oh holy crap! screw work, im watching this now!

Tobias on June 23rd, 2010 said...

me too!

awesome

this deserves a joint, ill smoke and come back to enjoy mike’s screencast!

cheers and thanks for sharing your knowledge!

keep them comin!

Rad.

wow this one is crazy !

Squ1r3l on June 23rd, 2010 said...

hehe.. indeed

Excellent Video! Cheers Mike

Hey Nick and Mike,
You guys ever thought about doing a project together and then putting out a tutorial set like http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/includes/dvds/sva.php

I think it would be really dope.

Great tut by the way, Mike. Great pace, I might need to rewind a few times but it’s very engaging.

tillimanjaro on June 30th, 2010 said...

totally agree

GREYSCALEGORILLA + THEMONKEY = TOTAL PWNAGE!

Awesome tutorial! I think both you and Nick do a great job of explaining and moving through tutorials at a good pace that don’t dumb down things too much, but instead, challenge us to have to keep up. It’s a hard tightrope to walk. Thanks, Mike!

This one was an awesome non-tutorial. Lots of very valuable information. Thank you guys!

YEAH!! the master is speaking!
thanks a lot mike, it’s amazing! hopefully you liked it just as much as we did, because i cant wait for the next one!

I’ll drink to that, Monkey man! Keep ‘em coming, I love it when things get technical

Since the Da Vinci Code we all could have known about the Golden Section ;-P.

This Tut is great and challenging! Looking forward for more.

Keep up the good work!

WOW!!! … I want to get to that level

Well, Mike, not bad for a starter, you go smoothly, hoping your audience clings to the wagon. If they fall off, like I did, well its video so we just rewind and try catching it again. Very narrative, not to much sidetracking. Some rudimentary script might help to keep you on the tracks. But we are so grateful that you take the effort of sharing some of your knowledge and experience with us. THANKS

I couldn’t help giggling like a teenager over the fact that this is a tutorial on rolling joints.

Awesome stuff, thank you.

Hi guys

Absolutely amazing stuff, this skill can definately be utalized in 1000s of different ways, a definate solid layer on the Cinema foundation of necessary skills.

Thanks Mike, hoping to see you on our screens soon. And Nick, your site continues to provide endless resource to all of us!

Many Many thanks!

Eugene

c4d p0rn

Great stuff, really great to se how other artist work with cinema4D, super great tutorial… but the expresso part was a bit quick… it would be great if you could explain what the different expresso “boxes” do and why you need them… or maybe Nick could make a tutorial on that ?

Awesome there was alot i couldn’t keep up with but pause + rewind are awesome too

Really pleased to see a tutorial from the_Monkey on GSG.

Thanks for linking up the Batch Rename plugin too.

Looking forward to future tutorials!

imcalledandy on June 23rd, 2010 said...

Really enjoyed the subject and the use of XPresso. The reasons for why you did things provided further insight and therefore better understanding.

The style was great, although I wasn’t sure about keeping the window of yourself on screen all the time – but I guess it’s another form of communication and it didn’t get in the way of the interface.

My main criticism – and this is pretty minor – would be the quality of the encoding; this could have been better, I think.

Overall: Awesome and as I said before – “Looking forward to future tutorials!”

the_Monkey on June 23rd, 2010 said...

Thanks for the crits. I really need to record a smaller frame size so I don’t have to zoom around all the time… I’m hoping that will help with the encoding issues. I’ve never encoded anything this long for the web and it’s definitely been a learning process.

The recording of myself in the corner was more for me to see where I got hung up on this first run and it will be unlikely to show up in the future. I was just too lazy to encode the recording twice.

My God I could have so used this a month ago. I had to rig an octopus, first time.

germany just won an important game at the world cup, so i may have had as many more sips of beer than the monkey had whiskey. Nevertheless, this has totally blown my mind. And it was so much better than the stupid soccer game. Thanks. Both of you, monkey and gorilla, have such a great way of presenting and teaching – you demand concentration and challenge the listener but at the same time do not hold everything for granted – meaning you do not skip too many steps and let us keep up – even if those of us who are not professionals (,yet )
by the way – living in fucking brooklyn and staying inside 10 hours for recording a great tutorial on a beautiful sunny and working free day – instead of enjoying breakfast or dinner or a beer somewhere at bedford avenue, that demands an big extra thanks!
best from germany
ps: now that i get more sober, i think i will watch the tutorial a second time

julio on July 7th, 2010 said...

