//subdivision

Client: Multinational media training institute
Location: London, UK
Date first run: February 2006
Involvement: Entire process, solo project
Applications: Cinema 4D
Target: Potential 3d and multimedia students

Here's most of the media from one of my 'complete beginners' workshops. They were created a while ago but work fine in newer versions of Cinema 4D (principles and tools are the [...]

Applications: Autodesk Maya
Timeframe: 8 weeks
Student Knowledge Prerequisites: 3D Fundamentals (Cinema 4D)
These are the images which were chosen to be featured in the magazine advert here

We all hear Gnomon (Hollywood) and VanArts (Vancouver) being namedropped all the time, but here's a look at some of the big name schools from the Animex festival.

Supinfocom Arles, France
Ecole des Metiers du Cinema d'Animation, France
Ecole Emile Cohl, France
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, UK
Glasgow School of Art, UK
Thames Valley-Ealing, UK
Duncan of Jordanstone [...]

Keyframing in 3D applications - soft interpolation vs linear
Hi, prompted by a question by Jason, here's a look at what happens and why when you keyframe in Cinema 4D.
As default, Cinema 4D uses curves between keyframes, making your animation smooth, which is usually a good thing.
However, look at the following example. Lets say I want [...]

Ren asked about whether you can make a 16:9 movie rather than 4:3 for your project. I am fine with this, although it can be a bit fiddly setting it up correctly for a DVD.
There are various standards of widescreen, to aid compatibility with older TV sets.
Letterboxed - actually 4:3 ratio (like 'normal' TV) but [...]

This was an animation week centered on making a non-deforming object hierarchy and rig suitable for forward and inverse kinematic manipulation.
Wednesday:
The key topics here were:
Setting up a suitable hierarchy of body parts for IK/FK animation
Placing those body parts' axes in the correct positions for suitable rotation
a) We began by making a simple 'robotic' character out [...]

Refraction index numbers can be used in the transparency section of material properties to simulate glass, water etc. Note that sometimes you need to deviate if the refraction looks wrong.
Sorry the image is hard to read, it's a capture of a scan of a scan.

The simple example deconstructed in class to learn about primary animation tools in Cinema 4D.
The animation consists of:
X+Z motion
Car body roll
Wheel rotation
Wheel steering
Camera motion and focal length (zoom)
Using the following tools to animate:
Keyframes
F-curve adjustment
Animation on a spline (Align to spline tag)
Targets (Target tag)
The car is not mine, it is a very nice low polygon model [...]

Another busy week, and very much centered around animation.
On Wednesday we took the previous weeks' simple head model and set it up for animation (rigging):
Eye setup using target constraints (target tag)
Face expressions setup using posemixer (blend shapes)
We also took a tour of the main tools, windows and managers used in CG animation in C4D [...]

Well, after a delayed start we've got moving on Module 2 and covered quite a lot.
On Wednesday we looked at the current main methods of modelling in 3D -
1. Parametric / primitive modelling.
2. Polygonal modelling
3. Spline / NURBS
(4.) Subdivision  surfaces / HyperNurbs
We then took a look at some of the options we have in Cinema [...]