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Free C4D Tools
Hey all, I’ve updated my C4D tools. Here is the link and the description/directions:
https://sugarfilmproduction.com/CSTools.zip
These are a set of plug-ins using Xpresso and UI objects. They were made to speed up my workflow and I use them all the time so I thought I would share.
Drop them into your MAXON/Cinema 4D/Library/Objects floder so you can have them inside the app in the “Object Library”.
Need at least C4D 9.6 / no modules needed
Table of Contents:
1. CS_Daylight : Light rig for instant daylight lighting.
2. CS_KinoSquare : Light Rig for motion graphics
3. CS_SineNull : Parent objects to this null. Creates cycles with noise options
4. CS_ShakeNull : Parent objects to this for earthquake effects
5. CS_Fog : Instant Fog/Haze with easy control
6. CS_3DStroke : Simulation of Trapcode’s 3D Stroke but in true 3D
7. CS_EasyCam(my fave) : Camera movement system for basic film moves with path bend and vibration options
8. CS_Flicker : For simulating candle light, plasma balls, other random light effects
9. CS_Vibrate : A much easier version of C4D’s vibrate tag1. “CS_Daylight”
What for: I find myself constantly needing the simulation of sky and sun lighting but with a key light as well. Just like on film shoots, it’s pretty standard to put the sun to the back of the subject (as a rim light) while using either large 12 x Muslin screen for bounce or blowing HMI’s through diffusion as a key light. Well setting up a few infinite lights is easy, but the results are very harsh. The Sky object is nice for BG look and for reflections or some GI, but for non-GI I find the default lighting on objects to be once again harsh. To me the sweetest looking lighting is a Sky dome area light for the blue sky ambiance, And a large partial dome as an area light for the rim light so it’s really soft and wraps around objects. Then an even smaller semi-dome as a keylight. Well, this can be built easily using the C4D 9.5’s ability to turn any poly object into an area light. However, Once built, the Open GL view isn’t remotely accurate to what you get when you render. Everything is blown out with the wrong light direction.
So I wanted an object that I could add to a scene and have an instant build of a sky dome with partial domes for Rim light and key, be able to control their relative intensity mix, have an Master intensity. As well as other controls that make it simple to set up and tweak. But still have the Open GL interface be accurate.
This is why I made this “Daylight’ object. In the editor it uses an array of omni lights that are roughly matched to the rendered results of the area lights. So you can set the controls intuitively in the editor display. Then when you render, the omni lights don’t play, but the area lights do. The result is a very smooth, natural looking render which roughly matched what you see in the editor. You can in seconds add daylight lighting to the scene and quickly tweak it to match regular daylight or sunset tones.
In the editor most of the objects are hidden. But there are arrows and circles to show how big it is and what direction the rim and key are pointing.
Sliders:
Key Level: Relative mix of the Keylight
Rim Level: Relative mix of the rim light (Sun)
Sky Fill: Relative mix of the bluish sky dome
Key Bias: Rotates the key light around the center of the world to offset the angle of the key for a more modeled look.
Rotation: Rotates the entire rig so you can quicly dial in the angle you need.
Size: Rescales the entire rig from smallish to pretty huge.
Master Intensity: Self Explanatory
Sky Colors: This dials in the amount the lights take on Sky/Sun colors. 0% is all white, 100% is full coloring.
KeyColorMax: This sets the max that the keylight takes on the sky colors. Often the keylight isn’t quite as warm as the sun so this is where you can bring it back a bit to a cleaner tone like film set lighting often is.
SunColorBias: The sun defaults to what I think is a daylight sun color, but this slider will swing the hue a bit on both ends. For example for a more sunset tone swing it left to make the sun colors more orange than yellow.
SkyColorBias: Same with the sky dome. For sunsets, swing it to the right to take more of a purple tone than sky blue.2. “CS_KinoSquare”
What For: I have always liked KinoFlo lighting. Especially when used in reflections. You see it on almost every hip-hop video on MTV. Tubes reflecting in sunglasses, Glow on the face, etc. You can get a decent approximation of this look with area lights in C4D. The look is still there in the way light hits the objects, but Especially with some reflectivity, the look of the tubes in the reflections gives it a really nice touch. I also wanted a set and forget lighting rig that is very flexible and artistic looking. So I made “KinoSquare”.
What it is: It’s a square of lighting tubes as area lights. Try making a floor object and throw some primitives in there. Make a material with some reflectivity and throw it on the floor and objects. Add KinoSquare to your project and just have fun tweaking the sliders. You’ll find that it looks awesome with almost no work on your part.
Sliders:
Intensity: Overall brightness of the rig
Rim Level: Relative brightness compared to the rest of the rig (usually looks great being a lot brighter than the rest as a backlight)
KeyBias: Shifts the Front tube left or right to offset the angle it hits the subject for a more modeled look.
Fill Level: Relative brightness of the 2 side tubes.
Height: This moves the rig in the Y. Yeah you could do this with your move tool, but I find it much handier to use this slider for quick adjustments.