Too bad Spain got you off the World Cup just one hour ago.
greetings from Madrid.

Patrick de Bruin on July 11th, 2010 said...

I was going to laugh at you here, but I guess congratulations are more in place! Greetings from Amsterdam.

Thanks, I don’t think I’ve watched a more enjoyable tutorial. I really like the ‘rambling’ style – that’s what it feels like when you’re learning/playing, not too goal focused, just trying stuff out.
Also wanted to say that you can get spirals out of the bend deformer, just rotate it a little in relation to the object. It won’t give you that beautiful logarithmic falloff though
Thanks again.

Just my notes during the tutorial;
First off, I understand the screen trade-off using the front facing camera in the tut, but the way you and Mike talk to *me* it works really well. It removes the sitting trough [another voice].

Second, Mike, don’t appologize this was one of the best tutorials out there. And in the great filosofy of Nick: Teach why and flow, instead of click here and there. I come here to see the more indepth stuff. So it is okay to focus on advanced stuff.

Third; Love to hear more about Da Vinci’s Golden Ratio. I’m a scientific guy and know what it is and how nature applied it, but never seen it apply in 3d graphics. (again don’t appologize to go in to that stuff)

Forth; I need to know more about expresso. I see it happening, but I don’t understand why. Not a lot of information (basics) on that around on the net.

Fifth; Alcohol seems to help you talk to yourself

Sixth; You’re a genius. great move Nick! Another angle on motion graphics is always welcome

truly epic! loving the sacred geometry shit..

I’m really diggin’ this! I’m terrible at math, still lovin’ it.

nick this is amazin.
seriously real deep mind frying shit.
this guys real good teaches alot of alot in those 40 min. i am pretty much a beginner talkin about animations so this stuff while amazing is way over my league, i can barely know where xpersso is nor do i have ever touched the character menu. this is better than good, again, yet throws beginner like me in the animation field a bit too deep in the water.

Awesomeness! Can’t wait to do it. I’m on this site like every day now!

The monkey and gorilla up to some tricks! awesome tut especially for newbies like me starting out. Realized now there so much more to C4d than just animating by keyframe.

You guys should do more tuts together. passed on the greyscale site on to some of my class buddies even they in awe!!!!!

Well done guys
from South Africa

Now that is what I’m talking about! Mike is a grrrrreat asset to the site. Thank you for this awesome tutorial Gorilla and thank you Mike. Love the style of the tutorial…

Hi everyone,

Xpresso question:

Suppose i have 10 Root joints, how i can control the PSR of each one with only “1″ controller ? Then from that add “random” to have different “movement”.

Dont know if i’am clear in english, i’am a froggy.

Thank you both, you rock.

Charles

really, really, really great. Like the depth pace and complexity. Also really good to have an insight into such a great xpresso workflow, its been baffling me for weeks. I Would love to see more and judging from the comments above, I guess so would everyone else.

Really appriciate you sharing guys.

Tom

really thanks fot that nick…we all say thanks to you and the monkey…both of you are amazing designers…thanks for share your knowledge

Thanks Mike and Nick!
Mike this is pretty complex stuff for me right now, but i loved the way you presented it..looking forward to more.

you could also try the mohawk

Mike, have a Chivas on me!
Thanks so much for sharing this, I really like having this more complicated learning material around. Big up!

This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for! A simple and understandable examination of joints.

Thanks so much for this one.

Is there no limit to this blogs greatness.

Mike, congrats on your first tutorial.
I like the free form way you took us through the tut.
I wouldn’t change your presentation style for your next tutorial.
You’re a natural at this, and it’s a great way to learn!
Best,
J

THANK YOU! this stuff is so awesome – its easy to find a lot of tuts that show how to use all of mograph and all the other cinema tools, but its hard to find strong intermediate resources that reveal such clever and sophisticated techniques – THANK YOU THANK YOU

cant wait for more!

The Monkey, that was an awesome tutorial! Hope to share a whiskey with you later in the future, haha. I was looking at your 2004 sketchbook and was wondering how you did the liquid and the smoke themes. The liquid was cool when it came out and then soaked into the floor.

Can’t wait to see more from you here!

anim8tr on June 24th, 2010 said...

Excellent tutorial full of great stuff. I would like more in depth explanation into the expresso nodes and really what they are and why chosen. That’s the hard part, is realizing “why” you need “what” expresso node to do what you need it to do.

the_Monkey on June 24th, 2010 said...

