1 The Plus Project

As you may know we have some pretty big plans for these Tuts+ sites. While today they are humble little tutorial blogs, we’ve thought for some time that it would be cool to build an entire platform for education. We’re going to call that platform Plus. You’ll know Plus content as our premium content, but no longer.
Our premium content is now ‘Premium’ (go figure!) and Plus is the brand for the educational platform we’re building, which, just like Psdtuts+, will be completely free for the most part.

With Tuts+ well established now, we’ve finally begun work on the project! We’ve acquired the domain Plus.org which will be the home of the new platform (yay for our first four letter domain!) We’ve also brought over our resident code genius Ryan Allen (who built our ActiveDen platform all by himself back in 2006) to team up with Tuts+ developer extraordinaire Fred Wu and kick ass front-end guru Derek Herman. And Skellie and I have been busy spec’ing out the plans for the new site, and it’s pretty, damn cool if I do say so myself!

Right now the Tuts+ sites are fairly passive, but we’d like to get the whole community involved in writing, teaching, answering questions and generally learning. The new Plus.org platform promises to incorporate all that plus some nifty ideas we’ve taken from gaming to come together into a social education platform.

It’s going to take a long time and we’re going to roll it all out in pieces over the next 2 years. We’re super excited about it all, and I hope I’ll have more updates in the coming months!

2 Creative Sessions and Mobiletuts+

While Plus.org will take a long time, we do have some new goodies coming much sooner including Creative Sessions which is being built now, and also Mobiletuts+ which will be all about mobile development!

3 Server Update

About a week and a half ago we had some major problems with our servers. I’m happy to say that we’ve now completely resolved these issues by moving hosts and reengineering our hosting setup completely from scratch. The new setup is much quicker and has a much greater capacity for growth, so fingers crossed, that will be the last server outage for a long time to come!

4 The Redesign

The new theme has a few neat features you may want to check out including:

• Basix!
  While Tuts+ has always been known for intermediate to advanced level content, we’ve been thinking it’d be good to separate out tutorials and articles better suited to people just getting started. So we’ve created the Basix tag for quick browsing. You’ll find it in the top menu, and expect to see more Basix content soon as we beef up our library of novice-friendly content.
• Easy access to Videos, Tips and Premium Posts
  We’ve also started tagging videos, tips and Premium membership posts so that along with Basix content you can quickly find what you’re after. We’re generally going to be working to clean up our category/tagging across the network in the coming months to get it more standardized.
• Tutorial Details on Posts
  We’re also going to start standardizing all tutorials to have a "Tutorial Details" section at the top with difficulty and other pertinent details. Eventually we’ll get all the archives updated … but with over 2000 tutorials, that will take a while!
• Bigger, more readable content area
  We’ve expanded the site to be optimized for bigger 1280px wide screens, with a bit of JavaScript to resize for smaller resolutions. This has given us the space to clean up the content area to be a bit bigger and more readable generally.
• Latest Creattica content for inspiration
  We’ve also started porting over the latest Creattica content into our sidebars. There’s actually a redesign of Creattica coming in the next few weeks and we’ll be expanding the gallery to cover even more types of inspiration. The new sidebar widget will give even more exposure to those talented creatives on Creattica!
• General UI Improvements
  Most of the improvements on the new design are small, subtle improvements such as a reduction in the number of clicks needed to browse categories, a clearer search field, faster loading pages and generally cleaner, more optimized code.

One change that we have also made is to remove the community link feed. Over the years this was a great way to get exposure to community links, but unfortunately was also home to a lot of spam. So with this iteration we’ve left it behind.

Also at the moment sites with Flickr groups don’t have it showing, but don’t worry that’ll be back. There’s just a problem with our Flickr plugin at the moment!!

There are still some more tweaks to do to the new design and a lot of post formatting to do to get our archives matching up with the new theme. But for all intents and purposes the new theme is now alive and well! Enjoy!

Final Effect Preview

Step 1

Open a new scene in Maya. Under the Create menu go to Cameras > Camera. This will create a new camera in your scene, that will be used to project the image onto the geometry.

Step 2

With the new camera selected, go to the channel box, double click on the camera’s name camera 1, and change the name to Proj_cam.

Step 3

Translate (move) the camera towards the end of the grid on the Z axis. Then with Proj cam selected go to Panels > Look Through Selected.

Step 4

In the viewport go to View > Camera Settings > Resolution Gate.

Step 5

Change the resolution size of the final output from the default 640 X 480 by going to the rendering shelf and clicking on the render settings button. Under the Image Size tab change the Width to 864, and the Height to 486.

