In part two of this tutorial, we finish up the lighting and animation in Cinema 4D and prepare our scene to render and for compositing in After Effects. In After Effects, I show you how to use Trapcode Particular, RS Motion Blur, Frischluft Out Of Focus, and Curves to composite the scene, add bubbles and to color correct our render and finish our scene.
Now it’s your turn. If you make something using this technique, link it up in the comments. I would love to see it. Remember, these flying particles can be anything, not just cherries. Try coming up with your own concept. maybe Golf Tees or Legos or Lolly Pops? Make it spell out your name. Try everything to make the spot your own and push the technique further. It’s the best way to learn. Thanks for watching.
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76 Comments
The sweet taste of part 2!
Hey Nick, quick tip:
You can use the MoGraph Tag > MoGraph Cache, so you don’t have to calculate the physics for every frame when you’re rendering.
Awesome stuff man, keep up the good work!
Jacques van Heerden on June 16th, 2010 said...
@ Nicklas, Nick usually does, but it seems he is living up to the statement he made in part 1. “We are going to be very lazy in this tutorial.”
Laterz!
Hey Nick is there a place I can download your cinema layout? I really like it, it is much better than the default.
Soul Walker on June 16th, 2010 said...
hey harry actually it is possible to customize one to your likings,or maybe there be an option to export that custom layout you like… whatever works for you!
just my 2 cents..
Stephen on June 16th, 2010 said...
Harry, Buy the HDRI Light Kit — Awesome resource and the layout is included.
You’re such a wizard with After Effects :’)
not quite what i was expecting in the camera department. cstools is nice and all but i guess i was expecting something more than just point a to point b. i guess i’ll just have to keep playing with the native camera until i get comfortable with it. thanks anyway; keep up the good work.
here’s a quick piece i threw together using this technique. i’m planning on making the particles a little cooler, but for now it’s just cubes & spheres. i added a rigid body tag to the emitter so the emitted cubes & spheres in the background interact with the dynamic cubes & spheres that form the text. thanks for all your help nick!
http://vimeo.com/12618463
Nick you are my hero !!!
Totally unrelated : I just found out that if you put R1 in the selection of a material it will cover only the bevels of that object :]
question: if the image sey explored? image now inverse: ok a object: like the name and this “name” blow up our flyinh some meshes nick how i cam make that?
Fun tutorial! But I was hoping to find the solution for the white edges coming from the alpha channel once you import in ae. Nick gets away with it here because of the bright background, but with a darker background it’s really anoying. Someone knows the workaround?
Ameen Ali on June 16th, 2010 said...
For me i would start working on C4d on a black background
maybe when u work on a white BG it gives that white edges .. ?
still needs to be tested and unfortunately I have no time to do it =[
my finals start next week for 2 weeks then graduation then hella load of C4D works ^^
Firemind on June 16th, 2010 said...
In Cinema 4D rendersettings, choose ’straight alpha’, this will give you an unmatted alpha.
Here’s a must read tutorial about how to choose straight or premultiplied alpha and avoid problem like that.
http://www.helloluxx.com/after-effects-compositing/straight-vs-premultiplied-understanding-alpha-channels/
Raoul on June 16th, 2010 said...
I miss the reply button, this was for Max question.
Max on June 17th, 2010 said...
thanks for the reply’s, I’ll check it out
NICK You can also press command + M when you’re ready to render in after affects instead of instead of whatever the other one you mentioned was with the slash key..
FANTASTIC TUTORIAL…
have a question about the tutorial please help me http://twitpic.com/1xd86a
The Gorilla on June 16th, 2010 said...
What is the problem?
Ameen Ali on June 16th, 2010 said...
I guess u need to scale the cherries size down
caio portella on June 16th, 2010 said...
ohh thx for post ok ahhh i create the tube* and change for volume : clone object tab .. but is not like the video all the cherrys not stay arrond the tube ^^ sorry my english is very bad look the image ^^
I just watched one of your ustream videos and at the end of it you were saying how you wanted people to do their own thing with with these tutorials – but ones like this were you go through how to model the cherry etc is only encouraging people to have similar work.
What I liked were your quick tutorials on tracer objects etc which show you a cool example of C4D can do, but also something that’s practical.
I love these awesome tutorials, they look so good, but maybe rather than showing us how to replicate what you made exactly you’d be better off showing the techniques you used to make the particles move and how they formed the letters. So just the general techniques involved, so it’d FORCE people to come up with something original – rather than having 100s of cherry 7up ads.
Great work though. I’ll keep on visiting your site daily!