OhBeOne… The liquids from that 2004 sketchbook were done with Thinking Particles. In fact, I think it was a tutorial that actually came with the Thinking Particles manual (back when C4D still came with paper manuals). Believe it or not, that animation has very special significance to me because it was what inspired my first discoveries with audio driven time remapping. The Artifaks piece was pretty much born out of experiments revisiting that first sketch from 2004.

http://4dthieves.com/projects/do/ecko10/Liquids_c22a-H264.mov

This sketch will likely be the source of my next tutorial. That way I can show you liquids and timetracks in a single run. That may need to be a two part-er just because of the volume of information that needs to be covered, but I love the effect and I’m proud of the research.

If you’re referring to the blue smoke… that’s just animated noise.

Awesome explanation about joints! The Xpresso part is harder to understand why you used each of those things, it would be great to have a more in depth tutorial about it!!

Thanks for it!

Mike – I’d be curious how you would add some soft IK dynamics to this controller. I’ve played around with soft IK the using the joint tool before -but not with xpresso.

Any ideas?

the_Monkey on June 24th, 2010 said...

Well keep in mind that this is an FK rig so if you want IK you’ll have to create a system where you can switch back and forth between them. Like so…

http://4dthieves.com/files/gsg/chains/IK-Spirals-H264.mov

Also, if anybody is looking for something more challenging to dissect, there is a dynamic chain that uses constraints rather than FK or IK that’s included in CS_Tools. Under CS_Examples > theMonkey > CS_BassFish. It was created with a technique that uses sequential delay constraints that I first saw described by Kai Pedersen in his “Boing” tutorial over at Cineversity.

daveglanz on June 24th, 2010 said...

Okay, now that I know that “FK” is “forward kinematics” – that’s making more sense. I’d be curious to know how you did the sample you just posted.

And while I’m thinking about it, why isn’t there a “soft fk?”

Mike,
Thank you very much.

Just wow. I have just recently started seriously playing around in C4D to enhance things I was doing in After Effects (I actually found this site through videocopilot) and XPresso was kinda one of those scary unknown things in the program,lol. This helped me ALOT to understand it a little better, thank you. This site has been one of the best sources on the subject I’ve found out there. I love how its entertaining at the same time as you are learning something. I loved the rambling about the golden ratio stuff. If thats what happens after not even one whiskey, I’d love to sit down and get hammered with you,lol god knows what I may learn. As far as crits on the screencast, everything seemed great however I like how the program Nick uses shows the buttons he is hitting as he’s going along. I teach at a design school here in PA and its easier for my students to see what Im doing as opposed to me saying “hit ctrl+j on your keyboard”. everything else was top notch man. Hope there will be more to come from Both you and the Gorilla. Thank you both.

Dear Axis Nazi,

I am grateful for this wonderful piece of info!

Good job already!

What can i say mmmhhh.
Damn m8 this is great.

Respect!

That’s awesome! Looking forward for more tuts from you Mike! Thanks guys.

Thanks for the excellent tutorial.
Could you do a tutorial on time tracks i really loved the way you used time tracks in your NAB presentation.I’ve been trying but couldn’t get it right..It would be helpful.

hey…dude, you rock. I really dig tutoriales that are not so start to finish product. Tutoriales about really really specific funcions are cool…now its playtime.

A small change to the logic: arithmetic progression in Scale, rather than geometric, helps for geometric patterns with equidistant rolls.
Sample animation: http://flic.kr/p/8dsc3L
I made Scale a function of Delta constant and the Index of a Joint: S = (1-i*d)/(1-(i-1)*d)
Thus the lengths of joints would be, i.e. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
In case of 90 degree angle, it would be squares, with constant distance of 2 between neighbor parallel segments.
(Was just thinking of how to imitate a real carpet rolling in/out : )
Thanks again Mike for inspiration and helping me to dig into XPresso!

Thank you Monkey, I appreciate the joints.

great tut man! I would really be interested to see how you did the bullet effect with the curled bones and the debris on the sample animation. That shiznit was siznick!!

That was pretty dope. I waiting for long time tutorial like this. I even send an e-mail to Nick about this. Thanks you for that. And you are a really good teacher Mike. I can finally beginning to understand the logic behind bone and joints. But I have trouble with the how to use weight tools and how to apply properly to the character. I try to rig a car but I can’t. I’ve so much learn to do. But I can’t wait your next tutorials. Thanks again. Keep up to good work.

Yaaaaaaay

Ray Olsen on June 28th, 2010 said...

Thanks Monkey, pacing and complexity was good for me, can’t wait for more!

