Learn how to design a trendy twisted abstract in Maxon Cinema 4D!

Comments: If you see a capital letter next to a command, it represents the hot key for that Command.

This is the process of how I am gonna be making my render for use in Photoshop.

1. Create a basic sphere. (Object-> primitive-> sphere)

2. Make the Sphere editable. (C)

3. Switch to Polygon object preview. (Tools-> Polygons)

4. Select the live selection Tool. (selection ->Live selection).

5. If you hold down left click somewhere on the field, you will see a circle appear.

6. While holding down the left click on the mouse, move the cursor over areas of the circle, and you would notice those area turning into red.

7. Once you let go off the mouse left click, you will see the grey turning into more red colors.

Tip: Selection--> Rectangle Selection. Now make a rectangle over the Circle. And the circle should be red now, at least, the side you are looking at.

*Important*

If you are using older version, such as 7 or 8. Go to Structure ->Edit Surface -> and you be able to find the Matrix Extrude, and later on in the tutorial Cruple and Clone , here. Also look at the tutorials after step #19, for other ways to use it.

8. Structure-> Matrix extrude. The space at the following location would change, and the setting for matrix extrude would appear. This is change than before, since in the old version, you would have a new window appear, but in v9, it appears in this location.

9. Scroll down, if the Apply button is not visible, and click on the Apply. I used the Default setting.

Tip: Switch to Extrude tool. (D). The setting in the Matrix extrude would change to the one for Extrude tool. Click On New Transform continuously, and your tentacles would continue to get bigger.

10. Click on the following button, which could be found in the Perspective window.

11. Hold down on the button and you can rotate the view of your view, or to make better sense, of the camera. Think of a camera, with this you can rotate the camera in a circular motion.

12. If you have one of those mouse with two buttons, and then a scroll button in the center. You can place the cursor in the view window, and roll on the scroll button on the mouse, you will be able to zoom in and out in the view window.

13. Now You have more idea of what your render looks like from the other side, and the camera is little up.

14. I used the live section button to select the following area.

15. Now go to Sutructure -> Set Point Value

Sorry. I was working on this, and I got following error. it Occurred to me, when i started to abuse the cinema, and letting it do what I asked it do, and rather do something else. ( I Forgot How exactly I got it).

16. Took me 30 sec's or so, and I re-did all of the steps above. :)

17. I went to Structure-> Set point Value. Of course, the window should change now,

18. I used the following setting.

19. Functions-> clones.

Clones=10.

20. Click on the icon in following screenshot, or Object->Nurbs-> Hyper Nurbs.

21. Drag the Sphere icon into the HyperNURBS object.

22. Press ctrl+R, and you can see you have swirly thing.

Without HyperNurbs:

With HyperNURBS

23. Refer to step #10, if you do not know where the following buttons are located.

I want to take the time to explain what each of the does. They do not effect the object itself, but effect the view of the Object.

#1. The first one is used to move the position of the Camera. It is used to either move right side of the field or left side of the field. It is like picking a camera and moving it right or left.

#2. It is used to zoom in( get closer to the object) or zoom out( get away from object).

#3. Just as I said before, it used to place radial position of the camera.

#4. It shows the object in 3 other dimensions.you can click on it to see what it means. i do not want to get further into this one, since it does not need much attention by new 3d person.

All 1-3, are accessed by clicking with the left mouse button, holding the button down, and then you can change the view of the camera.

But #2, has a special feature to it, which some like to call Depth of field, or correct word, perspective.

24. First of all. switch to Object tool. and then click on the Hypernurbs in the object palette.

25. Afterward, i placed the object in the center of the field and zoomed onto the object..

Following is the view, before I zoomed into the Render.

26. Now right click on the #2 button in the following image

27. Once you click on the second icon, hold the mouse on it, and move your mouse around so it seems like the render is going away from you.

Before

After

28. In the image above, I decided to change the radial of the camera, so I would have those tentacles in front of me. Why? Because when I use perspective effect, those tentacles help me get the Wossh effect, in the result above.

29. If The render disappears, because you used too much perspective on it. then go Edit->Frame Default (the option into he object window, not the program window). it will bring you back to it default place

30. If you feel the render is a bit small, then select the sphere object.

31. Change the setting to scale, if it is not already.

32. I decided to keep my current setting.

33. Now to the most important part. the Material. [Caution: it be smart to save the render by now, unless you think your program will not get errors from frustration of rendering later on]

34. The following is the image of the Material manager. I am gonna be referring to this for next few steps. So look for the options here.

Go to New-> Shader-> Banji

35. A new thing would appear in the Material box. Double click on it and new window will open up.

36. Check the box for environment. and then load the Lumas.

37.

a) Click on the red big box.

b) Un-check the active box.

c) This will be the result.

d) Check the Anisotropy box..

38. Click on the X for that window, to close it.

39. In the Material box, on the thing we just created. Click on it and drag it into Sphere object.

You should color change taking place.

40. I can not help you further more with the render. I have shown some ways to do it, and now you can take it from here and do what you like.

41. I fiddle around with the perspective, rotating of the render, zooming in and out, and finally got following result.

52. Make sure you have the render saved by now, it is time to Renderrrr!

53. Go to render-> Render Settings (ctrl+B)

In the Genral tab, change Antialiasing- Best.

In the Output tab, change the Resolution to 1024x768. then further change the 1024 to 1075.

In the Save Tab, Check the Aplha Channel, and select format Photoshop(psd).

If you know where you gonna save it, then select the Path as well, but it is not necessary.

54. Press Shift+ R. A new window will appear, and it will start to render now. Now wait a while till it is done.

55. Once it is done, in the window that opened, go to file-> save picture as. Then Photoshop type should already be there, now just save it.

My render time: 1:02:12

(resized version)

Tip: Choose the following option, and then make a rectangle somewhere on the object. You can use it to see certain part of the render, what it would be like after you render the whole render. This way, it is like a test to see your material in effect, and get an idea of the final render.

56. I do not like the colors and the bottom looks crooked. so I decided to change the position of my render.

.

57. I did not liked it after further rendering, so i changed again.

58. Then changed it again to this:

59. I decided to delete some portion of the render.

How? Select the Sphere in the object tool, switch to Polygon view, and then use Live selection tool to select parts, and then use delete button on the keyboard to delete them.

60. Here is the new material I used. Create another banji material. File-> Shader->Banji.

Use the following settings.

There is no changes for Specular 1-3

Transparency: change Front Opacity to 100% and Refraction to 1.7.

Reflection: Change the color.

For The environment. Your original color is red. Click on the red color, and new window appears. In that window, go to Shader tab and uncheck the Active box. In the Specular 3 tab, change the color to:

And in the Anisotorophy tab, Check the active box.

61. Now, apply the material to the render and this will be the final result. I used for Output size: 1275 x 768

Render Time: 5 min 13 sec, Better render time than the other one, no?