Cinema 4D - Skip to the Animation Chapter

Rarely are any of us pick up a book, especially instruction manuals and read from beginning to end. Even for a comprehensive understanding, we tend to 'look forward' in areas of particular interest, with special effects, and in particular, Cinema4D, PEEK forward in animation.

Animation is what distinguishes the special effects, motion applications from say a very sophisticated graphics applications like Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop integrated video and 3D in CS4, so the lines that define a bit blurred. Cinema 4D is a full 3D 64-bit applications with texture and lighting and everything you need to create realistic scenes and objects and more, creating fantastic detail. Video games, cartoons, Harry Potter, 'pull' of reality, and it's magic applications as Cinema 4D.

So if this is necessary to 'learn the basics', imagine the primitives and basic construction tools, if you're tempted to "sneak peek" ahead, go for animation. The animation is life, and the animation is the story. Whether your message is fine, after looking at their character and expression, or an object in the sky burning or explosion, action and movement to tell a story.

Introducing yourself to the animation tool is easy, as easy as a single primitive object. Under 'Window' menu item, the timeline option. It will be a separate control module with all the objects in the timeline and the materials used. However, in the upper left C4d is a small preview of the preset menu and select animation presets will place the entire timeline in the current workspace layout. It plots all objects with their 'parent' relationships to the timeline with keyframes and special controls visible.

Seen from the perspective of your key, you see the familiar start / stop to go to the beginning / end arrows beside them are some special buttons for animation. Three are bright red followed by four orange buttons. Red button to set the keyframes along the timeline, automatic keyframing and the selection of objects.

Before we use these buttons, a simple primitive object, click 'Coord' under 'menu attributes', and you'll notice as you move one of the axes of arrows, which corresponds to x, y, z coordinates reflects this movement. You can choose from small circles on the left side of these coordinates using the 'Ctrl' key, which will create the key. Now, if the value is set to position 'time' will occupy the timeline. You could choose any or all three coordinates.

When you create this key frame will be highlighted on an expanded timeline of the blue 'key'. Try setting some simple keyframes, let your balls to move through a scene, or add some rotation as it goes. We will explore the possibility of more specific time.