Its been a few days since I really messed with C4D… so I decided to mess around with it a little this morning. Nothing major today, as I wasnt much up for it. But I gotta keep on…..

The more I use it though, the more Im convinced this is my definitive modeller.

Theres…. nothing really special about this, save the fact its my initials (and yeah, C4D can do text too out of splines, but thats not how this was done)

Basically, I wanted to box model in here a little bit (since I do a ton of box modelling) as well as figure out a replacement for the shell feature in Silo (which basically turns a flat polygon into a two sided, thickened mesh) I also wanted to figure out the protocols for smoothing it too, since thats also how I build my outfits. See, to smooth in Silo, you only have to subdivide, coz everything is already nurbs based. And if you want it to stay crisp, you apply a crease to the edges you want crisp. In C4D, however, u turn it into a nurbs object (otherwise, the edges stay creased, no matter how many times you subdivide – subd only adds polygons)

Interesting little difference in the way the two work. The question remains though…. can you have it both ways? Im most undoubtedly sure…. but Ive yet to figure that out.

There is no shell equivalent that will automatically do what Silo does – best you can do is box model something and give the box actual dimensions and then apply the hypernurbs and delete the backside polys. Or to extrude the edges of the flat box and pull them into the back side. Not a big deal tho…. I faked it in Silo too at times without using shell. Its a small price to pay, to be able to have everything C4D does.

Ive also learned the difference between subdivision editor, and subdivision renderer on the hypernurbs settings (the numeric values each is based on)  The editor surely puts the poly in, so that you can visibly see how it subdivides in the viewport. But unless the renderer matches that number, when you finalize a mesh, it wont be subdivided to the editor number – it will be based on the renderer number. Even if you have the editor set to 20000000 poly levels, if the renderer is set to 2, thats what it will be (also, how something will render as well)

But I also notice that C4D (as Ann had said) can create some bad poly, just at random when applying extrusions and junk. But honestly, if you know your topology, its not any worse than any other modelling program, and can be fixed simply. I had already learned before, when doing my urn, how to draw poly, and fill poly holes. Today, I learned the stitch and sew tool, which is very cool. In the case of vertices, where the points are separated, but do not form quads (to be able to draw a poly), stitch and sew is what you use to fuse them together into one vertice.

And can I just mention HOW FRIGGON NICE it is, to be able to align the normals, and have it actually work! Silo fronts that it can, but it always just crashes on me and then I have to reverse them one friggon poly at a time.

Finally, I messed with the render settings before rendering this. I added an object glow, to make it glowy.

So, sit down kids, while Iggy tells the tale of her running the roads today, after spending much time being all nocturnal like. I havent spent much time in actual sunlight, in like 2 mos…. seriously. In fact, Im fairly suspicious that I might turn into a gremlin now (but at least the fear of the sun exploding me into oblivion abated… and no, I dont sparkle in it, either)

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away (from my office anyway) I decided to go run some errands. Among these errands, included going to a huge Borders on Ft Lauderdale beach, to locate a book for C4d (I figured if anyone would have it, it would be the ginormous, snobby bookstore of the city) I also had to make a deposit at the bank. So whooosh, off we went.

We get to borders with its flashy two storeyness and promises of any book you could ever dream of. I locate the “computer geek paradise” (actually referred to as the computer reference section) and BEHOLD… the holy grail of all book stores. They’ve got books on max, photoshop and Zbrush en masse. Wanna learn Dreamweaver, Flash or Cold Fusion? You’d have 40 different books to choose from! They even had programming books for every form of code you could ever dream of learning…. as well as sql. but ! godammit…. no C4D book. Drove 17 miles…. in the end of summer high noon sun, uphill both ways (no seriously, uphill… its on the intercoastal, so had to drive over a drawbridge lol) for naught!

