I recently have been playing a lot with Sub Polygon Displacement and I wanted to show you some of the fun things you can make with it. In this tutorial, I show you how I made the abstract shapes below by starting with a sphere and adding a texture with Sub Polygon Displacement and a noise pattern. Please link to any fun renders that you make with Sub Polygon Displacement in the comments. I would love to see them.
Final Renders
hey just waiting for the video to load but im gonna thank in advance cuz i’ve been looking al over the web for tutorials regarding this subject, and normal mapping
hope you consider making some normal mapping tutorial.
Hi! Great tutorial, only one correction… you can use displacement with a parametric sphere… Just “untick” the render perfect option…
Nice Tutorial Nick! Might be cool to animate the noise too.
Another amazing tut.
This gives me so many good ideas! XD
Andrew Kramer’s fringe secret has been revealed to me. I watched the final episode a few days ago and the quesstion popped up in my head again. I wonder how some people manage to use this a transition between shapes. Any ideas?
start with the first “object” (displacement map) at the highest intensity you intend to use, animate the height to 0, at the 0 mark, keyframe the first displacement map being replaced by the second one, animate the height back up again
1 discplacement > whatever object you have in the center > 2nd displacement
Thanks. I think I understand it. Just a little logic and tricking of the eye.
Hey Nick.
Cool video Nick, as always. Check out this related resource as well. Could save a lot of test renders.
http://www.cybergooch.com/pages/c4d/noise/c4d_noise.htm
Rob
nice url post rob!
Great reference Rob
Great url Rob, very helpfull!
Meh, its great and all, but I’m finding this to be a little more useful http://www.cybergooch.com/tutorials/pages/live_christmas_trees.htm
Great resource, Rob. I’ve bookmarked it for reference on my next related project. Thanks!
Best C4D tutorial in a while. SPD is a really powerful feature. Great to see the interplay between Noise and the resulting look. Little details like this are what make your tuts so cool. Thanks and enjoy the long weekend!
I haven’t watched the entire tutorial yet but the previews you left look amazing Nick. <3
Love the tutorial. Is there a way to cache the displacement?
You can bake the displacement onto a normal map with the bake object or bake texture command in c4d. But it doesnt look as good as a real displacement, sadly.
Wow. I can’t wait to try this one!
you drink alot of coffee before your tutorials dont you? lol Great vid as always..
Man, i really enjoy your C4D tuts.. it’s one of the reasons that nowadays i play if it sometimes..
This one is a great help for making any kind of crazy commercial and personal job..
Thanks!
(one thing i think it’s funny from the tuts is the time that they are recorded, most of them are on frdays or weekends at a really late hour, working just like most of graphic designers =P)
You may wanna check out the c4d help on SPD! they got some cool preview pics all the diffrent noises loaded into the displacement channel!
any way nice tut as allways! 
SPD?
Thanks for that great thing! Like also playin’ around with that textures! Looking forward to the next!
The Mograph Displace deformer is a quick way to view displacement without rendering. And you can use parametric objects with it.
Nice link Rob, very handy.
…and great vid as always gorilla.
I was just about to post this. I was looking through the help (!!!!) in C4D and the displace deformer blew my mind when I found it. Way quicker to see whats going on.
Nick those seek black renders are really nice
love ya dude!! thanks!
hello nick
i already emailed u this and i didnt get any answer, i thought maybe its better to drop it here,
Plz check the http://troika.tv/ then go to => Clients => Fox => 05
thanks for all the tuts and info.
best regards,
kamran
http://www.gmunk.tv/ did that
Very nice work. It does remind me a lot of what Gmunk did for FOX. WORD daftcain.
I use the noise channels constantly, and i never noticed that little preview box, that one tip made this tutorial invaluable, thanks nick!
Great Tutorial cool organic stuff, cinema 4D rocks, Jen
Awesome stuff! But how do I link this to the sound effector?
hi nice tuto,try to use displace defomer from mograph it more faster,http://www.viptutorial.com/
Did som combo stuff with the displacement deformer and mograph. watch the last half of this video.
http://vimeo.com/7484510
Dope. Love the bouncing at the end.
Hi Gorilla
this is the link to my “cool” shit.
just a try
you’re a very great teacher, you know !
http://s.p.25.free.fr/wordpress/?p=251
Looks cool, nice job, I’m looking forward to messing with it
great tutorial Nick i love it
great tips man I’ll playing with this technique NOW
Alright, here is the first (I’m sure of many) renders. http://twitpic.com/1ry85y
Here’s my little test.
http://vimeo.com/12124372
Pretty cool technique Nick, it’s amazing how much you can do with Cinema in a really simple way.
