How to make a Simple Spin Logo Animation Part 2

In part 2 of this tutorial, we take our 3D render into After Effects to composite and finish the scene. I show you how to use glow, curves, blurs, and levels to color correct the scene and add some shine. I also show you how to make a fun stripe animation using Precomps and a Track Matte.

Final Animation

Watch Part 1 of This Tutorial

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73 people have commented on this post. You should too!

  1. Pingback: How to make a Simple Spin Logo Animation with Cinema 4D | greyscalegorilla/blog

  2. Sharez Rafiq says:

    just LOVED it. You are awesome Nick.

  3. Tim says:

    I really appreciate the effort you made in the end section regarding making your OWN shit. I see so many reels that are just very slight rehashings of tutorials I’ve seen online–usually with much worse art direction.

    Having said that, I’d like to see more reel critiques. They were really helpful and just interesting to see what you’re thinking about different designs and animations.

  4. Jason Hadley says:

    I agree with you, i hate seeing reels made up of tutorials. Every so often I go strolling on vimeo through the motion reel channel and it’s inevitable that I find a tutorial on someone’s reel. Thank you for addressing this!

  5. Bran says:

    too close to mic :)

  6. thejoltjoker says:

    i like your speech in the end :)
    i never actually follow the steps in tutorials, i just watch them to learn techniques. but i’ve seen a LOT of andrew kramer copies (my stuff probably looks a lot like his too though).

    i’ve just started watching your tutorials but i already love them ^^

  7. hi gorilla u r now on my top 3 VFX websites i like you very much! oh im so happy i found you ur are so cool and what i like about this tutorial is you advises that you give’s us that you should not copie others projets cuz its not professional work we need to look up for some thing original but with the help of the tutorials (like yours) ;)
    thanks again for the tutorials and all what i want to say is keep up the good work and bring some more tutorials lol bey bey

  8. Jake says:

    Agreed! Sites like this should really be used as workflow studies, not cheap content generation. In the end though, people who use tutorials in a reel are really only hurting themselves; motion graphics as an industry is well connected.

  9. and nick for the font i found one realy similar to the one used on the video and i like to share with you , it’s a free one u can download it from here and btw it’s called “Twist”
    http://img.mywindowspc.com/wg/0906/fonts/twist.zip

    and here is a photo of it http://img.mywindowspc.com/wg/0906/fonts/twist.jpg

  10. Renzo says:

    Hi Nick,
    Great tutorial! But..
    “The human genome project or some crap like that, you know what I mean.”.. Common dude!

    The wotate thing made me really laugh! Keep ‘em comming, I love your vids.

    Greets, renzo (nl)

  11. suraj es says:

    hi. love your creations and the expressiveness..
    a small help here

    im trying to do an animation like this

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYcuV2mye54

    can you help me out with the ideas in cinema 4d!!

  12. Klas says:

    You are the man Nick! I always pick up some new cool technique or idea when I watch your tutorials. Super!
    The words at the end are so true….I know I have been copying looks and techniques, but it is a great way to learn. And all the things I have learned has given me the tools to do exactly what you said…to do my own thang :)

    So once again, thanks for all the help you provide!!

  13. Roderick says:

    Sweet like warm apple pie :) .
    BTW i was at an Adobe conference yesterday because of CS5 and there was a guy from Maxxon. So I asked him the question why you have to put the text into a Null. Well, no surprise, he didn’t exactly know but his thought was that the text used from the mograph has some in-depth layers. The fracture object doesn’t know which one to take. So when you “group” the text into a Null the fracture DOES know what to do. Don’t know if this makes any sense…but that’s what he told me.

  14. CsmCastellar says:

    Hello Gorilla!! for when the tutorial of pblurb! KORB Style! Thanks ..

  15. Ramzes says:

    Nick, thank you so much for your tutorials, you are great teacher!I’ve learned a lot from you:) thanks man

  16. now i want to shre the best motion effects i ever seen in my whole life
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0Xa4bHcJu8
    comment

  17. MarcyVF says:

    Yeah nice speech at the end lol. Amen to that!

    Thanks for tha tut.

  18. Gon says:

    Its true what you say in the last part, people usually and always follow tutorials with fear and never experiment. I always try to think out the box, i feel thats what crativity is all about.

  19. Borislava says:

    nick this is for you and everyone.
    CS5 coolest new element preview:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI&feature=player_embedded

  20. Vladimir says:

    Hi, Nick…
    I followed your tutorial and find very handy to use cs_easyCAM2…But it will be very cool to use CS like setup for multiple targets…does it exist similar plugin? (I tried to play with cs_moCam, but it wasn’t successful)…Thank you for tutorial

  21. Andre Friedman says:

    Hey,Nick.I am monitoring smth like 10-15 compositing sites on a daily basis,watching tuts from motionworks,red giant,maltaanon,videocopilot you name it and I have to say,that your creativity surprises me more and more from one tutorial to another.Keep on doing that,dude.You’re really skilled compositor.You know,what you do and you do it right.Good for you,man!What’s the deal with the keyboard behind you?Do you play piano or just cubase looping :) ?

  22. Ramzes says:

    Nick, can you tell us, what kind of sound effect we can use with this animation?))

  23. Magic says:

    hey hey, where are all the vimeo links?;)
    On previous tuts after a day they would start to fill this space.
    Allthough I totaly agree that a demo reel made up of followed tutorials issen’t much of a showcase for what one can do creatively, it merely show one can follow tutorials. And for a profesional motion designer that might not be what one wants.

    But for an amateur like me these tutorials are like following classes, I realy like learning new stuff, and I would like to show my teacher what I made afterwards.

