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How to Build a Softbody Glass Mesh with Dynamics in Cinema 4D 322 Comments

In this tutorial, I show you how to make a Glass Mesh object with spheres inside using Cloner Objects, Softbody dynamics and rigid body dynamics. I also use the Infinite floor technique for the white floor. This tutorial was made using Cinema 4D Version 12. But, if you are still running earlier versions of Cinema, have no fear. There has been some great discussion on how to do this technique in 11.5 in the comments over at this post. As always, feel free to push this tutorial and try your own version with different shapes or even text! Can’t wait to see what fun stuff you come up with.

Final Result

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322 Comments

    • Moyosode

      please did you get any help on the dynamic with you v 11.5

      Reply

  2. Tomas Z

    Hey ive done this inspired on your tut just to let you know ,oh and i did it with 11.5 never figured out how to do the cloth working with dinamycs together, ive researched a lot :S
    http://vimeo.com/18705600

    Reply

  4. Qaiser

    how to use Soft body in 11.5 version,
    I could not find in 11.5 Please help

    Reply

  6. Bob Gettis

    Hey Nick, Great tutorial! U might have figured out that cylinder problem you were having but if you didn’t… Cylinder State to Object, select all your verticies, functions/optimize, click ok. That essentially welds all of your verts together and will keep your caps from flying off the earth! Dunno why C4d has that set up as the default mesh but.. That should fix it for you! Keep the great tuts coming man

    Reply

    • André Renault

      Great tip! Also solves the issue for text though i did have to select the vertices at the extrusion’s both ends and use the close polygon hole in Structure (shortcut: M-D) to keep the particles inside… I’ll see if i can render it today and post it somewhere…
      Thanks for the tip! (im using r12 by the way…)

      Reply

  8. cosmo

    Great tut, thanks :) realy nice work and this give me a lot of knowlage about dynamics in C4D :)

    Reply

  10. Sazarret

    Hey! An awesome result there!!!

    But… now that you talk about phong I was wondering in there’s a tool or a plug-in to really improve the visual sub-division as Turbosmooth for 3DMax.

    I’m looking all over Internet without any success. PLEASE HELP!

    Reply

  11. Matt

    Has anyone figured out how to work around the softbody dynamics in v11.5? Or what happened to the posts where Nick said information on the problem could be found?

    Reply

  15. David

    Hi, I need help.
    I want to know why I have no ‘softbody’ in the dynamics panel, i see you have more dynamics and I have only three. I have the same version of the program. Please Help me

    Reply

  16. Shane

    Nick
    I just got C4D r12 and it keeps freezing, not sure if you can help. I have been running 11.5 with no issues. I have a 64 bit and 6 gb ram. Not sure what the issue could be. If you have a sec or any ideas what the problem could be I would really appreciate it.
    Thanks

    Reply

  17. Cha Hu Hyun

    Hi! gorilla!
    I recently knew this awesome tutorial video!
    I’m really crazy about this lecture!
    But I have some problem.
    Actually mine is version 11.5.
    I can’t find simulation icon on the bar which you used that function like create rigid body and so on on this tutorial.
    I need your advice ;-)
    If you let me know ASAP, I would be grateful.

    Reply

  18. Maarten

    Awsome tutorial, I’m a big fan.

    an other way of getting rid of your exploding caps problem is filletting your caps don’t know why it works but it does

    cheers

    Reply

  20. jerry

    heyy… i have the thrausi plugin but i have put it everywhere, from the plugin file in roaming to the plugin file in c4d’s location but when i go to c4d it doesnt appear in the plugin menu. can anyone help me???

    Reply

  21. jerry

    im sorry but i aint gettin any shadows with the overhead soft box and i am not getting any shadows with normal lights either :(

    Reply

  22. Donovan

    “Get the heck offa me, your touching me” HAHAHAHA I laughed for ages at this!

    Reply

  23. Ronny

    Hi, Nick! Very useful tutorial. Thanks!

    But, did u found a way how to do this with objects like cylinder or extruded text? I need it very much ((.

    Regards.

    Reply

  24. Joshua deLorimier

    Hey I can not figure out how to “trap” the objects inside another object…..I am using an emitter and it is shooting through my cube…and then I even tried to trick it with a plane and still doesn’t work…I switched the object to static mesh…since my object isn’t moving….in fact played with every setting the emitter is shooting through is there something in the dynamics tag of the emitter I should be looking at….thanks to anyone who can help…..
    here is the project file…thanks a lot nick and to everyone on this site….i am three weeks into learning cinema since being laid off, spending ten hours a day on it…I will be using it in my freelance work soon.

    Reply

  25. todd

    so i think, wait OooOOOOooOOooOOo! HERES what happened!

    Reply

  27. Moyosode

    pls can anyone help on the dynamics for v11.5, i cant seem to find my simulation tab where all the dynamics is at. Please help.. Please

    Reply

  28. Moyosode

    any help please when i hit the play bottom my dynamics don’t work?

    Reply

  30. mark

    Hi Nick

    Just want to thanks for the tuts, they are great.

    Keep them coming
    Mark

    Reply

  31. Daniel

    hey! nice tutorial, but i have a problem… the floor doesnt receives shadows, and y have marked cast shadow and receives shadow!! what ca i do?

    Reply

  32. ban

    hi nic, congratulations for your job.
    the issue from the cylinder may be fixed by
    making it editable and selecting optimize from function menu?
    regards from mexico!