Impressive !
Nicee!
Great Tut! Im a Chilean Design student and your tuts are help me a Lot.. Thanx!!!
Great tut! Awesome looking stuff! Did you get a wide angle lens for your camera?? Seems further back.
Great tutorial to make high quality abstract shapes! Thanks.
Here’s my try: http://a.yfrog.com/img715/8184/ejoc.jpg
Great picture. Nice processing on it !
Pure awesomeness!
A fun question:
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could use an audio-track to displace/animate this effect? Is it even possible in C4D?
Yep, see the Monkey’s NAB presentation. You might have to link up some parameters in xpresso but definitely do-able just using the audio amplitude to control the displacement channel
Awsome website you’ve got dude!
These tutorials are really helpful.
Here’s my try http://vimeo.com/12130119
hey grilla
nice tut
cheers
Thnaks for tutorial dude!
Hi,
I’m happy you’re back to teach us great things and increase our imagination. Something like : ‘for my mind to yours’…
Anyway, great results with displacement texture onto geometry but I’ve read somthing a year ago about it and it seems it’s greedy for render times !
A usefull link to have the complete library about all kind of noises into C4D is : http://www.cybergooch.com/pages/c4d/noise/c4d_noise.htm
I wish I could make a PDF file of this usefull reference and share it with everyone’s interested by.
Im waiting for your next tutorial, Mr. Gorilla !
awesome link ZEF, thanks alot.
I really dig the way you are sharing your toys with the community.
Displacement is absolutly awesome for abstract motion design or for organic surfaces. I was looking into it a week ago and came up with my rendition of a bloodstream. SPD really helped me with the blood vessel, to bad I couldnt add it to the cells as the rendertimes would have exploded for me.
http://www.vimeo.com/12130620
I’m looking foward to your next discovery.
greetings from germany.
Thank you, Nick!
@Rob: thank you for sharing the link to the great cybergooch preview collection. Added to my favorites.
I got inspired to do a little choclate ball using sub-poly displacement:
http://mediengestalt.de/_gsg/choclateball/choclateball.jpg
Here is one used in my deconstruction project entitled “Q”.
http://cargocollective.com/mathieuj#395296/Q-Deconstruction
Nick’s finally released a tutorial on how he styles his hair, Nothing like sub polygon displacement.
Nick your lucky you covered my 2 week old email in your live cast or i’d be sending death threats xD, Nah im playing thanks and imma make some stuff with parts of this tutorial noww ty.
I wonder if you could use this to fake grass? (time to experiment)..
Yup.. grass works..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mossyblog/4650299988/
Obviously its a taxing process (5min render time per frame) and it only works if you zoom out…still nice..
Nice one. I’m guessing hair would be quicker for this, but it’s great that you went in and tried it for yourself. Great way to learn. ROCK!
Nick
This is good,anyone know how to switch shapes in animation?? like Kristian Boserup
if you want to morph between 2 poly objects you can use the morph tag on one, remove the target and drop the second object in
This is a great thread on CGSociety about creating a complex scene with sub poly displacement. Pretty crazy texture and useful to study.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=47&t=377058
You can animate the noise as well to get some cool undulating blobs happening too, and even morph between two textures using the Texture Track. Awesome!!!
Hey Nick!
Check out this video I made using the same method a couple months ago, I made an audio-reactive disp-map in aftereffects with sound-keys.
http://vimeo.com/10339591
wow, i love it, very enigmatic, very core, very inspiring
so are you saying you animated all the noise-motion in AE?
Yeah, I Created a few layers in AE with fractal noise and a few patterns I made and imported from photoshop, then animated the transparency with trapcode soundkeys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1PW40daGeo
great way to make rocks.
http://i46.tinypic.com/2cy41av.jpg
Those look dope.
Thanks Nick. Played with displacements a while ago to make mountains. Always fun to play around with. Tweaking settings. Have uploaded a few test renders. vimeo.com/album/232956
Here’s a good noise reference site to help.
x
http://www.cybergooch.com/pages/c4d/noise/c4d_noise.htm
Very Cool Nick. Thanks again for all you do. Somebody mentioned wishing they had a pdf of the textures on cybergooch.com. Now that I can do. What’s the best way to get it to those who would like it? Also, is it ethical to make pdf’s of one’s site? just wondering.
