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Today on class 2, we focus on

overall Cinema 4D's interface

, basic functions for the starters

, and some of the hidden tips when using the software

Those who have used Cinema 4D, should check any missing parts

and learns some tips from this lecture

Basically, when you execute Cinema 4D,

you can see the screen consisting of standard layout

The intuitive Cinema 4D interface lets us see objects

in a viewport window for the navigation

An objects window to manage subordinate relationship

between the various objects and their properties

and Attributes to adjust

the values and properties of various objects

In the Materials window, you can manage materials

Other modes can be altered or selected in the left mode panel

Upper menu window, you can see all the menus

move scale rotation renders, and etc.

various objects and functions can be selected

in the upper panel

Now, let’s find out how to use the navigation in the Viewport window

Firstly, you need a mouse or a tablet

that has a button in the middle when working on 3D

For those using tablets, go to Wacom setup

and set the middle click

and if you go to Edit > Preferences,

click on the Input Devices

and check on the Graphics Tablet

Then, can we use the cube

make a cube here in the object

and explain to you how to control the mouse using the cube

First, there are various methods to move cameras

go to the right upper side and use the icons here

Click and drag

to move, scale, rotation, and etc.

To do these using a mouse and a keyboard,

press Alt click and drag

to rotate If you press Alt Right click and drag,

you can zoom in and out

if you have a scroll in your mouse,

you can do the same thing with the scrolls

and if you press Alt and click the middle button

and move,

you can see that the screen is moving

you can use the number key pads also

Click number 1 to move, number 2 for zoom in and zoom outs

, and you can rotate using number 3

, but I usually use Alt and mouse to do that function

The next important thing is

that there are lots of modes in the camera’s navigation

In case of Object mode,

you can see that the camera is moving

with the center on the object

and if we click mouse and then move,

the yellow cross appears in the middle

if you change that to cursor mode

from the position where you clicked the cursor,

the camera moves with that point in the center

I don’t use other modes that frequently

, but it’s best that you check them all out

The other example is

Let’s say you found out doing the lightings like this

and to see where the lighting will be positioned

is hard sometimes

In cases like that, press on the object, go to Cameras

go to Use Camera > Set Active Object as Camera

You’ve clicked on the lights,

so you can see in the lighting’s viewpoint

and if you move the camera,

I’ve lost the cube right now

You should click on the cube the S to make it fullscreen

move the lightings

and change it a 45 degrees upper right position

go back to Camera

switch to the default camera

move the camera back a bit

, then you can see the lighting

is positioned on the upper 45-degree position

Next, I am going to explain about the display menu

I brought a character as a helper for my explanation

When we see objects,

we can change various modes in the display mode

Something like wire frames or shadings

and determine how to see this in more detailed manner,

the keyboard shortcut starts from NA

to NB NC and have lots of modes

You can use them regarding your circumstances

If you have to check to polygons, you can see here in the back, there is a line

you can click here to check them

and if you have overlapped objects

change into line, then the object becomes transparent

and you can see the ones in the back too

You can select how to use these modes

depending on the situation

If it's too heavy, you can see it in boxes only

or just see it in skeletons only

changing various modes

and you change what you see

is something you can do through the display panel

Now, for the default light

you don’t see there aren’t any lights here

, but there is an imaginary light

and in the viewport window

it decides how the objects will be shown

which may be a bit awkward from time to times depending on the angle

In that case, click on the default light and drag

and change the direction of the light

Now, let’s see options

In case of Level of Detail,

you can change how detailed you want the objects

to be shown

If the scene gets too heavy, this also can be adjustable

make the scene lighter

, and test animations quite a time

so it would be best you know how to do it

Others, in my case,

I use most of them as a default

Turn it on whenever I need them

This we can find out about it later as we proceed with the class

We will focus only on the Material

There is yellow and orange material

If you turn these off ,

you can simply see it without Material

Another one is Configure All

If you go in there,

whenever the window size is changed,

you can see the darker region

if you start rendering

Only this part is visible, but from time to time, this region

is the reason why we can’t see the layout

more correctly

Then, go to Safe Frames

adjust the opacity

, then you can see it goes darker

Also, when we move the camera,

you can see how it looks more precisely

Let’s go back to Configure All again

You can go in with Alt + B

, you can press Alt+B to go in

, but it may be in the way

and hard to see what region

comes in the camera accurately

Then, you can adjust this to control

for case of HUD

It is a function where it shows more in the viewport window