Shahrez Rafiq on June 16th, 2010 said...
Yeah but you can always use mangoes instead of Cherries.
We can also use spline effector to create some more dynamic transitions.
I did one in which the S,R,Q characters (extruded) combined to form [SRQ]. I mean we can always modify the technique to our needs.
Max on June 16th, 2010 said...
Oh of course and that’s a great thing for people to do – I think it’s great Nick shows us these techniques, but all I was saying is that he said on ustream that he wants us to do our projects with these techniques. So rather than showing us how to recreate exactly what he’s done – he should just show the techniques, so in a way it’d force people to be original, rather than having the same thing over and over and essentially taking credit for Nick’s effort.
This will also mean everyones’ show reels will be different.
Matte -> simple choker with a setting of 1 usually does the trick for alpha fringe.
Hey Nick, thanks! Learned some cool tips!
I got a question about yours HDRI Light Kit. In the compositing tag for the soft box , the box for camera visibility is not responding am clicking on it to uncheck visible for camera, but it remains checked. So i have to apply another compositing tag and then it works. Another thing, where the images for HDR sky supposed to be? You sad that they are comes with it.
Thanks man!
Thomas on June 17th, 2010 said...
There’s an option in the Softbox Controls: “Seen By Camera”.
The HDRIs are in Lightkit\Extras\HDR Images
The Gorilla on June 17th, 2010 said...
HI, Zako,
There is a “Seen By Camera” Checkbox that should take care of the first part. The HDRI images are in the EXTRAS folder that came with the light kit. Hope that helps. Thanks for getting the kit!
Cheers,
nick
Hi Nick, this is Sascha from Germany. Thanks for this tutorial. It’s allways fun seeing you juggle with the tools. Great work man. I’ve seen that your alpha-render is quite ugly. I mean you get white borders around the cherries. In the Render-Settings under “Anti-Aliasing” you have to check “Consider Multi-Passes”. Now the Alpha-Matt will be anti-aliased too (and the Motion-Output too). For me it’s the nicest change in 11.5
Keep on going Nick. I love your work!
The Gorilla on June 17th, 2010 said...
Great tip. Ill have to give it a try next time. I was wondering about that. Thanks!
klopsknoedel on June 17th, 2010 said...
!!MAYBE!! only the alpha from the Object-Buffer will be smoothed. But could be that even the Straight-Alpha works.
Hey Nick. Amazing tutorial, a million thanx, i learn a lot.
If someone wants to use a strawberry for this tutorial, heres one i make for a project i start and it looks great..
http://www.speedyshare.com/files/22999380/Strawberry_model_by_SteaM10.rar
Another great tutorial ! bravo
Here’s something I’ve done recently. Maybe the technique isn’t exactly like yours, but I think it has something in common with your animation http://vimeo.com/12545808
It’s a slash key!
Wow, now thats a heck of a tutorial. Thanks and keep up the good work!
I was really looking for that AE plug-in that could handle motion vector data. Thanks to your tutorial, now I know which one I need.
Cool.Specially the little curves thang you made that upped the orange sunny by downing the blues.
Gotta love the small things.
this is my version based on the tut, thanks for all the help
http://vimeo.com/12616366
The Gorilla on June 17th, 2010 said...
Dope Nerf Darts!
Hi, I love it. Really cool. I used this tutorial to make a picture with lego bricks. Now I want to print it on a A1 poster. Which format and resolution should I render?
Thanks.
Hey Nick how u?
Great Stuff! Nice class of C4D!
Congratullations.
great tutor, Nick!
but sometimes will you make a “how to solve straight-alpha-white-edges problem?”?
it would be awesomely amazing!
ok nick please look this site more expecificly the video about espn+abs: how a can create this logo the gloss effect in black?
http://www.nailgun.tv/
view plase?
ok ohh i look the tutorial again and yes i forget the scale the cherrys* i’m stupid !
Sorry my english! flamengo !
Nick – Thank you!
I’ve been through both tutorials a couple of times.
I really, really appreciate your contribution to the wide world of awesome sexy. You rock.
I look forward to many more of your end trademark wave goodbyes:)
Hi Nick,
Great tutorial as always. I have a couple of questions for you or anyone out there. I understand the motion blur pass from C4D, but am wondering if using CC Forced Motion Blur might not be as good a solution for the motion blur? Also would a DOF pass rendered out of C4D provide info. for one of the many plug ins that could use the Z space info. for a more accurate DOF blur? I’m really beginning to groove on C4D thanks to this site!
aaron on June 21st, 2010 said...
CC force motion blur doesn’t work on rendered movies.