Please help nick or anyone!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3D6x4L5bzk
I would kinda like to hijack this post to just express one thing: Nick, I’ve gone to school for this shit, but you’re a better teacher than I ever had. I am going to force all my friends to wear shirts that read: “I love the gorilla”, and if any of them ask why, I’ll just give them a stern look… Thank you, I’d almost given up on it all, but you reminded me it’s important to have fun in what you do.
Forgive the sappiness (is that a word?), M.
*to wear a shirt*, single, not plural… where’s the edit button?
Thanks for that, MdW! It’s so great to hear that people are learning and enjoying the videos. It’s why I do it. Can’t wait to see the Tshirts.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. The fanboyish tone may or may not have been caused by me being not entirely sober when I posted *blush*
But yeah the thing is, it’s not the actual content, that information can be found all over the web. It’s the manner in which you bring it; There’s a spark of enthusiasm in it which, to me at least, is very contageous. It makes me want to sit down myself, and toy with the software, and it’s a world of diff compared to the teachers I was used to, who would mostly just bombard you with the dry info without ever really seeming to enjoy it themselves.
But to make a long story short; keep up the good work, you’re an inspiration.
Regards,
M.
+1 Agreed.
Cinema4D is a great product but i feel its community is fragmented way too much to the point where i am tired of stumbling into piracy sites in the search for tutorials (i had no idea piracy was so ramped in 3d software space). Nick’s blog is a welcome piece of digital fresh air that helps guys like me navigate the C4D + AE waters.
This blog is the definition of street evangelism working.
WOW its amazing how little tricks can cause such big results, thanks nick, my inspired piece:
http://vimeo.com/12145974
I’m a 3ds max guy myself but I still watch all the c4d tutorials. I love the 2nd render you posted
Awesome. Thanks for watching!!! Do you find that some of the techniques transfer over to MAX?
Definitely!
I like the more concept oriented tutorials you do over application specific technical stuff.
Where it’s more about a concept and how to make cool shit which can be done in any software.
Here’s a question:
I’ve played with the displacement maps a little before, but never got that deep into it, and I’m wondering if it’s possible to bake the displacement onto the actual polygons, so that I could ditch the material?
I mean it’d be great to use displacement to create some shapes and zBrush to add the nifty little details just like I want them.
So am I just overlooking something very simple or am I always tied to having the material on the physical object (well, as physical as a 3D object can be)?
Thanks for your time, people.
Hey Nick, thanks so much for this amazing tut. I’m learning a lot by you. Just a thing i need to say about your tuts please don’t see that as a bad critic: When you explain many people are very focused about your mouse movements and about your words (sometime it’s not easy the “lesson” subject) and you move and click the mouse many and many times in input text box or move the popup windows and so on… that make me headache
and make me stress.
I again say you THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO!! Just i wanted to say that as advise to get a perfect tutorial not for other reasons.
Marco
Pingback: This Week in Motion Design 30/05/10 | Motion Design Love
Hey Nick!
First of all, thanks for providing the best blog in the universe.
Please have a look at my interpretation of your tutorial.
Comments/Feedback would be much appreciated: http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Displacement/527156
/Alexander.
Cooooooool!
cool stuff Nick. I made some fun renders with this :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefhamerlinck/4652175775/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefhamerlinck/4652175995/
here’s my approach. great tutorial nick!
http://www.vimeo.com/12149989
Nick, How does one go about transforming their displacement into another object? For instance, I want to start with a sphere, use displacement and make it do “cool shit” and then end with it as a cube. I’m new at all this.
Second, does it make more sense to add depth of field in cinema, or do it in after effects?
here’s my shot, went a little crazy with mograph.. the noise displacement is at the bottom
http://www.vimeo.com/12153221
Start with a morph between the Sphere and the Cube and then apply the displacement. It should be two separate techniques.
Gorilla,
When I morph the sphere to a cube, it doesn’t morph completely, even with the strength all the way up. It ends up looking jagged. I’ve watched a few tutorials online, and I can’t figure out why my cube won’t morph into a smooth sphere. Any thoughts, or other tuts?
hi!
i started watching your tutorials today and i`m hooked but i have a request( like the annoying people bothering dj`s from doin` their thing)…can you make a tutorial for architectural rendering? i mean a real house and building materials? i`m using CSTools now and it`s made quite the difference but i`d love to see your idea on this.
p.s. i promise i`ll buy your kit as soon as i can afford it:P
great work!