    Reply

  33. Sam

    This is probably a basic question, but how do I get the shadows to not flicker? I tried turning the intensity down and backing up the light. I do not have the light kit, but have tried omni and area lights with area and soft shadows but cant figure it out.
    http://vimeo.com/28873927

    Reply

  34. angel

    Hi nick I’ve a question and maybe you can help me…I need create a scene where a close bag is falling and hit the floor, it has fruits inside..so these fruits must keep inside the bag and moving..while the bag must respond to physic and change its form…my question

    my bag is a soft body and it has the cloth tag
    my fruis are hard bodies and they’ve the collision cloth tag

    when i run the animation the physic works but my bag isn’t a cloth
    when i run the cloth option “relax” the cloth work but oviously not the physic…

    I know the solution would is in the cache option but I’m not pretty sure how resolv it..I’ve tried many ways and it still not worked

    thanks for help

    Reply

  35. JonD

    So I’m doing an infinite white background, and when I add a linear skylight it messes up the effect. Now I was like, “Okay I should just go to the composite tag and uncheck seen by camera”. Well it won’t let me, I uncheck it and then it automatically rechecks it. Any idea why?

    I love everything you do, your awesome! I’ve really learned a lot because of your tutorials and blogs.

    Reply
    • The Gorilla

      The Gorilla

      Make sure you go into the rig itself, where all the settings are to turn off “Seen by camera” instead of on the composite tag. I built it in.

      Reply

      • Alex

        Hi Nick :) I started watching your tutorial 2 weeks ago, and I totally love them.
        I know this is an old video, but I decided to start doing this one for my first try in C4D.
        I follow all your suggestion, and stuff, and advice :D But mine work sucks.
        Then I watch your last video in the “Speaking”, and I smiled when you talked about the comparison with your hero’s work, because it is exactly what i was thinking: “why mine orange balls are not so bright and the cage is not soft as his one? In his works the inside balls seem much more softy and better looking, and my light are sooo ugly D:”.
        So I’m not gonna ask you for values changes and stuff :) Just wanna say to you that now you are my mk12.
        I’m not studying any type of graphics school, I’m 19, and in Italy and I don’t know where I can go to learn, so I’m trying to self-educate myself.
        I’m trying to learn some AE, and C4D, and I’m not really really bad, at least I understand the mechanic :)
        So… Let’s finish up, just thank you for all this, I hope to become good and learn as much as I can here, I would really love to find a job in that environment :D

        Reply

  36. yassine

    hi this is my first time i comment i like your work and i follow all you”r lessons but i have C4D 11.5 and i dont have Softbody Dynamics how i can have it

    Reply

  37. download script

    I have learn several good stuff here. Definitely price bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how a lot attempt you place to create this kind of magnificent informative website.

    Reply

  39. adriano

    Hallo Nick,
    great tutorial, like always. I’ve a problem rendering the scene. Dynamics works great but when I render the scene the sphere and the plane just ignore the tags. I mean, the sphere breaks into the floor and it doesn’t change the form. Should I set something in the render settings?

    Thanks,
    A.

    Reply

  40. Jason

    This is SO awesome.

    I’m having a go at the tutorial but trying todo it with motext or just text imported from illustrator
    Nick do you know how it can be done with motext?

    Reply

  41. Stephane

    Loved that “ouuh” sound at 27:38 haha!

    Thanks for your tutorials, learning so much from them and always having a pleasant moment watching it!

    Reply

  44. Yoan

    This was one of the best tutorial ive ever saw. Thank you very much.

    Reply

  46. hamid

    Hi Nick
    special thanks for ur amazing tips & lessons
    I had a question regarding the Icosahedra look that you applied to your sphere.
    How can I apply that to a TEXT. Im trying to get those triangle look for a text like the one in the commercial (the 15sec)
    https://vimeo.com/24097232#
    the word Wonder and that diamond look & feel.
    thanks a lot
    Best
    HD

    Reply

  47. guriek

    This is a very cool tutorial to play with soft body tags. I am a huge fan of Nick and your awesome tutorials, really great job, inspiring and educational!

    I have a problem though when doing this same tutorial but with Boxes instead of spheres.

    If I create a cage cube, add it a rigid body tag, and then add a cloner inside with smaller cubes with rigid body tags and hit play, everything works perfect. The cubes just fall inside the cube cage while this falls as well to the floor and goes to rest with no problem. But If I change the rigid body tag in the cube cage to softbody tag and press play. the small cubes do not go to rest, they keep moving around inside the big cage with no reason. I have changed the collision noise to 0 and upped the damping in both dynamics tags, but can’t find a way for them to go to rest. Might be something to do with the force from the collision spreading around the soft body tag, but can’t make it fade. :(

    Reply

  48. Richie Williamson

    Great tutorial. You make it so doable. I’ve gotten some good ideas from this and can’t wait to implement. Thanks for getting back to me about the difficulty posting. I am now giving it a try. Oh and by the way Thanks again! and a happy new year!

    Reply

  49. Wikke

    Hi Nick,
    I tried to do this one by myself before looking at the tutorial. And instead of cloning the cilinders and spheres onto the other sphere, I tried to do it with an Atom Array.
    All of the rest I did the same.
    I put the atom array and the transparent sphere into a connect object, and then gave that the softbody dynamics tag. For some reason this doesn’t seem to work (the grid from the atom array kinda expands infinitely instead of falling down)..
    Is there a way to make this work? Or is the only solution to make the “cage” your way..?
    Thanks!

    Reply

    • Wikke

      Got it fixed! Had the tag placed on the array instead of the sphere it was made from. Putting it on the sphere solved it. Could do without the Connect Object btw.
      Thanks!

      Reply

  51. Anibal

    Please, I need your help!!
    When I render my scene, the refractions on the glass doesnt affect the back side of the sphere, I don’t know why… :( Its like the refractions had a fresnel on them.
    Thank you.