Step 6

In this step you will import the image that you will be projecting onto geometry. In the viewport go to View > Image Plane > Import Image. Then select your image. Press Ctrl + A to bring up the image attributes.

Step 7

Check the radio button ’looking through camera.’

Step 8

Scroll down to the Placement tab, under the Fit dropdown menu select Fill and then click Fit to Resolution Gate.

Step 9

Go to Create > Polygon > Cube to create a cube. Turning off interactive creation may help at this point.

Step 10

Translate, scale and rotate the cube and the camera until the cube is lined up roughly with your image.

Step 11

Right click on the model, and then select vertices in the mark up menu. Translate the vertices until it fits the middle building in the photo more accurately.

Step 12

Press ctrl +D with the cube selected to duplicate it. Do this twice, and scale the blocks until they resemble the buildings on either side of the main tower in the photo.

Step 13

The next step is to create a plain to receive the projection of the background. Go to Create > Polygon Primitives > Plain. Rotate and scale the plain until it is behind the buildings you have modeled.

Step 14

Add a shader by going to Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade. This will bring up the Hypershade window.

Step 15

Click on the Lambert icon under the Create Maya nodes > Surface tab. This will add a new Lambert material to the Hypershades work area. Select the shader, and press ctrl + A to open up the material Attributes editor.

Step 16

Change the name of the Lambert shader to Projection and click on the checkered box next to the Colour material attribute. This will open up the Create Render Node window.

Step 17

Select the As projection radio button and then click on the File icon.

Step 18

Under the Projection Attributes window, select Perspective as the Proj Type. Under the Camera Projection Attributes tab, select Proj_camshape under the Link To Camera drop down menu, and set Fit Type to Match Camera Resolution. Click the button next to the Image attribute.

Step 19

Load a projected image of your choosing into the scene.

Step 20

Select the Proj_cam and press ctrl +D to duplicate it. Call the new camera Render cam. Under the Rendering tab, click Render > Render Current Frame for a test render. Press the Keep Image button in the render window.

Step 21

Select the Render cam and press S on the keyboard to set a key frame. Move to frame 200, and then rotate the camera to a slightly different angle. Render again. This way you can see if the projection is working by moving the slider back and forth in the render window.

Step 22

Go to Create > Text > ? to bring up the text curve options. In the Text window, type Urban, and choose any font that you want by clicking on the downward arrow. Select Poly as the Type, and then click Create.

Step 23

With the text selected, go to Mesh > Combine.

Step 24

Right click on the text, pull the curser down to Face and select all of the faces.

Step 25

Click on Edit Mesh > Extrude, and make sure the Keep Faces Together option is turned on. Pull the faces outward to give the text some thickness.

Step 26

Repeat the previous steps to create the word ‘Motion’. Reduce its size by toggling the scale attributes.

Step 27

Go to Create > Polygon Primitive > Cylinder. To change the cylinder to a hexagon, change the Subdivisions Axis to 6. Reduce the Scale on the Y axis to flatten the hexagon. Change the name to ‘Hex’, and then press ctrl + D three times so that there are four different hexagons.

Step 28

Select the text, and all four hexagons, and group them together by pressing ctrl + G. Name it ‘Urban_group’, and move it to a suitable place in front of the camera.

Step 29

Select ‘Urban’ and press the insert key on your keyboard. This allows you to move the pivot point of your manipulator and will come in handy when you are animating. Move the manipulator to the left of the text closer to the building and then press insert again.

Step 30

With ‘Urban’ still selected, go to frame 120 and press S on the keyboard to create a key frame. Move the slider back to frame 100, and then scale ‘Urban’ down on the X, Y, and Z, axis down to 0.

Step 31

Select the largest hexagon, and move the manipulator as you have in the previous step. Go to frame 130 and press S. Repeat the previous step with the largest hexagonal object (this should be named ‘hex’). Now move to frame 120, and scale down to 0 on the X,Y,Z. You can also add a random rotation if you like.

Step 32

Select the word, ‘Motion’ and move the manipulator to the bottom of the word. Go to frame 150, and press S, then go back to frame 130, and rotate on the X axis by about 360 degrees and scale all of the axes to 0.

Step 33

Animate the remaining hexagons using the same methods. Set the pivot point manipulators within the object that you want it to appear out of in 10 frame increments. For example set the pivot point of ‘Hex 1’ into ‘Hex’ scale to 0. ‘Hex 2’ into ‘Hex 1’ and so on.

Step 34

Open the Hypershade window again. Create a new Phong material, and name this material ‘marble’. Turn Ambient Colour and Incandescence all the way down, but turn Transparency up. Add a marble patterned source image to the Colour node, making sure the radial button on the Source render node is no longer on As Projection, and is instead set to Normal.