Borders – Ft Lauderdale Intercoastal

Next stop was the bank, which was, amusingly and unbeknownst to anyone, 10 meters from borders, according to the gps. Handy! Now, we bank at Bank of America, which has these nifty ATM’s you can do a deposit at, and enter fat wads of cash all at once, and a crapload of checks to boot, and it sees all that junk! Its very fast and handy, not to mention accurate, and it even prints out a little reciept with all the check images on it! BUT!!! Not this friggon one!!! No, it was the retarded stepchild of the normal ATM’s at our bank, and it made us enter the 7 checks 1…. by…. 1 (even noah got 2 by 2, geez) In the end of summer, high noon, hot florida sun. Weee!

So, since the Galleria was right there, I thot to myself… “Self, I wonder if they have a bookstore inside?” Now, the Galleria is a mall where all the rich people go to shop.  You can merely gaze upon it and catch a waft of the smell of money floating on the floridian seabreeze. In fact, my dad used to shop there (which says a lot to me, but you prolly dont really get all that) But anyway, I digress. We toddle into the Galleria, and locate the little directory. Not. 1. friggon. bookstore. in. the. whole. damn. place. Which started a whole debate on whether rich people read or, just had their hired poor peoples read to them. Or just didnt bother to read anymore, coz they dont need to improve anything, as he with the most money, wins…. or some crap. I would think they’d instatiably read, with nothing better to do with their time (aside from shopping at the snobby mall, of course)

The Galleria Mall in Ft Lauderdale

So, we leave the galleria, and drive by Ft Lauderdale beach (it was how we had to go to get back west) And we catch a glimpse of the strangest freakin vehicle ever – it was a bus, it was a boat…. it was a boatbus (basically, a boat fused to a wheel frame of like something between a mack truck and a lawnmower) In fact, I dubbed it that… boatbus (not to be confused with shortbus…. or maybe it should have been…. hmmm) Anyway, the boatbus, which was some hokey tour bus en route without passengers, nearly assaulted us, by cutting into our lane (on my side, no less), coz the driver was clearly and obviously inept at driving boatbuses. It was also very loud, this boatbus…. it was blaring obnoxious callypso music or some crap, so that everyone’s car radios were overtaken by the noise. Methinks boatbus was overcompensating…. but thats just a theory.                              

Behold!!! the boatbus…

picture not by me. Apparently, this thing gets around a lot…..

So then, we’re driving to barnes and noble, yet another bookstore to search for the bra that fits… errr.. i mean the C4D book (shit, Im getting my storylines confused here… chuckles at Ann) We get a red light, and this mack truck (not to be confused with boatbus) pulls up next to us. Im sitting there all unawares…. window wide open, and I catch this waft of a smell — and it wasnt the money from the Galleria this time…. oh no, I couldnt be so lucky. Instead, this smell resembled what a diaper genie smells like when you dont clean it out fast enuff. But tenfold. It was HORRIBLE!!!! I rolled up the window, once again, end of summer high noon sun in Florida. To hell with it tho, Ill die of the heat before the smell. Alas… IT PERSISTED! THRU THE WINDOW!!! The light must have been laughing its ass off at me holding my nose and making all kinds of stinky gestures at the horrible stench (not even the bog of eternal stench could have been that bad) coz it freaking REFUSED to change. It must have made us wait something like 7 minutes, taunting me…. or what felt like 7 minutes anyway, next to the horrible poopy truck. When the light changed, I yelled OMG GO FAST! Get away from that guy! The poopy truck was in the going right lane, but IT TURNED LEFT WITH US INSTEAD!! And Im all omfg nooooooooooooooo!!!!!! I am fairly suspicious that he noticed my grossed out gestures, and did it on purpose. Thankfully, we smoked his ass with a quickness, so we didnt have to sit next to it again. And it led me to ponder aloud rather rhetorically, whether or not he got my reaction from alllll the people he drove up next to…. or HELL, even within a 5 mile radius.

I dont have a picture of that, sadly…. but youd have to smell it anyway, to fully grasp it.