    Reply

  52. Anibal

    :D Sorry, I forgot to delete the phong tag. Thank you for your amazing tutorials. I’ve learned a lot of things with you. On other words, you’re my IDOL.
    I’m from Chile, sorry for bad english.

    Reply

  53. Chris Bourke

    Whenever I have colored textures, they always render out very desaturated and dark.
    Does anyone know why this might be?

    Best,
    Chris

    Reply

  55. Markus

    Hey man I love your tutorials. But I have a question – why didn’t you use the Atom Array to create the cylinders and spheres around the big sphere?

    Reply

  56. teranmedia

    Thanks the Nick for a lesson. Often I visit your project. It is grateful for all your works. A nickname and you couldn’t give interview for our site??

    Reply

  57. Christopher Scott Kn

    I see a Weekend Project in my immediate future.
    Thanks Nick

    Reply

  58. Keitto

    Hmmmm, finally I will see what I was doing wrong :/ Thanks, Nick!

    Reply

  61. Lyonnel

    Nice tuto.

    For the cylinder cage issue, after pressing C, you must optimize (in functions menu) the mesh (to melt points that are both on the caps and on the cylinder).

    I have a question: In C4D, is a basic sphere hollow by default or not ?

    Reply

  63. Kola

    So cool… I don’t have the r12 (It’s working on 11.5) but you also can use the atom array with a sphere instead of the two cloner object?

    Reply

  67. onkl

    Nice tutorial again. Thanks for taking your time to do these.

    Got a question: Is it somehow possible to create instaces of the null.Cage instead of copy&pasting it. Cloner seems to work, but is somewhat limited for placement. Instance object on the other hand doesn’t seem to recalculate the dynamics.

    Reply

  68. Lee

    Thank you for all of your hard work. I have learned a lot watching your blog over the past year and a half. YOU ROCK!

    Reply

  69. James Beautron

    ARGHHH!!! Phong tag nearly ruined my day! Thanks Nick! I got there in the end.

    Reply

  71. illd

    Hi Nick, I really like that you don´t script your tutorials. It´s always fun to see other guys have a hassle in C4d, too ;) . It´s impressing what deleting the phong tag caused. I always screw around with the phong settings in Cinema, but never had the idea to just delete it :)

    Reply

  72. DavyMenge

    Great tutorial as always!

    For the cilinder you can just give it a small fillet in the caps tab, this will connect the object. But if you don’t want the extra geometry, optimizing is the way to do it, as stated above.

    Reason not to use atom array:

    - cloning is non destructive like nick showed in the end.

    - using an atom array gives you another piece of geometry which is intersecting with the other cage object and gives you major dynamics problems. (has to simulate exactly the same, which it doesn’t)

    Reply

  73. Dima

    wow. I’m really proud of myself because this is EXACTLY the way I did it!!!! Except the shaders and the lightning part, because my mbp couldn’t handle the rendering.

    Reply

  74. Andrew

    I like the last part where you can actually make the sphere refraction look like diamonds.I got a question,supposedly you have a 12 cores why when you hit play in Cinema 4d it look slow?Dont you have a powerful video card?..Thanks

    Reply

  75. Jeff

    Vraiment très intéressant, comme d’hab !
    Really very interesting, as always !
    Many thanks from a french guy.

    Reply

  76. Filmon

    Thanks for all the great tuts Gorilla, I got into After Effects because of Andrew Kramer (VideoCopilot) 1year ago and a week ago I plunged into the 3D world–Universe via C4D because of Nick Campbell.

    I’m working on my first paid project after watching 30+ hours of urs and other online tuts lol. If anyone wants to see how bad I do I’ll post on my site (dfilmon.com) next friday.

    Sorry for the long post its my first. Advice to other “green”(noobs) 3D artists like me, fake it till you make it. There will never be a perfect time to start u just gotta start :)

    -God Bless

    Reply

  77. Riccardo

    Hey se c’è il Francese non può mancare l’Italiano no?:)
    Bravo Nick! Always interesting and fun to follow you!

    ciao ciao!

    R.

    Reply

  78. Robbe

    If you want to keep your cilinder from loosing it’s caps without breaking it up:
    Just ad a fillet cap with a radius of more then 0 (for example 1cm).

    I came across this problem a few days ago, and after some fooling around I noticed the fillet cap kind of solves the problem (but that’s only if you don’t mind it has one).

    Reply

  79. Michael

    Interesting work around the atom array, Nick. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving buddy. Thanks for everything

    Reply

  81. Sarin

    hey! thanks for all the cool tutorials… I had a question, Ive been trying to find out how to great a polymesh of an object with deformation on it…

    Reply

  82. Michael

    Nick, how did you get your spheres to not be so stiff. Mine don’t compress into each other as much as yours and I didn’t see you change anything in your settings to make that happen, it just naturally worked for you

    Reply

  83. xregretx

    I can’t figure out why my small spheres are bulging out of the main sphere, did I miss something?

    Reply

  84. Suraj

    you could have used atom array property …instead of making cylinders and spheres…speedsup the process..i tried it..:)

    Reply

  85. Bob

    I know that I, along with many, went in a different direction. But this is why your site is one of my favorites. I’ve learned a lot from trying to replicate your work, and then I learn even more from your explanations of how you did it. Call it the Campbell Method (akin to the Socratic method) – but whatever it’s called, Dude, you’re seriously helping lots of peeps. Thanks for what you do.

    Reply

  86. davido31

    Hardly anyone is doing such a professional tutorials as Gorilla. I am referring to free tutorials.Many thanks!

    Reply

  87. Robert goes

    While I was watching this I went out and bought your light kit right away, Way more in the way of value then the million After Effects plug ins I have purchased over the year. Thanks a lot for all the great free tutorials! Even A person I was talking to at a apple store knew your site.

