than subtle waves) and 2) adjust the spline parameter for the text and spline and try setting to other options other than bezier, and using subdivided resolution.
Nice tut!
Having one problem thou! I have a 3-color gradient from green, yellow to red in the front, but when I turn on the Step Effector the red gets less saturatet, maybe -50.
AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME
One thing I noticed was that if you made the spline mask bezier thing very “pointy”, the whole motion became very glitchy, which made it kind of pointless to render.
It didn’t happen with your smooth wave-like mask, though. Just sayin’.
But it was a very great and fantastic tutorial. Very super fantastic.
Still waiting for the Skyline setup!
In the meantime i’ll try the ones posted by Nicholas, thanks man!
And congrats & thanks nick for the whole work!
You’re my personal god lately. Seriously.
Instead of being the hundredth person to say how awesome Nick’s tutorials are (and they are!) I thought I’d contribute a tip that may be helpful.
I’ve been playing around with this technique with various shapes of splines to use as the mask, and often get glitchy interpolation artifacts- weird polygons that should’nt be there, etc. This often doesn’t make itself known until you apply the Step Effector.
Tho’ there is no one cure, I’ve found that by stopping at a frame where it is apparent and messing around with Type and Intermediate Points in the settings for your spline you can make it dissapear. Sometimes this just makes a problem appear in a later frame instead, but I’ve usually eventually gotten everything to work. You can also try doing the same in the settings of the Text object, and if worst comes to worst, you maybe have to pick a different font.
Hopefully this will be useful to some one…
Can i ask you question :
when you make tutorial about skylight in cinema ? buz your setting was so awesome
and I’m big fan about your works :]
The Gorilla on March 8th, 2010 said...
Thanks, Zayed! That SkyLight will be included in my upcoming LightKitPro Product. It should be out soon.
Hey folks,
thought i try a way of doin this without
Morgraph. (though it is a really nice tool…)
Just use the Boolean-Object, on the extruded
Text and Spline, then animate the Spline,
as you like.
The only drawback is, that you have to
time-offset and shade the single objects by
Hand…
here is my result.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6×6XEmOtnA4
Tell me what you think
Hey!
Could you do a tutorial on Body Paint 3D?
Thank you very much for the lesson!
That’s my job:
http://vimeo.com/10031269
Man thanks for this tutorial… im learning CD4 after 8 years of using ligthwave 3d…
thank you very much!
Hello!
Like it very much!
Can u tell me how can i do the same effect
with objects, not splines:)
i want to do a pyramid with exactly the same effect u use(wavething).. how?
thanks allot!
keepitup!
Hi. How can mask a 3d object using Spline Mask but without Extrude Nurbs? The object is already modeling and no need Extrude Nurbs. I tried to mask the object like in your tutorial How to make a Cascading Text Animation with With Cinema 4D and After Effects, but no work from 3d object.
How can a similar effect be done on polygon objects?
Very cool effect, thanks for sharing Nick!
I just rendered this and added it to vimeo (i like their service, but takes a long time to play, wtf..oh well). Great learning experience all the way.
I love how the stuff in the background has gotten more high class since starting this blog. Lest we forget the mic. Yr Ballin now.
Hey Nick this is great! your work is nice and very useful. I was happy with my version, although I bumped into glitches; those seemed to occur on the “s” and “o”, as well as the “r”, right on their ‘folding’.
If anyone bump into the same, just try selecting other than bold; mine was looking great at normal/medium! Thanks and keep it up!
The Gorilla on April 26th, 2010 said...
Adding more resolution to your text splines seems to help with the popping issues.
Love the intuitive interface on C4D and with the help of your tutorials, I am catching on quick! Thanks Nick.
Hy Gorilla !
Congratulation for your tutorial, it’s great !
Can you use the Spline mask with a Revolution Nurbs tool ?
(I try to make an in out animation with half sphere…C’est Galere in french !)
Thank U
hey…gr8 tut. but there is one big problem
when i choose the step effector,shut off scale and set the time offset it doesn’t change anything..i checked if the step effector is in the cloner object..CHECK..it just plays the animation as if the step effector dosen’t exist :S i’m confused…would be nice if you could help me.
and sorry for my english…i’m a german dude
Alex on May 10th, 2010 said...
Edit:
fixed it^^ just turned “render instances” off. XD
hey there, thnx a million 4 teaching all da stuff. I watched the reference video but im having problem in pulling off the text effect in the very last of that video, where “POMPEIA FASHION WEEKEND” comes (tail of K , basically
)
sO plz plz plz do tell me how to deal this thing in Cinema.
waitin 2 hear from ya……
Hey awesome tut check out what i did with it… it is a little dark but the effetc came out great!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3jWmyYCR8o
Took this tut and made below.
http://vimeo.com/12444573
awesome tutorial…
FILLET = FILAY like the cut of meat… or atleast thats how i was told it was pronounced.
Hi! i have one question please. i have my logo it is spline and i can’t extruded with effect Spline Mask.. Thanks
Here, http://vimeo.com/12855180 my test scene based upon your tut.
Thx Nick.
Hi! I just discovered your website. I love it! Can’t wait to try some of the other tutorials. Thank you so much!
Hey Nick this is great! Thank U