can’t go everything one by one now

, but I’ll make sure to explain them while we go through the lectures

Next, we will learn about the filter

Let’s take a closer look at this friend

The filter is a function which adds and deletes

whatever you wish to adjust

There is a new function called Geometry Only, and when you do pre vis,

it makes it easier for us to see

only the Geometry itself easily

If you don’t know what Pre vis is,

I again will tell you more as we go through the lectures

I’ll give you an example

This purple friend is called deformer, which we will learn later,

if you don’t want to see this part,

you can turn it off, then you will see

that only the deformer part is deleted

just like this Other parts

can be turned on and off by your preference

Next is the panel

You can zoom out like this

and put it in the exact middle

It's in the middle now

We can see this friend not only from a single view

, but other directions too using various panels

making it more easy when

modeling or making animation

you can go to this panel here, Arrangement

and change the views to different ways

Basically, Cinema 4D offers

a set up to view from 4 different views

, but if you go to panel here,

you can select a view that you would like to see

I personally often use this 2 views side by side

and expand this window a bit

Go to the camera

change to perspective

Select a window and make a camera like this

you can see on the right side of the camera,

there is a white square box you have to press

in order to activate the camera

then, when you see in the second window

you can see the camera’s position

, but I’ve set this as a Perspective so

you can freely go back and forth to work

I keep this setting when I’m working on animations

and if I’m doing modeling, I go to a panel

set as 4 views since you can see them from all sides

and make more intuitive modeling works

So, you can switch it whatever situation you are in

If you press the middle button,

you can make a viewport that you want to see to a full screen

Also, you can control it

with the button at the end

So the panel lets you see lots of views

there is a shortcuts in the right

F 1 2 3 4 5 shortcuts

also a way to change views

Next, press Ctrl + N to make new window

and bring out the objects

Click and drag

, then you can select various objects

, but right now, the position is the same

and you can’t see them

, then use the select tools and click

You can see the X Y Z here below

You can move to X Y Z axis like this

Usually this view is the front view

where we see from the front

X is the right and left, Y is up and down

Z is back and forth

I moved the objects like this

You have various ways to move the objects

You can grab this axis to move

or click here in the corner

And if you move it around like this,

you move it in the Y and Z direction

, except the blue Z axis

If you move it here, it will move in Y Z direction

, excluding the X axis direction

You can use the corner to move like this

or if you click the middle part of the object,

you can move it in all three axis direction

You can use move tool to move

You’ll see you can move it in any directions

If you use select tool, then here in the middle,

there is this cube that shows up again

You can click here to move

Next, I'm going to show you how to select objects

in the Objects window

Live selection is the default

The live selection let's you click anything

the mouse goes on top

You can select regions with the Radius part

You can enlarge the radius region

You'll see the circle got bigger

For the shortcuts, click the middle button of the mouse, click the screen

and drag to change the size

like this

So, you can select it like this

and when you select, you can drag them all once

to select

or if there is lots of complicated objects,

you can click Shift to add the selected regions

See in the side you can see it is added

, but if you click it without pressing Shift like this,

the original selected region is gone

and the next one is being selected

, but if you want to add,

you can add by pressing Shift and click

If you want to exclude,

press Ctrl and click to delete

I’ve selected the objects

If you select all the objects

and move, then all objects will move together

, but clicking everything whenever we move

is too inefficient, right

especially in cases where there are so many objects, it may be complicated

, but we can use group function

if you press Alt and G, something called null comes up

So what is null

Null is a coordinate in an imaginary space

and in these coordinates, all of these friends go under there

If you press Alt + G, there is a group, and all go in

Now, this is the parent, and rest are the children

So, if you move the parent,

all the kids follow them

You can drag it with the mouse and move it down here

so if you select null and move again,

all will move together

If you want to move it individually,

select one by one to move it

that is the reason why null is important

For example, when you rotate,

you can see that they are rotating with null

in the center

, but there are times when we want this position

changed a little bit

In that case, you see the L shape here

This is the enable axis modification

Click L and change the position like this

Click L again to turn it off

You can see that the position of the null is changed

E button is to move, R button is to rotate

, and T button is to scale

Let’s press E to find out

You can also move it by pressing 7

You can see the axis here is moving

, but if you don’t press 7 and move

all the objects will move