    Reply

  89. Zizo

    Hey there Nick,
    I was actually shouting “Niiick! The phone tag!”
    hahaha

    I actually encourage people not to stop there.
    You can then bring it in after effects and use the motionVector pass from c4d and all good stuff.

    Zizo

    Reply

  94. deree

    for a cylinder issue and others like text and bla bla I always use tools – optimize / 0,01 and so on… It works always :)

    Reply

  95. patrick

    no. Nick is a undercover spy. we think he´s a gorilla when he actually is a Russian snail.

    Reply

  98. Blooner

    Hey guys,

    Here is my try at this technique.
    I used a Tube primitive. I just made it editable (‘c’) and then used the ‘Optimize’ tool to attach the caps to the tube.

    http://www.vimeo.com/17235561

    Hope you like it!

    Reply

  101. nidzony

    I might have a couple of times annoyed you ;-) , but deeply admire you. You have such a great potential to explain complicated things, and to emphasize the basic principles of the computer generated graphics, animation and photography. Thank you a million times SENSEI!

    Reply

  103. Vangelis

    Press C to make cylinder editable and then Functions->Optimize to connect all parts of the cylinder.

    Reply

  104. Blooner

    This is so sad… And he calls himself a web designer…

    Reply

  106. Rowan

    Hey Nick. Thanks for the tutorial. Wondering if you can help. Ive made a polygon to look like a 3D astrix (Sphere with capsules sticking out) but when I apply dynamics to it the capsules just mush through the floor. Any suggestions? Your Cross Process app is cool by the way. Can’t take an ordinary picture anymore, always have to apply a bit of Cross Process action!

    Reply

  108. Bart

    Hi Nick, I dont have the dynamics on 09.42.
    I only have: Simulation > Dynamics > Create Rigid Body, Create Collider, Create Ghost Collider and Force. Please tell me how to get the ones you have, and how to get the ‘hair’ ones? Oh, and how did you put them on the taskbar? Thanks

    Reply

  112. Maxim Ciornii

    I can’t find in Simulation->dynamics->.. soft body… i have only rigid body. why…help please

    Reply

  115. Marco

    Hi Nick,
    here’s my result (if you care). I added caustics to make some nice reflections on the floor. Unfortunately the render was pretty long and I did not repeated (is too dark and not so interesting).
    Anyway I learned the technique, thanks a lot!

    http://vimeo.com/17271608

    Reply

  116. Hedehodo

    Thanx for the great tutorial as always :)
    What would be the solution to make the cage be a part of the ball but also be included in the collision calculation? Because now they are just going through the floor.

    Reply

  117. Tomaz Mrevlje

    Awesome tutorial, thanks Nick. Learning Cinema became a lot cooler after discovering your blog, seriously. Thanks for the great work you do.

    Reply

  119. George Bates

    This is an awesome tutorial but I have one big problem. I got to the stage of making it a soft body dynamic and then found out that in my Simulation > Dynamics menu there is no soft body tag? I have just brought Cinema 4d version 12 so I really wanna get this to work. Please help!

    Thanks

    Reply

  120. Sonoran

    In C4D r12 Broadcast, is a cloner object required for the rigid body dynamics? I could not find a way to apply the body dynamics directly to primitives without first setting up a cloner. As a result, beyond 9:40 in the tutorial, I was lost as to how to proceed given that limitation, as the outer structural elements didn’t seem to recognize another cloner as an object. Did I miss something?

    Reply

  123. Seinfeld

    Learned something new today.

    Deleting the phong tag!

    Great tip Nick :) .

    Reply

  124. AKEman

    There’s a “simple” way to connect the cylinder:

    - Make a cylinder
    - leave it as a primitive (don’t make it editable)
    - create a Connect Object as a parent
    - In Connect Object’s attributes set the Phong Mode to “Lowest” (this will use the Phong value from the Cylinder’s own Phong tag)
    - enjoy

    Reply

  127. Bobby

    Awesome tutorial, Nick! I learned so much from this one.

    Anyway, I’ve been having a problem that is off topic from this tutorial, but I thought I would ask it here because of the awesome community…

    So… I have been using the destruction plugin to create and explosion and my project settings are at 30fps but my render settings are at 60 fps or sometimes higher. It seems that whenever I turn up the Fps or render the scene, the is a much bigger explosion than what I want. Does anyone know how to fix this?

    *To explode my object, I just hit it with another rigid body.

    Reply

  128. BHMTH

    I watched the tut yesterday and made a little try with a font.
    It’s a little shameless tribute to the gorilla.
    Nothing very creative in the lightning cause I’ve got the LKP and did the same rigging but it was fun to do.
    http://vimeo.com/17292232

    And Nick, your tuts are really good cause I am now able to watch them once and do it all over without looking the video again. Impressive how you make things logical for the rest of us.
    Cheers DUDE.

    Reply

  130. gnome

    Hey, I was curious about buying C4D and figured i’d post this here instead of emailing directly, so more people would have a chance to chime in if they knew the answer.

    I’m looking into buying it for my company, but figure that I don’t need the new features of 12 and could do with 11.5 studio – hopefully for less than 12 studio would be new since we can’t really afford it. It seems though that companies don’t really sell old licenses and there’s not any floating around ebay or craigslist. Is there a place where people legally buy and sell old copies of pro software like this, or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely with this idea? Thanks-

    Reply

  131. Brody

    GSG Tut + HDRI Lightkit Pro + Vitage Film for Looks = WIN Formula

    Everything turned out pretty sweet, except there’s some noise going on after everything settles with the fat doughnut ring shape. It’s like the glass texture is vibrating or something. Anyone got any ideas?
    Great project.

    http://vimeo.com/17292858

    Reply

  133. MarcyVF

    Have you thought of making a GSG forum? I think it’d be a hit.