I dont see photo jpg when i get ready to render out in after effects
Hey, Nick,
Thoroughly enjoyed both parts of the tutorials as usual. Your generosity has helped me and many others, I’m sure, learn some awesome stuff. One place I get stuck on the 5 second projects is with background music. I hope it’s OK to put in a request here, but could you talk, sometime, in one of your “businessy” videos a little about where to get or how to make good background music for pieces if you’re not a musician, for lack of a better word? One other request is in the planning stages of a graphic, when you’re talking to your customer, I hear a lot about storyboarding. How much of this do you do?
Thanks again!
Brett Perry on June 18th, 2010 said...
Hi Steve,
I’ll plug a few of my favorite sources for BG music. Both Video Copilots Pro Scores and either Smartsound or Sony’s Cinescore are great sources for BG music that you can customize for professional results. I believe all three software can be purchased for less than a couple of hundred dollars and will provide endless customizeable music scores. Hope that helps.
Steven Jenkins on June 19th, 2010 said...
Thanks! I’ll check those out. I was cosidering getting a Jam Pack for Garage Band, but I had already bought the voices one and it didn’t quite work out. Good to see some other alternatives, especially for those who aren’t so musically inclined.
Is there an other way to make the motion blur withput this RS Motion Blur plugin? We dont have it, we wont buy it…
Martin on June 18th, 2010 said...
I believe You can use CC Vector Blur and point to blur pass layer…
Nikolaus on June 19th, 2010 said...
We try, but looks realy ugly…. hm.
Steven Jenkins on June 19th, 2010 said...
If you can do global illumination, then you have the advanced render module. The AR module contains several options for motion blur from within Cinema 4d.
Nice Nick, loved both parts.
Heres mine.
http://vimeo.com/12686381
i hope i took it further?!
referring to: “if you want something positioned in ae where you saw it in 3d..” use a external compositing tag…
Hi Nick!
I like this tutorial so much, it is very usefull.
But I have a big question about it:
Everything works when we try this tutorial with splines like text splines, but in the original Psyop spot we see the cherrys transformed to 3d objects like a trees or a bird. If I try objects with spline effector, it dosen’t work……..:(
How could this very beautiful effect words between 2-3 cloner objetct?
Thanks again for the tut!
I’m waiting for your kind replay!
Ciao
Saúl Alves on August 23rd, 2010 said...
You can try the opposite. Instead of driving the particles to a spline, you can drive them to the object that contains them. Just position the effector where they form the spline and then move it so they go back to their object.
sorry: reply
Thanks Nick! Your tuts very best!
7uperb!
hey nick what is that “DeGamma” that you use in your render settings
The Gorilla on June 20th, 2010 said...
Its a plugin I’m playing with. Ill give a full review if I continue to use it.
Wow!! I loved this post! Thanks for making these awesome tutorials Nick!
Here’s my piece: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xfrf/4720198862/
No post in AFx yet.
Found a solution to filling fat spline shapes or volumetric objects with clones:
extrude nurbs with a small depth,
use this extrude for the cloner ‘Object’,
apply Spline Effector to move clones away from it,
animate S.E. to stop inluencing the clones – they’ll fly to the volumetric object.
The reverse of the initial stage in the Cherry tutorial.
For a Volume-to-Volume transition I’d add an interim spline effector ’scene’, and switch the Cloner’s ‘Object’ during the keyframes where the S.E. is active.
Attila on June 21st, 2010 said...
Great!…
That was my question too!
Thanks a lot.
But the volume-to-volume transition you wrote…how will the cherrys fly from one tw another…or will fly away and back to the main volume objects place?
thanx
Serge!Sokolov on June 21st, 2010 said...
Attila, the idea is two have an additional spline ’stage’ between A and B volumetric objects.
Here I did a short test from a cube to a cone: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xfrf/4721064994/
First they run from Cube to the Spline.
As soon as they arrive to the Spline, switch the Object in Cloner from Cube to Cone.
Then continue effectors move to complete second part: Spline to Cone.
In the example I used two effectors – one for each transition. Bad thing is that the Clones velocity is affected in the middle and the flow from A to B is not smooth.
I’m still in search the solution.
Nick, please advice, how to run the ‘cherries’ from, say, a Cube to a Torus volumetric shape?
Hi nick wow another Gr8 tutorial i whant plz to ask u a question that really bother me , what is the best PC characteristic do i look for to have a super fast render
should i want to have more ram or more graphic card or More CPU and what is the best CPU that u recommend im really confused plz help me
The Gorilla on June 21st, 2010 said...