Now if there was only a plug in , some script that would simplify this whole process of Batch renaming, xpresso setup etc, and just leave us the juice it would’ve been great.

Wish I could C.O.F.F.E.E

the_Monkey on June 29th, 2010 said...

I’ll take problem solving over plugins any day (that’s where I think the juice is).

That being said, a script has been made to do this and will be posted as soon as everybody gets the chance to do a little homework.

o hell yeah, just rediscovered the mathgeek in me…….now i am gettin myself a single malt whiskey and freak out a bit….

thanks for sharing mike!

I’m running 10.5 – there doesn’t seem to be a way to copy the User Data Interface (at 15:10 in the tutorial)? I don’t see that option, at least. Am I missing something, or is that an R11 thing? If so, uh, what are my options for 10.5?

Wow – this was very ummm… different.
I have a couple of questions…

1. Could you give a ran-down of some of the stuff you use in C4D to make your workflow more streamline/optimized. E.g I noticed a couple of plugins you had installed. The Xplode plugin that you mentioned last time (Artifaks)is pretty cool. Also, your scene seemed to have an “initial set-up” consisting of lights, a stage, etc. Please give us a small breakdown.

2. What were your learning resources? School, mentors, tutorials, experimenting? Your stuff is seriously high level. I haven’t seen any other tuts on the interwebz delving into so much detail.

3. What’s that you’re drinking? I think i need something like that to fry my brain-cells in preparation for your next awesome tut.

Last, but not least. Thanks for this. It was def awesome. keep ‘em coming!

Sorry. I’m a little late to the party, but I had to post. EXCELLENT TUT!. I’ve been curious about joints and bones for a while now, and I’ev always felt intimidated by Xpresso, but you’ve really made the interface seem more user friendly. I’ll play around and maybe post something to the site. Again, GREAT JOB! Thanks guys.

Great tut! looks like he had a few bong hits before the lesson

That was sick! I’ve never learned so much in such short time. I guess I’ll be watching this tut a few times more, so my slow brain could put everything at right places in my head.
Thank you very much wise Monkey! Peace!

very very VERY nice bourbon. And a super-de-lux GREAT tutorial!

thanx man!

J

Taught me a lot about joints. For the user data, I think one has to upgrade to R11 or above, because I couldn’t do it somehow to just click at the data rows and then make a group out of them. Anyway, this was a heck of fun to watch, giving me a new insight of things. More of this please. And the monkey rocks, very cool guy…cheers

Love the stuff on the Golden Ratio More Science!!! Professor! MORE SCIENCE!

perfect tutorial, thanx!!!

Top tutorial! This gave a lot of new ideas to play around with. Hope to see some more of these from Mike… and from Nick also

Maybe a shower would do the trick — for the hair I mean

Hey Mike,

Really AWESOME stuff, man. Three thumbs up…
I will try to use this concept in one of my current projects.

Keep doin’ this stuff, man.

Love your outtakes on Vimeo.

What an excellent tutorial. You’re presentation style is fine Mike and the info is gold – pure gold. Off to watch part 2 and looking forward to it.

Great overview for someone like me who is new to cinema 4D but knows a bit about the fundamentals of 3D. I appreciated the re-iteration to look into things like golden ratios, and the point of knowing more over less is easily overlooked. Cheers!

great stuff!!!!
the monkey vs the gorilla

Yup!

Very nice addition to Nick’s already great tutorial series.
This, perhaps more technical feel, brings another element to the table that teaches you a lot but above all makes you wanna go and learn all the other aspects of C4D that are still a bit hazy… perhaps not stuff you will necessarily use all the time but the point is you really wanna know now!

Big ups to the new visitor on planet of the apes!

J

hi, first of all, thax mike for this sharing. it help a lot.
i would like to figure out somethng if you have time. my spline is ending up on a point that is not lead by the script, by the last joint.
in other words the last point of my spline is anchored to something else and dont move with the rest of the joint…
do you know by any chances what can cause this bug?

Okey I know its a late replay, but right now trying to recreate what your doing, its all pretty self explaining, but I’ve hit a wall so to say.
At approximately 34 to 35 minutes in the vid, you change the coordinates of the “drag/scale/rotate-point” from the middle to the bottom left.

…

Maybe its a stupid question, but “HOW?!?!?!?”

If you read the above, i’m just in to C4D, using it now for about 3 to 4 weeks, but if it means anything; Great video, also watched part two before I started to recreate, and I’m digging it, love your “thinking”.