    Great tut as always Nick!

    Reply

  135. dj Lukasz

    Sweeeeet Tutorial!!!

    Have you looked inside your C4D goodies CD? There’s a plugin called “Real Fresnel” in there. I’m not sure what the difference is but It is a little different.

    Reply

  136. Alex

    Greeeeaaaaaat tutorial!

    Does it also work with poly. objects instead of primitives? I tried it out, but without luck ;-(
    do you have any idea?

    Reply

  137. Steven Jenkins

    Here is my attempt. Being short on the $ 1800 I need to buy soft body simulation in R12, I ran the large balls soft body dynamics in Blender and imported the animated meshes into Cinema 4D for the lighting, texturing, and the modynamics simulation. It was an interesting exercise. Thanks for the challenge, Nick!

    Reply

  139. James

    Loving everybodys work and this post!
    Does anyone know how to achieve this cloner technique if your object has edges of different lengths?

    Reply

  140. Neville Cassar

    HI

    I tried to do the mesh thing on text, but the cylinders are not coming on the face of the text,,just on the sides. When i animate it the sides explodes outwards and all the inside balls come out. How can i make the text covered with the cylinders so that the inside balls stays in when it hits the floor.

    thanks, and keep up the good and fun tutorials.

    Reply

  142. Marcus

    Hi!
    Is it possible to make a short movie about preferences in C4D R12, don’t look the same as in R11.5. Thinking about setting monitor gamma and color profile etc. The basics.
    Love the lightkit by the way, it’s great!!

    Reply

  146. Constantine

    For all guys who also have problems with “soft” body. I think we really should try 2 update our Cinemas. This is copypaste from log 2 upgrade:

    This update also includes the improvements from 12.016 to 12.028 which are:

    - Overall stability improved
    - Character animation tools (weighting, dynamic IK, stick mode)
    - Dynamics (caching, soft body behavior)
    - BLA-BLA-BLAH
    - Behavior of various Deformers
    - Dynamics
    - BLA-BLA-BLAH2

    Reply

  147. Sam Oak

    Hey !

    Is the 5 second project dead ?
    Seriously Nick, you should be a little less casual about it, that’s the mean reason your website is so popular..

    Thank you very much for that anyway, looking forward to see some new 5SP !

    Reply

  148. trvs yng

    I just got C4D and your tutorials and blogs have seriously done amazing things for me. I love watching your videos and your tuts are so easy to follow and watch, not boring like some of those lynda vids. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks!! I love this blog and everything you do for all of us n00bz.

    Heres my attempt, I added some sound in Fruity Loops also to try and make it more epic, hahaha.

    http://vimeo.com/17328843

    Reply

  152. Data4D

    Thankyou nik for this great tutorial
    i realy enjoy doing it and my result is great too
    i’ll upload it soon, but didn’t find the way to use it on text (am new in C4D, am a max user since 2002)
    thanx again

    Reply

  153. AHMED HAMMAS

    YEAAAAAAAA GREAT ONEEE NICK
    AS ALWYZZZZZ THE TOPPP TUTS :D

    ABT THAT PROBLEM OF Cylinder , just u have to make it editabl and select all the vertix
    and rightclick on the mouse . go to optimize and click OK .
    AND ITs DONE ;)
    THNKXX AGAIN FOR THE TOP TUTSSSS .

    Reply

  154. Alioune

    hi Mr nick this is another good tutorial thanks again but i want know please if is possible yto make a same effect with texte please will be helpful

    Reply

  156. Ryan

    Hey, this was neat! Now about those 5 second projects. Have they gone off the regular biweekly schedule you were sticking to as it was months back?

    Reply

  157. Atish

    Hi Nick,

    I am new to C4d. I followed your tut and used Two rigid body sphere and two soft body sphere. When the rigid body collides, some small sphere breaks from the rigid body. Is there any way that all the small spheres remain inside the rigid body even though it collides with other object? http://www.vimeo.com/17355956
    This is what i got.

    Reply

  159. Zickar

    Regarding the Cylinder problem .. The solution I came up with was adding a fracture object to the cylinder and then choosing “Explode and connect” (You actually taught us about this in the Chain Tutorial) .. It worked well for me and if you want I can share the file I worked on

    Reply

  160. esimov

    Hi Nick!
    It’s really amazing what are You doing, not just technically speaking, but the whole approach you are taken, to teach others, to show others cool stuffs, it’s really appreciated. Keep the good work!

    Reply

  161. Telli

    It should exist an site to search and check if your designs has been used somewhere else.

    Reply

  164. sQuizzy

    I can’t find in Simulation->dynamics->.. soft body… i have only rigid body. why…help please . I have Cinema 4D R12

    Reply

  165. Polarity

    Hello Nick!

    Nice tutorial. Just wondering if in your next tutorial you tell about simulation hair objects. Sorry for bad english :)

    Reply

  166. d3signr

    Some good ideas in this one Nick. However, because of the subject matter (glass cages) wouldn’t RayTraced shadows be better? Soft Shadows here just don’t do the objects justice IMHO! Keep up the good work!

    Reply

  168. Hamilton

    Hey Atish,
    At first I didn’t know you had 2 non flexy cages bumping into the 2 flexy soft bodies. What I did was keep both as Soft Body tags, but altered the setting so that the second one is really stiff and doesn’t flex. Those settings are in the “Soft Body” tag. I found that selecting Made of Polygon/Lines in the 1st drop down helped make the second ball act just like a Rigid Body tag. Here’s a link to see a frame of my out come and the settings I had on the 2nd cage.
    The top ball keeps its shape while squishing down the bottom one. Word up!

    http://www.ryanhamilton.ca/webPosts/cageTest.jpg

    Reply

  169. Scooter

    Hey Gorilla,
    thanks again for a nice tutorial :)
    About the issue with the cylinder, what might help is to optimize. Functions>Optimize.