Thanks for watching, Alexandra. I have never done any architectural rendering actually. If I learn anything about though, I will for sure do a tutorial. Cheers!
I’m not getting the Sub-Polygon Displacement option? Nice tut Nick! Please help.
Chances are, you do not have the Andvanced Render then.
You may not have it in your version of Cinema 4D. What version do you have?
I have R11.5
Is it greyd out or not there at all?
Not there at all. Do I need to buy Andvanced Render?
put a hypernurbs on the object instead and you should be in business.
hello gsg!
this is an awsome tutorial und very inspireing! i try it out and modify it a bit with the soundeffector:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqCSgGyIfZM
i hope u like it.
thanks for all the tutorials and inspiration. i´ve learned a lot. pls go on.
greetz
laughingGUY
laughingGuy, How did you link up the sound effector? Did you use Xpresso? I’ve been trying all night, and I suck. My “cool shit” is just shit.
hello jon,
yes of course i used a xpresso tag.
but it is to much to write. if you want i send you my c4d-file, but first i need your email-adress.
or maybe gsg will make a tutorial about that
.
greetz
laughingGUY
Could you post it somewhere online, or direct me to a really clear tutorial on how to do it?
hallo jon,
i made a screenshoot. i hope it will help you.
http://www4.pic-upload.de/31.05.10/41zbzw86uz1j.png
greetz
laughingGUY
thank you for our great screenshot, very helpfull. i almost went crazy to figure it out myself. i had no idea how to get the strength out of the sound effector. you did it!
thanks again
greetz
Daniel
hello daniel,
your welcome. i´m glad to hear that i can help.
greetz
laughingGUY
laughingGuy,
Do you still have the C4D file where you linked the sound effector to the material?
If so I would love to get it from you if you are still willing to share!
Email: Brandon@bashinteractive.com
Thank you!
http://vimeo.com/3363671
cool
hi Nick, thanks for tut! This is my video:
Simple rotation 
http://vimeo.com/12172601
SPD is great for ocean scenes as well.
Don’t forget you can ‘layer’ the noises so therefore adding even more effects instead of just one noise.
When in the ‘noise shader’ attribute just nudge the movement up a little and the speed to about 1-2% and if using the correct noise (wavy turbulence seems good for this) and you can get a ‘rolling wave’ effect if applied to a plane.
good stuff Nick I also covered this a few weeks ago http://vimeo.com/channels/cinema4dtutorials#11951142
Do you know you can live as a parametric primitive whit the Displace Deformer of mograph.
You don’t have to make it editable and you can see the deformation when you modeling in the viewport !
Hi Nick,
I just want to take the time to say you are so awesome!
To do all these tutorials so that newbs like me can learn about AE and C4D and about the biz…and I am learning…soooo much.
I want to get into the biz but am learning the progs right now.
When I make the jump – sometime soon – I will definitely pick-up the Light kit – looks so cool!
So please keep up the excellent work! We really need you out there!
Peace!
Thanx for this lesson Nick !
here is my try : http://www.juartlittle.com/onyx.jpg
(Made with a TV greyscale picture !)
Hey, got inspired and made something in XSI no not C4D i know
http://www.vimeo.com/12181865
http://vimeo.com/12188634
Another great lesson, Mr. Gorilla!
Here is my attempt http://vimeo.com/1218167.
wrong link http://vimeo.com/12181671
hi bio,
damn you beat me. i had the same idea in mind. using several sound effectors on polygon selections. well done!
greetz
Daniel
Great tutorial man…
You can also animate the displacement organically using the “animation speed” option..
If you right click the texture you can turn on “animate” for the preview window too, this will show you how the texture will animate st8 in the material window
Hope that helps/inspire anyone
nice tutorial – as always!
here´s my render:
http://b-r-o-t.net/live.jpg
this is easily the most time consuming frame i ever did – several hours on a 8 core macpro…
Nice one. Would like to see it in motion
sure – if you render it out for me
good stuff
the reflection is a bit to reflective – but i love how the displacement “tears apart” the caps on these letters!
Crazy!
That is a great render!
