[jExtatic]

This was reposted by me on 4 other forums, but I take full credit for making this tutorial.

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This is my personal method for making Cinema 4D renders.
I am on Windows 7.
I am using Cinema 4D R12 Studio.

Step 1: The Options. (Click to View)
Open up Cinema 4D and hit CTRL + B on your keyboard, and navigate to "Output".



Edit the size to your desire, but keep everything the same below that. I'm going to go by 1024x768.

Now navigate over to save. Within the "Format" drop down, select "PNG". Hit the "Options" button next to that, and make sure "Interlaced" is ticked.

Below the "Format" area, you'll see a line with "Alpha Channel". Make sure the box next to that is ticked as well.
Directly beneath that, make sure "Straight Alpha" is ticked.

Now, navigate to "Options" and make sure "Default light" is un-ticked.

Next, go to "Anti-Aliasing". Make sure the first drop down box, "Anti-Aliasing" is set to "Best".
Keep the "Filter" at "Still Image", and leave everything else alone.
HOWEVER, on the "MIP Scale", set that to 100%.

Now you're all set, move on to Step 2.

Step 2: Sculpting the render. (Click to View)
Ok, on Cinema 4D, you're going to want to select "Draw Freehand Spline", which looks like this:



Once you've done that, do some random squiggles, like this:



Now, hit the button on the furthest to the right of these:

Do the same again, draw random squiggles on all 3 new perspectives you got.



Now navigate back in to the "Perspective" perspective, again by hitting the top right button, on the top left perspective.

You're now ready for step 3.

Step 3: Making your sculpture 3D. (Click to View)
Ok, you've made your outline. You're doing great!

What you're going to want to do now is add some "Loft NURBS". You can do this by holding your mouse on this button , and selecting, "Loft NURBS".

What you're now going to do is drag all of the 4 "Spline"'s you've made and make them a child of the Loft NURBS.
Do this by finding the "Objects" panel, and selecting all your "Spline"'s, and dragging them on to the Loft NURBS.

You'll now see a product like this:



On the Object panel, select your Loft NURBS, and all of your splines should now also become active.
Now, where you found "Loft NURBS" before, you're gonna want to hold your mouse on that button again and select "Hyper NURBS".

As you've just learnt, make the "Loft NURBS" a child of your "Hyper NURBS", just like with the splines.

Now all your edges will look cleaner, and everything will be 3D.

You're now ready for step 4.

Step 4: Adding material. (Click to View)
You're doing fantastically. You've made it this far, so don't give up! You're nearly done!

Ok, now. We're going to create a new material. What you do to do that is find the "Materials" panel, and click "File" (I'm on R12, yours may be "Create" or something different), and click "New Material".

Drag this up to your Object panel, and lay it on top of your Hyper NURBS.

Now, on the Material panel, double click the material you just made. An editor will pop up.

On the "Colour" section, change the colour to a dark grey. You do this by simply changing the Red, Green and Blue levels.
My Red: 40
My Green: 40
My Blue: 40

Now, click on "Luminance", and make sure it is ticked. Don't worry about the colour for now, we don't need it.
What you do need though, is to find the "Texture" line, and hit this button .

Now, I'm sure you've got a light stock or 2, just find one you like and would like to see on the image as your "light".
I'll post mine down at the bottom of this entire tutorial.

If you get a

"This image is not in the document search path.
Do you want to create a copy at the document location?"

Notification, then just hit yes.

You're nearly done on this section!

Ok, so you've added your luminance. One last thing to do in the material editor for this material.

Find and click on "Reflection", so that it is active.
Set the texture to "Fresnel".



Now turn down the "Brightness", I'm gonna use ~20% brightness.

You're now all done in the material editor! (For now).

You're ready for step 5.

Step 5: Adding a light source. (Click to View)
You're doing insanely awesomely right now. Don't give up, the finished product is amazing.

Add a new object, and make it a "Plane". You can do this by going to "Objects" at the top left of your Cinema 4D window, "Primitive" and then "Plane".
You'll see a flat square appear. This is good.

Find this button and scale up your plane.

Move it up, so it is above your sculpture, and now you've got something like this:



Now, you're going to make a new material.

Just like before, go to "File", and "New Material".
Drag it on to the plane, and now double click the material to edit it.

Click and check "Luminance".
You're done on that material :) (So much easier than the other, lol)

Close the material editor.

This is the final stages of your light...

Right click on your Plane on the Object panel, and click "CINEMA 4D Tags".
Under that sub-section, click "Compositing".

Now this is easy. Under "Tag" in the "Attributes" panel, simply uncheck "Seen by Camera".

You're 90% finished!

You're now ready to advance to step 6.

Step 6. Finalizing the render. (Click to View)
This is very easy. Simply click on your "HyperNURBS" in the Objects panel, copy and paste it a couple of times and edit the positioning and rotation.

You should now be on something that looks like this:




FINALLY! YOU'RE DONE!
Just render it, and save!

This took me AGES to make, if you would post saying thanks if this helped, it would be very much appreciated.

My finished product: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/94339629/Site/T...render.png
My chosen light stock: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/94339629/Site/2.png

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed and found it useful!

[Yurt]

Awesome tutorial OP! :)
I bookmarked this page so I can come back for future references!

[jExtatic]

Thanks for the feedback :) It took me quite a while to make, so I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[Eminent]

This is a pretty awesome guide. I'm not super familiar with the program yet, so this will be useful.

[jExtatic]

Glad you found it useful, took me ages to write, so I'm glad you can put some use to it.

[xXZEAL123Xx]

So exited to try this it looks really cool i have never used c4d before so wish me luck

[Issvor]

Great tut, man. But I just can't make a good looking one. :/ But thanks anyways :D

[Thoresen1]

Great tutorial OP!
Thanks for this, it'll be fun to dick around with.
🤝

[dvs_amy]

I follow the steps in your tutorial, and at the same step, every time the program crashes. My system requirements are good. It's always on step 2:[ Now navigate back in to the "Perspective" perspective, again by hitting the top right button, on the top left perspective.]

Any advice? Thanks.

[tr0nix]

One of the most awesome tuts posted here.
Thanks for posting this.
#Bookmarked.

[Ryuuji Takasu]

Wow you edited an existing tutorial do you know how many of the exact same tutorials like these are out there more then enough.

[jExtatic]

Wow you edited an existing tutorial do you know how many of the exact same tutorials like these are out there more then enough.

Apologies, I've never seen anything like this before! Please, if you could direct me to a thread with this tutorial (or something like it), thanks, I would like to see it.