    Please keep coming those great Cinema tutorials!

    Scooter

    Reply

  171. Japes

    Nick your the man! Wow a different workflow instead of using the atom array. Thanks for teaching us different ways on making cool stuff!

    Reply

  172. Karpathia

    I stand in doubt…
    In other c4D motion tuts you turned GI on or not?
    and with yout HDRI kit isn’t GI turned on by default or you do not advise to use the kit in motion anims made in c4D?

    Reply

  173. mic

    I do not have the “soft body” in the cinema 4d v12. What should I do?

    Reply

  174. Amer awad

    really great tutorial, but i have some problem here which is, i cant find something called Soft body tag..
    i only have
    Creat rigid body
    Creat collider
    Creat ghost collider
    Force

    can u tell me how exactly that happened or if anything must i do.
    by-the-way i have cinema 4d v12.0

    and thanks alot

    Reply

  176. akreatif

    why are you so awesome! even without doing the final rendering, i learned alot of new techniques. thank you so much.

    Reply

  177. Gilbert

    hy man

    another great one, keep them coming :)

    one question: i’m trying to simulate a light bulb made of 2 parts- the glass is a soft body, the metal screw is rigid.
    is it possible to combine them on one object, or does it need to be 2 separate objects?
    tried both but no success here..

    hope you find the time to answer :)

    thanks a lot

    Gilbert

    Reply

  179. EDUARDO

    hey nick hi, sorry to annoy u.. actually i dont have the simulation option, mi c4d version is the 11.5, how can i get the softbody and the rigid i mean , a menu with those options or if i must activate them please,where are them, send me back the answer to my e mail… i’ll apreciate a lot, thanks a lot from Perú

    Reply

  181. Pete Erickson

    Alt. Title for this tutorial: ‘Caged Wisdom.

    Your Welcome.

    Seriously though, great stuff! Thanks for passing it along!’

    Reply

  182. Byrone Lehmann

    Wow, I did this exact scene in maya for my showreel, was not happy with how the dynamics where!

    Been using cinema4D for a month now, and I cant believe how easy it is!!! its insane in speed and workflow!!

    Think Im gonna redo it in Cinema for my reel, Dynamics are way nicer!!!

    Reply

  184. TaoHunter

    Great tut once again Nick, thanks.
    One of the things I did notice when I was doing this myself was that the cilinders and balls that where cloned on the large ball are actually falling through the floor. This is logical since there is no dynamics on those. The problem is that I can’t figure out how to get that solved. When I put dynamics on those they fall loose from the ball and scatter all over the place. Any idea on this?

    Reply

  186. Banks

    Hey Nick!

    Just wondering if you know how to fix the problem with jittery shadows as seen in the video…

    http://vimeo.com/17834852

    Also, you can’t really tell in the video, but the bottom of the glass mesh in front, including the balls inside, are also jittery. Do you know how to fix this problem?

    Reply

  188. Kamikaze

    Hey great tutorial. How do I get my Dynamics things up in the top left hand corner like yours?

    Reply

  191. Rob

    ever gonna get the 11.5 comment workaround back up? i’m guessing you re-did the comment system/site and they’re not there anymore…

    Reply

  192. walid

    ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???? ????? ??????? ??? ?? ??????? ???? ???? ??? ?????? 4? ???? ????? ???? ?? ??? ??????? ???? ????

    Reply

  193. walid

    Walid I of Libya I have a problem Iarip assistance is in the program 4 D, which I’m concerned there was no accommodation for Baldinmk and giving the sense that a layer in the video as well as light backgrounds Iarip Tbosa to please help

    Reply

  195. Rich_Art

    Hi Nick,

    Nice tutorial. Thanks for that.
    Now to the cylinder and caps.
    After making the cylinder editable just go to point mode and go to function->optimize and on the popup just click ok. This will weld the points from the caps to the base.

    Peace,
    Rich_Art. ;)

    Reply

  199. ivan

    nice tutorial awesome i like too much your page and how you show us to do some things and we learn from you and like you said you too learn from us

    Reply

  202. Tom

    Hi nick I just followed this tutorial to 22mins in and my render time is really really slow . I bought a new system only like a month and a half ago it was pricey enough its powerful to . Is there anyway to speed it up my aliasing is set to geometry . Please help ?

    Reply

  203. Tom

    Oh I fixed it I was using Ambient light from CS tools . It slows down the render tims immensly :( .

    Reply

  204. blob

    Hi there

    many thanks for this tutorial (really fun to watch “real-life” style). But I’m missing all the comments. I see “249 comments” but there’s nothing displayed (in safari, chrome, FFox). Any idea? :-)

    Reply

  207. Simeon Kartov

    To connect the cylinder – just use the Optimize command :)

    Reply

  209. andervyd

    Big to you thanks for lessons, all is told well and interesting.

    Reply

  210. teranmedia

    Thanks the Nick for a lesson. Often I visit your project. It is grateful for all your works. A nick and you couldn’t give interview for our site??

    Reply

  211. Dan

    But if you want to keep it editable try:
    Put the cylinder in a fracture object and set it to explode segments and connect. Then in the soft dynamics tag, turn off the accurate solver. If you don’t, the cylinder acts like a rigid body.

    Reply

  216. visualsushi

    Somebody correct me if I’m wrong on this.

    I haven’t tried it yet, but length and position of the cylinders won’t react on the glass object, as the atom array is a different object. Here, legth and position are determined by length and position of the glass objects edges. (which seems to be a really neat trick, btw!!!)
    You might get difficulties or at least different results

    Also the soft body setuo could be a lot more difficult.