The best thing you can do to get a fast render is learn how to optimize your scene and render settings. Buying a faster computer may get you double the speed or even 4X, but if you learn to optimize, you can get 100x faster renders. That said, an 8core mac and a ton of ram helps too.
Hi there!Thanks for all the great tutorial on your website Nick.
I wondered if you or anyone elese here had an idea on how to loop a particular particle system.In order to for exemple making a bubble wall that’s perfectly looping
balunium on June 24th, 2010 said...
hi bruce i once a while watched this tutorial on the Cow, its not really for particular but the principles are the same and this works for many particle systems enjoy
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/CC_Looping_Particles.php
Bruce on June 25th, 2010 said...
Hi balunium, thank you very much for the link, much appreciated
the issue your are having with the white edges on your cherries is because you checked the “stratight” check box in C4D under the “alpha” checkbox. Had you not checked that box you would not have had any issues with the cherries edges. That is also the solution to the problem you had with the bubble not looking correct after you rendered it out the first time.
Other than that Great tut. Thanks Nick for all you do.
I gotz a problem with motion blur (using RS motion blur 2.x). When I put plugin on track and I select source to be motion vector multipass, I get this kind of result (http://yfrog.com/cbwhutj). My MB map looks ok (http://yfrog.com/3uwhutmotionj). Any suggestions?
guest on June 21st, 2010 said...
seems there is well known rsmb bug
Hey Gorilla! Awesome tutorial! I’m working on a event video and these tools will help me a lot! I’ll post it here when I’ll be done! But I have a problem, the project file for after effect that i save can’t be read.. You say I have to install a plugin for Cinema 4D in after effect???
thanks
Hi Nick. Just another great tut.
I`m interested in the right side panel in the open or save window. I guess this is like a system utility. Can you give me the name of this utility ?
Keep the good work, man.
Thx.
The Gorilla on June 22nd, 2010 said...
It’s called Default Folder X and it’s the best thing ever.
Abian on June 22nd, 2010 said...
Thanx!!
fabio made a sweet bubble brush for photoshop, free to download for anyone who is extra lazy:
http://abduzeedo.com/simple-underwater-scene-photoshop
(step 9)
hey Nick, how about this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m25z8zmKmA
How do you believe it was realized? In the time the technology that exists now wasn’t available, I am speaking of beginning of the 90’s, it would be cool to make a tutorial of that
The Gorilla on June 23rd, 2010 said...
My initial guess is stop motion.
i like the part where u come back after rendering and it is already sunday 6PM… “the render just finished!” xD
Thanx for the work Nick!
The Gorilla on June 23rd, 2010 said...
The magic of tv.
hey
i got a couple questions first i wasnt able to see the easy cam data in after effect any idea why…? and the motion vector pass is all green.I dont think there is a data on that an last what can i use for motion blur i dont have real smart motion blur
thanks
balunium on June 24th, 2010 said...
maybe your easy cam cam wasnªt active when you exported your data from cinema 4d ,when you export to after you should have the right camera selected, hope this help , salut
M.h salimi on July 28th, 2010 said...
Same Problem too .
Help plz .
M.h salimi on July 29th, 2010 said...
p.s : i mean in motion blur pass , everything is all green :\
Oliver on July 29th, 2010 said...
Salimi, try going to the render settings and lower the “Motion Scale Value” (by default 128).
Give a try with a value of one when the cherries are moving to see if you get some red.
(It worked for me even though the pass should work without changing that value.)
Hope it helps.
Lucas on July 29th, 2010 said...
Same problem here…
M.h salimi on August 6th, 2010 said...
Hey Oliver
in first thx for reply ,
i try value “1″, and i got some red cherries on motion blur pass , but still not the result of tutorial .
i wonder is it just me or what bcz i dont have photojpg 90 with or without audio in my AE output module.. did i miss sumthing? im using windows btw..
balunium on June 24th, 2010 said...
no, probably that is a custom module nick did, in the output moduleyou just open the tab and in format options select photo-jpeg codec from the list and in the same preferences panel just select with or without audio as convinent
I love the fact that you don’t just give the numbers to punch in as you said.
Just one of the reasons your tutorials are the best out there imo.
Hi Nick, great tut , thankx for keeping the knowledge flowing in this mess of trash that is called internet, heres a litlle piece, not too far from what you did but Holy shit! , http://vimeo.com/12818810
hey great tut nick, i am currently working on a project that is slightly similar to this and ive been having some trouble. I am trying to figure out a way to do this effect only with 3d objects and not just splines…. like getting a bunch of clones to form 3d shapes and switch between them like u did with the text… I cant quiet figure it out… any ideas?????????
