Cinema4D 1: Cinema4D as a Design Tool

In the first Cinema4D workshop we learnt the basics of the software and how to utilise artwork created in Illustrator in a 3D animation. We started by creating a ‘logo’ in Illustrator, made up of a few simple shapes. Then the artwork we created was imported into Cinema4D, under “merge” in the drop-down menu, rather than “import”. To be able to use the work you have created on Illustrator in Cinema4D it has to be saved as an older version, Illustrator 8, rather than the up to date CC version.

After this we proceeded to turn our flat Illustrator design into a 3D object, to which we added colour, texture, light and text, using a variance of Cinema4D features. Some of these included extrude, material and floor tools. We rendered this image out to a JPEG, shown below. We then added a camera into our Cinema4D project to make a simple animation of our now 3D logo rotating 360 degrees. This was done by rotating the camera round a null object placed in at (0,0,0), rather than rotating the 3D logo itself. This was then rendered out into the short animation shown below.

Cinema4D Experimentation from Eve Whelan on Vimeo.