so you can press 7 and do something like this or

press L, move the axis, press L again to turn off

, and do it like this

so the object will change by the axis

such as the scale or rotation

The axis position is important

and these could be designated as a group

Next is, if there is an object

and you see the axis dislocated a bit,

we can move it by pressing L button

, but there will be times where you want the axis positioned

at exactly in the middle of the object volume

press Shift + C

open the command window

Here, you can select all the menu and commands

Let’s type center

Type Center, then you will see Center Axis to

drag and put it here in the side

I use them a lot, so I moved them here

press Center Axis to

Then, you can see the axis that locates exactly in the middle

and as you can see

go to Customization,

Customize Command

,press it

, then you can see all the menus you want

You can find it here

and the palettes

We can adjust them

Let’s delete the unwanted palettes

Press Edit Palette

, double click

, then the Center Axis to we moved before is gone

You can move it back in here

and if you have a menu that you use a lot,

you can make shortcuts

For example, let’s sign Center Axis to as Ctrl + Shift + C

and assign here

and when we close it,

let’s move the axis by pressing L

I’ve set the shortcut as Ctrl + Shift + C

so if I press Ctrl + Shift + C,

it is changed to center

Let me tell you some tips regarding

moving objects and axis

if we select all 3 objects,

the axis comes in the middle of these objects

You can see that it rotates around the center

but, for example, if you want the axis to rotate based on this capsule,

you can make null

, but if you move the axis of the object

it turns to white

If it changes like this, click the white and rotate

, then the axis is not set in the middle

, but the axis of this object

and rotate like this

Also, if there is a lot of objects,

like the 3 objects we see now

I pressed Space bar

to select the tools w used before

That is the select tool, so if we do it like this,

if we scale, the middle becomes the axis

, but here in the scale tool, Object Axis

Turn on the Per Object manipulation

then the object rotates around the axis of each object

Same goes with the rotation

If we don’t have this, the whole group will rotate together

Next, I’ll talk about Attribute window

and give you more explanation

First, go to display, Gouraud shading

Let’s change the setting where we can see the lines

Select cube and see

If the basic formation is made like this,

you can change various options

In the case of segments, you decide how many polygons of the object you want

to be divided

Sizes and other things can be changed too

Other objects can be adjustable to match

the characteristics of each of those objects

These differ objects by objects

Let’s add sphere for example

IIn case of sphere, you can change the polygon’s arrangement

If you go to the objects tap

like this

Let’s find out how to change these

to be editable

If you look at the top left corner,

there is make editable

This makes the object to be editable

As a short cut, you press C button If you press C button,

the basic figure becomes triangle polygon shape

Then the UV comes up since it changed in to triangle

, then you can adjust them

How do we adjust

We can adjust them by using the dotted line side

If you have 2 dots, that becomes edge

Let’s see surfaces using cones

If you look at a cone, if there are 3 dots or 3 edges, you have a surface

so the move tool, using the dotted line side

and rotation, and T for the scale

You can change the objects like this

, but for just simple basic shapes

, it won’t be easy to make them editable

since the dotted line shape itself cannot be selectable

So, editable is the function

that makes this to editable

In the case to select a face that are composed with vertices,

press enter

, then it will change like this

Next, let's talk about the solo mode

In the solo mode, we can use it when we want to

focus on specific objects

So, if you press the solo mode

since we’ve selected cone and then turned on the solo mode,

you can isolate the cone

If you click on the top, it clears away

Let’s try the null

Null and then solo mode, you can’t see anything

that is because this is a parent and coordination of an imaginary space

It will not show the children below

, but if you go to Viewpoint Solo Hierarchy

and press here

even if you select null,

you can see the children below

and see them all

If you press the button below,

the selected objects itself goes to solo mode

and show interactively right away

Next, to quickly explain about the snap mode,

let me make a cube

cube, then a sphere

Snap mode is when there is an object

and that object sticks to a certain position

So, if you move certain position,

this function is very useful

First, make Enable Snap

Shift + S for shortcuts

Let’s see vertex snap as an example

If this cube is set as vertex snap,

you can see the cube sticks

to the sphere’s vertex

We can’t see well now

Let’s change into lines

If you change it into line,

you can see that it sticks to vertex

If you change it into edge,

it sticks to edges

So, according to the various modes here,

snap is the function

where objects stick

So far, we've covered the basic UI and navigation

the movement of objects and scale rotation

how to make groups and other things for the starters

It may have been too easy for some

and maybe too hard on some others

Go back front again

and follow to make it yours

For the future lectures

we will see many parts more in details

Let’s see you next class