    Great and inspiring tutorial, again.

    Reply

  217. Michael

    mmk.. I played around with it and Im seeing that the more segments you have the more flexible the object will be. The thing I don’t understand though is that we are only using as high as 16 and that doesn’t give me nearly as much of a “squish” look as 30 would and it will not give me the same looking sphere obviously..

    Reply
  218. The Gorilla

    The Gorilla

    It could be a scale issue. Maybe scale your spheres up so there is more mass, or change the dynamic settings?

    Reply

  219. Michael

    Nope, I must have tried a million things. I redid the scene even and the only way I get the same effect as you in your scene with the squishy look is if I give it more segments. Im not sure what you did differently..

    Reply

  220. Cameradan

    This might seem light an obvious question, but are you using version 11.5 or 12?

    Reply

  221. Michael

    Version 12. The only way I get the spheres to smash as much as Nicks is if I make the segments 25 or above. It doesn’t matter if I resize the spehere larger with less segments or not, nothing makes a difference.

    Reply

  222. Cameradan

    if you can, post a link to your project somewhere and I’ll take a look.

    Reply
  225. The Gorilla

    The Gorilla

    You bet. There are definitely many different ways to pull off anything in 3D. I would do what feels comfortable to you. Thanks for watching!

    Reply

  227. seq

    i tried that too, but difficult to get the atom array aligned to the glass surface when bouncing; because of 2 separate objects. Or you found the solution?

    Reply

  228. Jacob Williamson

    Yeah, I made them editable and then connected and deleted them so they were the same object. I had already applied the textures so it saved them. Nick’s way still might be better because weird things happened.

    Reply

  229. Zizo

    Hey Nick,
    I think im lost somewhere in the softbody tag.
    Is there a way to specify how many times a second it will seek for collision parts?

    I think my spheres are peeking out of my big ball.

    I remember seeing it on 11.5 maybe on cloth sim.

    Reply

  230. DavyMenge

    Edit -> Project settings -> Dynamics tab -> Expert tab -> Steps per frame

    Reply

  231. Michael

    Nice render. Don’t know if you wanted the elongated look in the reflection of the spheres but if not you can adjust your refraction and it should lessen the look. Cheers!

    Reply

  232. DavyMenge

    Just follow the tutorial you’ve linked?

    Some people are way too lazy and want others to do it for them…

    Reply

  233. Ahmad

    but in cinema 4d v.12 there is no bones in character
    and I’ve download the file , and i’ve open it in 4d v.12
    it’s doesn’t work

    thanx

    Reply

  236. Bart

    Nice. I started yesterday though I am stuck at 9.42 in the video, where he is adding the dynamics. I dont have all the ones he has, do you maybe know why? Here’s my previous reply on this tut:

    Hi Nick, I dont have the dynamics on 09.42.
    I only have: Simulation > Dynamics > Create Rigid Body, Create Collider, Create Ghost Collider and Force. Please tell me how to get the ones you have, and how to get the ‘hair’ ones? Oh, and how did you put them on the taskbar? Thanks

    Nick hasn’t answered though, haha. I’m really starting to get bored and I hate it that it isn’t fully working over here. Please someone come with a solution. Thanks!

    Reply

  237. Marcus Månsson

    Sorry, cant tell you wy, but download and use Nick’s layout and the configure the way you want. Easier to follow when it looks the same :)

    Reply

  238. Bart

    So how can I get Nick’s loadout ? Dont aee a download link. (reply onnyour reply on my comment ;) ..)

    Reply
  243. The Gorilla

    The Gorilla

    Thanks! I love doing them on the fly, too. I think it’s easier to learn that way and see how to solve problems instead of just following directions.

    Reply
  244. The Gorilla

    The Gorilla

    Hi, Andrew. Cores have nothing to do with realtime playback. It’s all about the video card at that point. Dynamics take a long time to calculate, too. I could have baked the result for faster playback.

    Reply
  245. The Gorilla

    The Gorilla

    I really appreciate that, Bob! I’m really trying to help as many people make cool shit as I can. Thanks for watching!

    Reply

  246. Bob

    Nick, you’re most welcome. I’m enjoying going back in time on your blog but also still playing around with glass mesh. Beyond doing it manually, is there a layout setup available for download/purchase that will copy your setup in the videos? Also, if this is your video setup, is it also your standard work setup when you’re not making tuts? Thanks!

    Reply

  248. Robert goes

    thanks for MAKING the kit, been extremely useful.

    Reply

  251. Kerry Mortensen

    Are you running a fully paid version? If so, uninstall and reinstall. Sounds like your install may be corrupt. If you have any dynamics you should have all.

    Reply

  252. Constantine

    I got the same problem. Hm. No good… I got 12.028 – It can be updated – maybe that’s the problem… Who knows?

    Reply

  256. Daniel nardi

    same problem here:(
    although you can transform a rigid body tag to soft body in the tag prefs but ONLY if you apply onto a mograph object and not on a primitive as shown in the tut…
    but if you do so you loose the dynamics on the particles…???
    HELP:)

    Reply
  258. The Gorilla

    The Gorilla

    One way to do that is to change the “Size increment” on the collision settings. That way, it will move the calculation further away.

    Reply

  261. gnome

    I checked it out, and it looks good — but i’m worried about all the missing dynamics. Also, from what I can tell it doesn’t have motion blur or DOF in-render, but do you know if it still can export the motion vector or depth passes to add them in post? Thanks for the help again, by the way.