So i have a question to make…. When u Open C4D the projects settings are always set to 30fps and in Render Settings the video size to 320*240 … is there a way to always open the project at 25fps and the output to 1280*720 witch is the custom settings i use to all my projects?
Hi, excellent tutorial man !
I am a beginner and i asked myself if it was possible to create the same animation with the “Attraction tag” ? (just to know)
thanx !
PS : by the way you should add a forum to your blog, it would be great ! we could share between us and not just you and us.
Took me a while to get this finished, but I really like how it ended up. I think I got a new shot for my reel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QI0pgqTFOU
Jamie on June 29th, 2010 said...
i love how you combined the two colors!!!
The Gorilla on June 29th, 2010 said...
Looks good. Like the colors too.
Hi Nick,
How do I control the speed of the objects moving from the cylinder to the text spline?
Is it the falloff that defines the speed of the objects?
cheers
http://vimeo.com/12913583
my outcome … i’m not really satisfied with this so i think in the future i will change it up a little bit
Hi Nick,
Do you work with RealFlow at all? If not, got any suggestions on making liquid effects with Cinema?
Thanks Nick, your tutorials are awesome!
I looked all the 2 part just to see how you makes the bubbles in c4d. Then I see particular! Oh no, that’s what im trying to avoid. hahaha!
Anyway, is a very usefull tutorial.
And the mograph cache tag’s recomendation too.
hey man i saw these two videos on youtube and the have a really cool effect i was wondering if you could do a tutorial on this effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gp0vPXRORw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhRD8J7BnnQ&feature=related
here is my project based on this tut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17vkUKIhk-I
Nick… I am using GI to render the scene… I tried to use the same SKY technique that you used, but it gave me a REALLY grainy look on the cherries up close… Even though its only for a few frames, it is very noticeable… I started another render using IR Camera Animation and the first 25 frames render a prepass in 2 hours…
It is 34 hours later, I am on frame 42 out of 330… Still doing the prepass… And I know this shouldn’t be a 6 day render… Is there ANY advice you can give to speed this shit up bro!?!?! Im desperate…
The Gorilla on July 18th, 2010 said...
Be sure you are using a sky sampler for your GI. If it’s grainy, turn up your samples.
Nice one on part 2! Learning a lot from this.
“If you don’t have CSTools installed… Holy crap. Stop watching me. Go install CStools.”
Loved that.
ok so i rendered my project in c4d and tried to open it in AE and i cant open all of the files at once, it’ll only let me open 1. also the .aec file wont open either..is there something im missing, or am i gunna have to open each of the 500 frames?
The Gorilla on July 18th, 2010 said...
Make sure you have “import as Tiff sequence” on.
hey there
i didnt create something more unique but I did this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xr-AL0IJ5Y
maybe just some extra stuff… a love in action
really cool result and technique!
thanks for sharing!
Hi Nick!
And this was my first C4D tutorial, so I did my best at re-doing everything ^___^’
This is my first week in C4D and u’ve been my only guide
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWhZ7MYR_2M&hd=1
but there is one issue … I wish you could help me out
if objects(cherries) are too big – text ain’t readable
but if you make objects smaller – letters get empty inside … I guess you can use bold and normal fonts to fill the text, but may be there is more convenient way around it?
thatnks for the tutorial! 8P
The Gorilla on August 14th, 2010 said...
If you have smaller particles and it’s not readable, then you have to add more particles. That should help it be more readable. Font choice is key too.
Stanly ok on August 16th, 2010 said...
more particles won’t help, they keep aligning on the edges like this:
http://i072.radikal.ru/1008/07/6bae107f84e9.jpg
I guess this is just the way it works … (=
doesn’t work with After Effects cs5 ?
Great tutorial, just got one problem.
My spline effectors seem to briefly spread the “Cherries” just before they settle in position. I looked at tweaking:
“effector strength”, “Falloff Strength” and “Falloff Size” but it still didn’t smooth it out. Any Ideas?
Great job! i “hate” u! hehe
Did u guys know how to create some sort of effects like
KRAKATOA in 3dsmax. smoke effects, or Harry Porter’s Death eater effect. Can C4d produce something like that?
other than thinking particle or pyro.
thnx
everything was fine until i have a problem with and one more spline effector in total is 3 and 3 texts i wanted to write SharpAceMedia but the objects stuck as they didnt start from the cylinder but from Media the last word and didnt move on.
BTW i wish you can make a trial vesion or the HDRi
Thnx alot <3