-
3D :(
I have a situation here –
I started learning flash like 5 years ago, now i can do cool stuff with it.
I started learning AE 3 or 4 years ago, i can do cool stuff with it.
I started C4D 3 or 4 years ago, but my projects are rarely cool – they always have that ‘oh, he did that in a 3D app’ look to them – anyway, it might not sound like a problem but it’s really frustrating. I’ve pored through the manuals/tutorials that come with the software(i’m still on 8.5) but it’s getting to the point where i hardly use C4D anymore…anyone else have this problem? Is it a plateau or something? Because if that’s all it is then i’m more than happy to keep plugging away. I think it has to do with the lack of tutorials available – flash/ae have a ton of resources on the web, but C4D doesn’t have as much available, and the manuals aren’t as helpful to me as everyone thinks they are(I tend to like applied-tutorials, which work with real-world examples and not just a demo on a sphere – not criticizing, just telling you what i’ve found works for me…)
Anyway, this has turned into a rant – i guess this has also turned into a rhetorical post, but it’s already helped. If anyone can give me some advice, I would LOVE it. I just bought 2 books on Amazon.com, the adam guy(i think he went to USU, my alma mater!) and the other one that’s popular on amazon, they looked good. If these books don’t help me get to a point where I’m doing great work with 3d I don’t know what i’ll do – i hate to throw away all these hours and hours and hours of C4D but i don’t know what else to do. P.S. I did the rotating news cube here http://www.mtv.com with 3d(they were outsourcing it and SONY everytime they needed to use it anywhere! so i built a model and then prepped it for the web, but that’s neither here nor there) Man, this is long. I’ll stop now – any thoughts? thanks.SUMMARY: 3D is frustrating, what to do?
-
7 Replies
-
Treat it like AE. Most motion graphics don’t use AE’s lighting and shadows and people do tons of incredible graphics with it. So instead of do the ‘ol 3D thing’ which is worry about materials and lighting. Do neither. On your C4D material, only engage the luminence channel to give your objects unlit flatness like a Flash/Vector look. Kill your auto light and don’t add lights. No shading, no specular. Then create cool worlds that grow and animate. It’s a cool look because people think of it as a 2D look but the 3D (a lot more 3D than AE can give you) really stands out. The comedy central bumpers from last year were doing this.
For other inspiration from a guy who only does his mograph in 3D (except a few overlays) go here:
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
whoa, i hit bottom and then found the C4D cafe video tutorials! thx for the reply 🙂
-
You know, this sounds like a lighting/materials situation, and for that, to start with, you have to decide how ‘photoreal’ you want things to be. Then you have to play play play.
For motion work, there’s the gamut of everything from not photoreal at https://www.pleix.net and https://www.1st-ave-machine.com, who do pretty good photoreal, to stylized and design-ish, like https://www.buckla.com. Most 3d motion work is one step removed from real, just good enough to show dimensionality, no attempt for reality. And that’s just dandy considering that you have a max of about 4 minutes render time per frame if you want to ever meet a deadline, and photoreal work can go to several days per frame, just ask your local Maxwell Render man (his photo is up above 🙂 ).
As motion people our lack of photoreal chops gets us a little bit of sniffery from the photoreal single-frame guys, but whutever–can they make a frog barf like I can?
-
so i think i figured it out – my problem has been that i just don’t feel like i’ve ever been able to get control of the software, i always have to settle for a jiggle or an extruding polygon or something – I think it has to do with a couple things – one, i really have not had luck on tutorials online – i learn fast if i have an example to reference – last night i found the c4dcafe video tutorials and watched a ton of them, i’m going to go tonight and watch a ton more – that will be a part of the solution; I also think that it’s important for me to complete more projects and not give up as easily…i’m going to start posting projects online and get some feedback, so expect to start hearing from me more.
-
Hi there,
You mentioned you saw the C4D cafe tutorials? Could you point me to the site? thanks
-
-
found it…..a treasure chest here…thanks.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up