So, now we have a boatbus, and a poopytruck. WTF?

Soooo, to barnes and noble we finally get. And I mistakingly start at the other end of the store, and searched everywhere…. only to find the section i was looking for in the last part I hadnt searched, on the other side of the store. Doh. Annnnnnnnnd…. heres the clencher…. NO CINEMA 4D BOOK…. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH! But every other friggon book known to man.

Tell me whyyyyyyyy something as mainstream as C4D is, is not on any bookstore shelves? WTF???

Finally, I gave up the ghost and went home empty handed. No book, and only the warm, glowing memories of retarded boatbus and poopy truck. I couldve DIED TWICE (once from boatbus, and the other from the stench) and had nothing to show for it.

Shoot me now….

Because “vase that looks like hineys” wasnt a good title… :giggles:

I havent posted my next C4D thingie in a couple days, coz it took a couple days to do (well not full days, but, 2 days of working on it anyway) I guess saying I would post everyday was a bit over the top to actually manage (esp when a girl has to work in the process) C4D is waaaaaaaaaay fun tho…. in fact, too much…. I think Im kind of getting addicted to it.

This is following a tutorial I had in a book I bought, coz I really needed to get down to modelling (and not just playing with particles and the render engine) Its a little…. uh…. more bulbous that I would have personally made it…. but I decided not to stray from the tut too much, coz I wanted to learn the functions that were involved.

 Click to enlarge

I could take it thru the paces, like I did the other ones I posted…. but… meh…. its very involved. It has splines that are sweeped, with twists, and its lathed and extruded, it has arrays, hypernurbs, bends and bulges. I learned how to use soft selection, FFD and the symmetry (brilliant!) I also crash coursed drawing in polys, verts and edges, coz the um, extrusion that forms the bulges on the urn didnt work exactly as planned, so i ended up taking out the entire top row. Damn good thing I know topology and how to model…. or this would be really YUCKY!

Added a floor with a parquet wood flooring texture. Had to scale that up, coz it was wee…..

2 Lights are in the scene, with soft shadows….

Lastly, the grass wasnt part of the tutorial. I made it coz the urn looked…. well, empty. Its basically a spline, an array, twist and bend with hypernurbs. I also messed with the mesh on them a bit, using the brush tool, coz grass is curvy and junk.

I was supposed to turn the urn to glass and brass…. but I liked the patina and wrought iron look better (glass = highly overrated) I actually had to mess with the material settings to get the wrought iron, tho.

My toy in C4D for today was the Particle system…. which is prolly completely useless since I never animate, but it was fun to play with anyway LOL

This is just a sphere, added for the particle shape, to an emitter with a plasmatic material added. Trippy….

To view the effect, press the play button on the quicktime movie viewer below

If u cant see it coz of stinky firefox, but wish to, then you can download it here:

EmitMagic

Ok so, I did as I said…. I spent some time in C4D. Actually, I got a little carried away LOL I couldnt help it tho, I was cracked out. But at least this one makes sense.

This started out as a couple splines I drew, which I used a sweep nurbs to turn into 3D meshes (with the end point set very small, so it tapered), lowered the subD levels and used a twist function to twist them up (I really wanted to mess with the twist today, which is soooo very cool) Out of that, I saw twisty, barren trees… and thought itd be cool to do a scene with em. So, I kind of went with it.

From there, I applied an array to my 2 twisted tree branches, and adjusted the individual pieces, to turn them into a barren mass. Added a wood material and adjusted the scale. The trees are duplicated en masse and spread randomly thru the scene. I figured out how to add an environment with fog (but I ended up 86’ing the fog, coz it wasnt the right mood) the sky, to which I applied a material (and adjusted the scale on that, so it looked “cloudy”) and a terrain object (which was further deformed than the terrain settings allowed for, by using the magnet and pulling up at the mesh in random areas) Applied a clay material to the terrain.