Rotation: Rotates the entire rig to set the preffered angle
Size: This one slider resizes the whole rig. Obviously you can make it larger for bigger scenes, but even in small scenes changing the size really effects the look of the lighting (especially scenes with a floor)
Seen in Reflections and Seen in Render check boxes: This is just a quick convenient way to set these 2 settings to all 4 lights with one click.3. “CS_SineNull”
What For: I find that so many things in nature move in sine like cycles with some random motion here and there. In Maya I was always writing expressions that involved sin, cos, and noise functions to do animation for me. In C4D these are in the Trig Xpresso node. So I wanted a null that would move using various combinations of sin, cos, and noise that you can parent objects to to aquire this motion.
Sliders:
X_Amplitude: Er..Amplitude of the sine motion
X_Frequency: You guessed it
X_Noise: Assuming the master noise sliders are set to something other than zero, then this is how much X position takes on the noise.
X_Cos (Checkbox): This makes it a Cos instead of a Sin. Used for creating circular motion. i.e X would be set to sin and Z could be set to cos so together the object moves in a circle.Then the same sliders mentioned above are also for Y and Z
NOISE_Amp: Master noise amplitude
NOISE_Freq: Master Noise Frequency. These sliders should be up for the X Y and Z noise sliders to work.Examples: Make a dog’s tail wag? Just add this object and set the X settings to wag speed and target the tail bone to it. Bug flying around? Parent the bug to this null and set arbitrary settings to all 3 Positions then add a little noise for more randomness. I even assigned a character IK rig’s hip, arms and feet controllers to be parented to a few of these SineNull’s and settings some Sine speeds made the character dance so realistically it looked like mocap (becasue most dancing is sin like movement anyways).
4. “CS_ShakeNull”
What for: Somebody in the C4D Cow wanted a simple control to make objects shake like an Earthquake effect for a piece set to music. I’m gussing for that intense look often used in Drum and Bass videos. So once again this isn’t rocket science (and yes you could use the vibrate tag), but I wanted it to be more easy to key and use.
Sliders:
Shake!: Sets the amount of shake (all 3 Axis shake). Keyframe this slider up and down to bring the shake in and out.
Amp_Max: Sets the overall amplitude of the shake
Freq_Max: Sets the overall Fequency of the shake5. CS_Fog
What For: When I want to add fog I find it always takes too long to futz with the process. So I made this tool to set and forget. When you open it, you’ll see 3 rings. Set the big one in the center just bigger than the objects in your scene. Set the 2 outer rings using the height slider to be just above your highest object (or lower if you want a visible fog line). Then that’s it if you want an instant atmospheric haze. But the convenient color and thickness sliders are there for you to tweak.
Sliders:
Size: Sets the size of the fog object. Set slightly bigger than your scene
Height: Sets the vertical size of the fog. Set just higher than your highest object
Thickness: How thick you want the fog
Brightness: How bright. 70% is usually a good number
Color: Color of fog6. CS_3DStroke
What For: If you’ve ever played with Trapcode’s 3D stroke, this is a true 3D version of that. You’ll see a spline drop box. Just create a spline and drop it in that. You’ll see your tapered stroke appear on it. Tweak the offset slider and you’ll see it travel across the spline
Sliders:
Length: How much of the spline does the stroke take up
Thickness: How the thick the Stroke is
TaperFalloff: How thick or sharp the tapering of the ends are.
Offset: This moves or offsets it along the spline
PathSpline: Create a spline for the stroke to travel on and drop it in here7. CS_EasyCam:
What is it:
This is my favorite tool by far. Most camera moves on film shoots are pretty basic, Some dolly track or a Jib move is the most you often do.
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7 Replies
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Incredible work. I hope others will show their appreciation. I have myself made some similar rigs such as your kinosquare and camera shakers (which can add stunning realism and style to cgi) but all of these tools are simple and every day useful. As if I need more reason to switch to C4D from lightwave…
Thanks,
Devin -
Chris – thanks so much for updating these. I use vibrate alot, and am eager to check out 3D stroke, etc..
Patrick
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Thanks, guys. Glad you like them. It’s a lot more fun working on these tools knowing that others have uses for them as well.
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Wow – beautiful work man. Can’t wait to give some of these tools a shoot. I’ve got some experimentation time coming up and I’ll be checking out all your tools. Thanks again.
-Matt
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I followed your instructions:
Drop them into your MAXON/Cinema 4D/Library/Objects floder so you can have them inside the app in the “Object Library”.
Although I do not have the MAXON folder. My path is actually:
C:/Program Files/Cinema 4D R10/library/object
Note it’s “object” and not “objects”…Restart C4D and Objects>Object Library is Empty!
I am on Vista 64 bit w/C4D 64 bit if that matters
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Hello,
Just downloaded these and excited to check them out. What’s the proper path in R11? (there is no library/object folder in my install).Thanks!,
Michael -
These look really useful – Only had a little play around as yet but I can already see them saving me loads of time.
Many thanks!!With regards to the R11 installation ..I suffered the same confusion a few of you guys had.
Here’s what I did:
Put the CStools folder somewhere on your drive (I put in program files/Maxon root)
Open C4d, go to window/Content Browser.
Now navigate to your CStools folder with the explorer, click the folder and on the right all the CStools appear.
To use one, right click it and choose either OPEN or MERGE (Merge to load the CSTOOLs object into your current scene.
–I couldn’t set it up so I could access through Object Managet / load preset. Is there a way? Not that using Object Browser is much more effort..
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