4 posts tagged “3d”

Here's my 3D water, take 2...

Turned out I was doing more than I had to.  Cinema 4D defaults to gravity and some kind of "natural" motion anyway.  I realized this through trial and error after trying out some various motions.  So in the end, I just took out the vibration and tried it out.  Voila!

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

So here's my first Cinema 4D model and animation:  water!

I could have bought 3D water but instead, I chose to learn C4D by trying to make it.  The reason why I needed water was that I had a scene in my novel trailer (WAR GAMES) where one of my characters, "G," is climbing a cliff above water.  I started my animation of G on the cliff in DAZ and just stuck a background of 2D photo of water (see "G w wrong perspective").  First of all, the perspective is wrong - it looks like he's crawling out of the water onto the ground.  Secondly, when I animated it, it looked very wrong to have the water so still.  So my challenge was to make water so I could choose the perspective and also animate it.

To make water, I followed this tutorial.    I used the "metal" texture that comes with C4D for the material reflection, and "water" texture for the bump and environment.  I tried a few of the other tutorials where the water looked better (by using caustics) but when I tried it, it took a l-o-n-g time to render and my results sucked.  So this was the best way I've found.

Once the water model was made, I needed to animate it so it looked alive.  I ended up applying "vibrate."  Right click on the water in your objects tab, cinema 4d tags> vibrate.  In the Attributes menu (click on the vibrate icon in your Objects menu), I used the following vibrate parameters:  Relative, Enable Position, Amplitude 10, 0, 0.   I'll refine the parameters as needed.  I may want a gentler motion.

The next challenge will be to combine the animation of G climbing the cliff with the water animation.  I have two choices:  "green screen" G and composite it with the water animation in After Effects; or import G's scene into the water animation (or vice versa) and combine them.  I'm totally new to 3D so everything I do will be an experiment.  I've also never used green screens before so that will be a learning experience too.  Right now, G and his climbing animation is in DAZ and the water is in C4D.  I'll need to figure out how to import one into the other if I choose that route.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about my first modeling results!

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Wow, an unintended break.  It's been almost 2 months since I last posted.  I didn't intend to stop blogging, I just got distracted and before I knew it, 2 months had gone by.... During that time, a Russian economist has declared that the US is disintegrating, 2008 turned into 2009, YouTube changed from 4:3 to 16:9 and then went HD.  SAG is still threatening to strike - they  might as well threaten to go on a hunger strike because that's about how self-destructive it would be. 

So what have I been doing?  At first, I went into a creative mode where all else was consumed by my obsession over making an animated book trailer for my novel, WAR GAMES.  Then, I remembered I had never done animation before, ran into technical difficulties, and I geeked out.  Right now, I'm somewhere between my creative mode and geek-out mode (I know, some might say I'm always in this state).  I just bought Cinema 4D from someone on Craigslist who may or may not be part of the Russian mob; I also bought one of the last Comic Book Creator programs despite the fact that it looks like the makers are going out of business; ordered a new over-the-top mobile battlestation (aka "notebook computer"); sent out some DVDs of TOOTH FAIRY to film festivals; killed my power supply in my desktop which is now open under my desk with its guts spilling out; got a new terabyte (!!!) second hard drive for my desktop and a 64G (!!!) USB drive for Christmas (I hear other girls want jewelry as gifts -- can you imagine?); got my butt kicked clear across silicon valley by a group of graduates of the Stanford EE masters program in a game I never heard of before; and I ate a pound of Trader Joe's milk chocolate with almonds.  There you have it -- now you're all caught up.

Happy New Year!
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Saw Beowulf in 3D last night.  The 3D technology is awesome and ready for prime time but the filmmakers behaved like the nouveau riche which will keep the whole genre in the fringe ghetto for a while longer.  I wonder if the early "talkie" films assaulted the audiences' ears with shrieks and slams just because they could?