3 Lights are added to the scene, all have soft shadows enabled, one has a lens flare applied (which mimics the sun thru heavy cloud cover) The ground’s light source could’ve used the intensity ramped up, but its only for practice anyhow. The back trees are excluded from the light sources, so they are darker (took me a bit to figure out the exclude light dialog, but its really neat too!)

Finally, I imported Belthazor, added a bone-esque material, duplicated him and buried him in the sand at random. Total render time: 26 minutes. No books, no tuts, no help.

Yeah…  I could *easily* get used to this LOL I might have to start learning how to render my normal scenes in C4D

Hear ye, hear ye!! On this day, the 16th of the 9th month of the year two-thousand and ten, I make a proclamation…..

As of recent, Ive realized just how hindering Silo can be with modelling, and with its crashes and whatnot. And in realizing that, Ive realized the absolute NECESSITY in learning C4D. But as long as I continue to crutch on Silo, that isnt going to happen. Coz Im not being forced to use it. And so, I really need to force it…..

So, Ive decided that Im going to do my best to spend an hour a day playing around in C4D (after any actual WORK is finished, that is) And Im going to start a new segment on my blog, to post what Ive done each day in C4D. In fact, Ive already spent an hour for today…. and I even have something to post (dont ask me what the hell it is, mmkay? I said Id post what I did – I didnt say they had to make any sense ROFL)

(click to enlarge)

This is, essentially, an extruded cube, with a bend applied, which made an arch. Then, I turned it into a hyper nurbs object… which turned it into a sausage looking thing. I deleted out a row of poly, and filled in the caps on each side. Then, I applied an array to that, which made it nearly spider like. Finally, applied an Atom Array, which gives the above effect.  Turned down the subdivision levels and connected the array pieces to make it one solid object. Then, I added a material, zoomed in and rendered it. Total polygons… you dont want to know LMAO (289,188)

Now, you might be wondering if the obj actually exports that effect. The answer is yes – it isnt some fancy shader, its a full mesh…. although Id REALLY hate to map it LMAO O.o (even *Im* not THAT masochistic)

It seems pretty random, but in all honesty, it was primarily an exercise in learning to extrude stuff (as I primarily box model) as well as learning how to fill in polygonal holes, which is absolutely necessary to how I model as well. The other stuff was just me fiddling around with other things (some of which are pretty damn cool effects that will come in handy – well, except the atom array, coz I dont know wtf Ill ever use that LOL)

It would seem that stinky spam pushers are persistent and dont like when you block them from comments, so they decide they will spam your email to death thru your contact box instead.

But ah ha! I got the last laff on you…. coz now you can’t! :sticks out tongue all mature like: Whatcha gonna doooooo now? You’ve run out of options!

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER! :evillaff: And Im clearly drunk on it :giggles:

(especially since I am talking to bots) O.o

Anyway, this is a notice to let all the valid people know…. now my contact box contains a captcha, as well as the comments. In order to contact me through my weblog, you will be required to enter the words/letters as you see them in the text field.

Sorry for any inconvenience, but it was absolutely necessary.

So, I have spent the night reconfiguring my website to account for SEO (search engine optimization) which will improve the visibility of my website, as well as ease in locating it.

What this essentially means, is that I now have a full description filled out, as well as keywords to aid in finding my website on popular search engines. Typing in popular terms for locating 3D content, will now bring up my website among other ones to consider when trying to locate any of this content. I will be adding more terms, such as the titles of my packs to it as well.

Also, whereas before I disallowed all robots, google, msn, yahoo, ask jeeves and alexa/wayback are now excluded (and others will be as well, which will be added to my robots.txt file) I have also resubmitted my site to google, so the bot will crawl it and re-index it for its engine, as well as enabling webmaster tools. This latter will show me pertinent webmaster information, which will help locate any errors, testing the speed and functionality, as well as further improving my site’s visibility.