    Reply

  262. Steven Jenkins

    The Broadcast edition has the ability to export vector, depth, and many other passes so you can add them in post. It also included GI, AO, and Net Render for up to 3 computers. It has mograph, modynamics, IK spline dynamics, and soft body made of clones dynamics.

    Reply

  266. Brody

    I thought that too, so I rendered out min-2×2 max-4×4. Took forever too. Maybe there’s a setting that controls the ending of a bounce or slide or whatever might be causing some movement inside the object.
    Either way I learned a lot and make some pretty cool shit.

    Reply

  267. Cheebachops

    It looks like a dynamics solver issue.The shimmer is due to the low poly surface jiggling and changing angles of reflection.
    If i remember correctly there is a setting to alter for the min speed to stop dynamics calculations.

    If you don’t want to re-render, just use After effects to fix it.

    Reply

  272. James

    I tried this on an abstract object with different sized edges and no matter how much I adjusted the height of the cylinders, they would not meet cap to cap, There are no settings to tell the cylinders to resize to the poly edges anyway.

    Reply

  273. sd4c

    your right james, it does not work unless the poly edges are exactly the same length

    Reply

  274. clarki

    its works when you clone the balls, but obviously it does not work on the cylinders..

    anyone have a fix for this?

    anyone know how to get the cylinders to automatically resize?

    Reply

  275. Seinfeld

    Your shadows are cut off at start (to the background).

    Reply

  276. trvs yng

    I know, this is only my third render in C4D and I could not figure out how to stop the shadow cut off. That and I cant use area shadows because I’m working off of a laptop and I don’t have time to render with actual high quality settings.

    So thanks for stating the obvious. Very constructive.

    Reply

  277. snares

    RE: “So thanks for stating the obvious. Very constructive.”

    what a prick!

    Reply

  278. Seinfeld

    Yeah, sorry about that.

    If you use a floor object, you won’t have this problem.

    If you want to use a plane and have this problem simply make it bigger.

    Ps snares you could of told him this aswell, instead of calling me a prick :D .

    Reply

  279. trvs yng

    Actually I’m sorry, this is just the first time I’ve ever posted here, and then the first comment was something telling me what a did wrong, it was just discouraging, so I apologize for snapping at you.

    But, I did try this with both the floor and plane, and had them stretched to massive proportions and I still couldn’t kill that cut off line. When I rendered from a different angle the shadows appeared wholly in tact, but as soon as I lowered the cam, they would vanish right behind it. I got frustrated and just rendered anyway.

    My computer is a stoneage beast, so doing these takes half a lifetime :/ lol

    Reply

  280. Cheebachops

    You can give it ago in c4d using animated spline,sweep nurbs + cloners with matrix cloned cubes.

    Reply

  281. Ryan

    It looks as though it is only happening on the one ball to the left. I’d just double . . . nay . . . triple check you have the same tag settings and what not as the other 3. If it were happening to all of them it would be a critical step you missed but cause you have 3 of the 4 working I am guessing it is just one small issue.

    Reply

  282. Atish

    Actually its happening to both balls which is animated from rigid body to softbody.

    Reply

  283. Ryan

    Ah, I see. Well then, I’ll go through and do the result myself rather than just watching and see if I run into similar issues.
    Will post any glitches I come across that seem the same as your problem.

    Reply

  284. Hamilton

    Hey Atish,
    At first I didn’t know you had 2 non flexy bumping into the 2 flexy soft bodies. What I did was keep both as Sof Bodies, but altered the setting so that the second one is really stiff and doesn’t flex. Those settings are in the “Soft Body” tag. I found that selecting Made of Polygon/Lines in the 1st drop down help make the second ball act just like a Rigid Body tag. Here’s a link to see a frame of my out come.
    The top ball keeps it shape while squishing down the bottom one. Word up!

    http://www.ryanhamilton.ca/webPosts/cageTest.jpg

    Reply

  285. snares

    You should be a little less casual about making assumptions why Nick’s site is so popular.

    Reply

  288. Snipe

    i cant seem to make the circle thickness increase when using it with extrude nurbs. am i doing it wrong?

    Reply

  289. Ryan

    Is this the correct link? Big Hits? I didn’t notice anything that was using dynamics.

    Reply

  290. Data4D

    thanx man i’ll try this with the text guess it will work

    Reply

  291. AHMED HAMMAS

    yEAAA WORK WITH TEXT TOO
    BUT JUST U HAVE TO SUBDIVIDE THE TEXT OR TRIANGULATE IT
    I HOPE THATs WORK WITH YAA :D

    Reply

  293. jamskof

    dud! love your work, how did you get this to work with edges of different lengths? when i clone the cylinders to the object, all of my cylinders are the same length resulting in the cylinders not meeting cap to cap? did you do this the same way nick did?
    any info much appreciated.

    Reply

  294. Jasper

    Thanks,

    I actually did it the same way Nick dit it. Dit you select the “Scale on Edge” button in your cilinder’s cloner object? I think that’ll do it.

    Reply
  297. The Gorilla

    The Gorilla

    Most of the studios in the Light Kit built mainly for product shots and stills. I wouldn’t use those for animation. They will flickr like crazy. However, all of the lights in the kit were designed to be used without GI. I can’t think of a motion tutorial I have done with GI turned on. Maybe using the Sky Sampler? I hope to dive more in to this stuff soon in future tutorials and show use cases for both.

    Reply

  301. Byrone Lehmann

    All Dynamics are usually found under animation/ Simulation or something to that degree. Maybe even do a search for dynamics in cinema 11.5

    Reply

  303. Gilbert

    as one null with 2 separate tags?
    it makes them behave as two different objects’ that rejects each other..

    or is it not the way?

    thanks

    Reply

  306. Tim

    Confirm, no comment at all from first of Dec!
    Nick please help!

    Reply

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