Thanks for the great tutorial. Here is my take on it.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1426292/share/Planet.jpg
looks good, a little dwarf house on the bottom would have been awesome
Fuggin awesome!
awsome tutorial man…
here is my try…
http://vimeo.com/12152985
this is what i did a year ago: http://vimeo.com/12030570 a visualization of the largest cities in history. i prefered to use the displacement map option of mograph because it has a preview while editing. you can also combine it with a standard displacement material. i’m not sure but i think subpoly does not work in this case so you have to increase the segments of your primitive.
This is a quick example of what i meant regards animating the SPD by just upping the animation speed and movement.
http://vimeo.com/12198821
Thats just by selecting wavy turbulence and upping the global scale.
Its only a quick example and took all of 10 minutes to set up and render.
For a better look i would have upped the AA plus layered a couple more noises to give smaller details.
Hi.
its all the same mesh! The modling and displacemant map comes from Mudbox. I had to use the lowpoly mesh for rigging und anim. Its WIP ofcause but the SPD works fine just like Bodypaint(ing) the Lowpoly mesh!!
I just wonna show nother way of usage SPD ;]
http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=newalien_0074uj8.jpg
GSG rulz
Reminds me of this http://moresoon.org/tales-of-the-unexpected.htm
wow…i think we posted about the same video at the same time. hah.
I’ve always wondered how this was done…
http://vimeo.com/719796
A “fleshier” version of what you’ve done.
Not really sure (ofcourse
)
but i think he did some picture sequences, for displacement, color and reflection…
then applied them on the sphere… to be animated over time by those passes/sequences…
Awesome tutorial!
Here’s my try!
http://es.guerra-creativa.com/portfolio_projects/full_size/5894
Here’s my render:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/zx13pMwMMV5PycVUA4Ftcg?feat=directlink
3 spheres – 3 noise textures
Hey Nick, i just wonder if you know how to do a
natural camera movement in c4d, i have seen
animations that have got a camera wiggle like
its real but i cant achieve it… could you
share some tips?, i tried moving the camera with c4d frame by frame and adding wiggle expresion in AE but i cant get a really natural looking.
Cheers
Most of the time you will find it has been shot for real with a camera, tracked with something like PFTrack/Hoe, Syntheyes or Boujou and brought into cinema as camera data. This is most realistic way to achive a handheld camera move. Try playing with the CSTools though as some of the camera tools in there have some randomness in them.
I would give CSTools a try first. Or, you can shoot real footage with a real camera and track it. Then use the tracking data on your scene.
Thats what i thougt, ill try some tracking then, the problem is that my camera got some shutter problem issues (HV30), but ill give it a try.
Thanks for the tips!
damn nice nick – way to go…
Your like the “Andrew Kramer” for Cinema 4D! In other words: Your Awsome!. Dude I like your work, i like your tutorials , your site, everything. GREYSCALEGORILLA ROCKS!
SWEET I GOT A JOB VJING FOR A CLUB NEXT MONTH GOIN TO USE SOME OF THIS STUFF
http://vimeo.com/12206217
Check my first try:
http://www.diretodoforno.com.br/bruno/sub_displacement_01.jpg
sick awsome
Nice n stylish
Thank you both!
=)
Pingback: Sub Polygon Displacement / C4d | Motion by Design
Hey… just a quick question. Do you render your stuff outside of C4D or with the built in renderer? – Sorry if this has already been answered, I’m still trying to play catch up as I just found out about this site. Great stuff Nick! Thanks for all of your hard work.
-Michael
Nice job man.
Here are some test renders I came up with:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlrjohnson/4662699026/sizes/l/
nice shots
Hello
First thing I ever made in cinema 4d, figured out how to animate elsewere but I must say your tutorials are awesome Nick, easy to follow and you have a great voice.
Here’s my go:
http://vimeo.com/12237218
/Z
i also was amazed by “tales of the unexpected”
thank you nick for showing the way
my short test http://vimeo.com/12247851
using footage on the textures
Nice tut nick=)
My short http://vimeo.com/12189723
greetings from ger
Thanks awesome!
I experimented with this a little bit. Tons of fun.
tms.tumblr.com/
Wrong link…here’s the right one: jaketms.tumblr.com
Pingback: How to use Sub Polygon Displacement in Cinema 4D | greyscalegorilla/blog | PORTFOLIO -POST????-
Hey Nick, love the tut and thanks for what you do…..I just started learning C4D and you have been a HUGE help…….here is my try.
http://www.vimeo.com/12277290
Let me know what you think.