    So here is my version :)
    I already had done some AE after the first part and although I tried part 2 on the same rendering, I decided leave it as ait was before.

    http://www.vimeo.com/10431920

  24. nikita says:

    hey nick,
    I love your tuts and the way you explain things and get through problems! I did he spin tutorial and I’m wondering how I can use this techique to “morph” from one word to another… is it possible? thx a lot for all the stuff you post

    • have a search for pBlurp. It’s like an automatic TP thing (literally 1 node – I know nothing about TP and got it working when I was first learning c4d) You drop 2 shapes in and they cut up and morph into one another

  25. Jasper says:

    Thanks! I used part of the tutorial for this clip:

    http://vimeo.com/10501794

  26. Santi says:

    Awesome tutorial, thanks Nick!!!

  27. Mario Moreno says:

    great tutorial, this is my own version http://vimeo.com/10558386

    Thnaks Nick

  28. James says:

    Here’s my attempt. I took it a little further for fun.
    http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10566681

  29. Vishal Jain says:

    Hey Nick,

    Thanks for all the tutorials you’ve done.
    Please take a look at this http://www.motionserved.com/Gallery/Discovery-Rebrand/448640Can you do a tutorial to do this or point me to a place where I can learn to do something similar?
    Thanks :)

  30. joe says:

    “let’s rock this mother fu–uhh puppy here”

  31. ScottCorey says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRkhglLReLw

    C4d r10, so I don’t have dynamics and the cool stuff.
    First try, still learning, I think it could still use some work.

  32. vd says:

    hey Nick! thanks a lot for ur amazing tut.

    my result:
    http://vimeo.com/10629145

    i couldn’t add music :( is anyone help me?

  33. kamal says:

    hi nick.. this is my first comment on watching the first tutorials of yours… I’ve a problem man.. when i render the simple spin logo animation it takes a lot of time.So when I decide to render the not rendered part for the next day. It gives me other results..Its totally different from the rendered Images of the previous day…can you help me with this.
    I’ve Maxon C4D 10.5

  34. Rich Emery says:

    Here is my version of your tutorial
    and I can believe how long it took to render 4 seconds on my MBP but it was fun

    http://vimeo.com/11139866

  35. lizardwizard says:

    hey gorrila wasup??
    first of all i gotta say im kinda new in the 3d buisness and you are such a big help man really i learned alot!
    i have a question bout the spin tut, do you think its normal that the final render in c4d took me 5:38 hours?? anti aliasing was best 2X2…
    im using a dell studio 1555 win7 64 bit
    lots of ddr a radeon HD 4570 graphic card…
    any thoughts bout that?
    your tuts rock man keep it up.

  36. K says:

    Thanks for a great tutorial!
    http://vimeo.com/13908228

  37. mungkey says:

    Thanks nick. love the tutorials and I learn a lot. I’m beginning to love this c4d & ae thing, thanks to you.

  38. PEacedog says:

    NIck,

    Loved the tut! Tried to do a little something different with it, like you suggested in the reels video. Won’t be including this on any reels though! Great way to animate text!

  39. Felix says:

    Thank you Nick. Let’s make some cool shit mannnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!

  40. James Holm says:

    Thank for the great Tutorial … I took it a couple of steps further to tailor it to a project of mine … I added a sound effector to make it shake like a Harley! Thanks for all the cool tips … keep them coming! Thank you!

    Check it out

    http://www.youtube.com/user/primarymusicusa?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/0tFG2uWQSQY

  41. Victor Hagström says:

    Hey!
    I need help, I’m only doing a “one-frame-picture” instead of the whole animation. However my texture doesn’t become smooth or specially glossy, it looks dark, grainy and like a big fat failure. Please help me with the texture question!
    Awesome tutorial by the way.
    Friendly Greetings
    Victor

  42. wgold says:

    I guess this is pretty late but here you go
    http://vimeo.com/15907980

  43. Hey dude! The font Axon used in hes animation is MOD Font.
    http://fontfabric.com/mod-font/

    check it out!!

    -CreZnoHD
    http://www.youtube.com/user/CreZnoHD

  44. S.J says:

    Thank you!!
    Finally I make it!

  45. Michel says:

    Hey man! I´m spaniard. This is the very first time i am going to post in a foreign blog but i´ve been learning tips and tricks from your smoking tutorials and i just want to say THANKS MAN!!!!! You rule. Sorry for my english guys. And Nick, say hello to Jake!! (your dog, isn´t?). Go on this way!

  46. JAMES says:

    ROCK!!! i Agree 1000% , theres so many clone from the tutorial in youtube ,especially video copilot.. people just follow the shit .. suckssss not creative.

  47. chris says:

    i think this tut was amazing and have been watching for about a month now. I am new to c4d and running an old 1 core processor so my renderings area long time coming to fruition but this was so cool i thought it would be worth it. I wish i had after effects to finish it off though. Can anything be done in Photoshop that would give the same glow effect?

  48. I think you were using Adobe Flash to make it. in fact, I’m wrong

  49. Pingback: Make Animation in Variety of Ways | MAKE ANIMATION

  50. Peter says:

    Great tutorial, thank you so much! My first time I did anything in Cinema 4D, and with the help of you, I got a really nice spinning logo! :)

  51. Nick, great job first. I discovered your site weeks ago, and what i`ve learned here… Thank you.
    I have one question. If, in the middle of transition animation, i want to change to another name.
    Starts with the SPIN text and change to something with 4 letters. NICK. for example.

    Thanks again, and keep with up your great job.

  52. Sorry bout the previous comment.
    I didn’t saw the the whole tutorial. And now i saw the final words of the second part (Grear words, btw) and i felling stupid right now.
    But, inspired me to find out my own. Thanks and sorry again.

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