Step 35

Repeat the previous steps twice, but add two separate source images to the Phong materials so that you have three new materials. Name the new materials ’ Urban_shader’, and ‘motion_shader.’ Apply the marble shader to the hexagon objects, the ‘Urban shader to Urban’, and the ‘Motion Shader’ to ‘Motion.’

Step 36

Select all of the objects in the scene, then go to the Render layer editor and create a new layer. Assign the objects to it by pressing on the button on the bottom right of the Render editor. By double clicking on the new layer you can rename it. Change the name of the layer to ‘Master’ and then click, Save.

Step 37

Create three new layers, and add all of the objects in the scene to each of them. Rename these layers, ‘Occlusion,’ ‘Specular,’ and ‘Reflection’. Right click on the ‘Occlusion’ layer to access the preset menu, and select Occlusion.

Step 38

You will need to create a shader to add to the objects in the ‘Specular’ layer. Do this by creating a new Phong material, and call it Spec_shader. Turn the slider down on the Colour, Transparency, Ambient Colour, Incandescence, and Diffuse options. Turn the Specular Colour to white, and the Cosine Power to 45. Go to the ‘Specular’ layer, and apply this shader to all of the objects therein.

Step 39

Press ctrl + D to duplicate the ‘Specular’ shader that you have just created, and name it ‘Reflect_shader’. Turn the Reflectivity slider up all the way to the maximum value of 1. Assign this shader to all of the objects in the ‘Reflect’ layer.

Step 40

Now you need an environment for the shader to reflect. Go to Create > Polygon Primatives > Sphere. Scale it up to 18.562 on the x,y, and z axes. Assign a new Lambert shader to the sphere, click on the Colour node, and choose the same image that you are projecting as the source image.

Step 41

You only want the textured sphere to be shown in reflections, so what you will need to do is select the sphere, and press ctrl + A to bring up the objects Attributes editor. Under the Render Stats tab, deselect the Primary Visibility checkbox.

Step 42

Do a test render of the reflection layer.

Step 43

Open up the Render Settings window again. Under the Common tab, make sure the Frame/Animation ext is set to name.#ext. The Image Format should be set to PNG, and the End frame should be set to 200. Renderable Camera should be set to render_cam. Go to the mental ray tab and set the Quality preset to Production. Make sure that all render layers apart from the default MASTERLAYER are checked. Finally, make note of where the rendered files will be saved to (they are normally saved in the image directory).

Step 44

Under the Rendering menu set, click on Render > Batch Render. Wait until the render is complete and then go to After Effects for the compositing stage.

Step 45

Open up After Effects then go to File > Import > File.

Step 46

Navigate until you find the folders that have been named after your render layers. Open ‘Master’, and click on the first file in the sequence. Make sure the PNG Sequence tickbox is selected, and then click Open. This will import the entire rendered image sequence. Do this with all of the other layers that you rendered out from Maya.

Step 47

By dragging one of the imported image sequences onto the new composition button, the comp inherits the image size and length of the footage that you have imported. All of the other layers can now be dragged onto the timeline.

Step 48

By clicking on Toggle Switches/Modes at the bottom of the window, you can see different transfer modes. Make sure the ‘Ambient Occlusion’ layer is set to Multiply, and is above the ‘Master’ layer. The ‘Reflect’ layer should be set to Overlay, and the ‘Specular’ layer should be set to Screen. ‘Specular’ should be the top layer, and ‘Reflect’ should be second from the top.
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Step 49

To add a slight haze, create a new Adjustment Layer. Set the transfer mode of this layer to Add, and adjust its opacity as you see fit.
.

Step 50

That’s it! Hope you learned something new here!!

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Inspirational 3D

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Gorgeous HDRi Skies

Our newest 3D entry is of course the brand new marketplace for 3D Models, CG Textures and Materials and Shaders – 3DOcean. The site is slowly but steadily gearing up to be another killer marketplace. Among the best items on the marketplace at the moment are Peter Guthrie’s brilliant collection of high res, high dynamic range HDRi skydome panoramas selling for $27 a piece. Check them out below. And if you haven’t heard of Peter, check out his beautiful portfolio of architectural visualisation at PeterGuthrie.net:

View more Popular Files on 3DOcean and if you’d like to start selling your own work Become an Author!

1 Million Pageviews a Month and Counting!

Meanwhiles here on Cgtuts+ the traffic is growing in leaps and bounds. We’re thrilled to say that we’re serving up over a million pageviews a month here and rising. This is all really thanks to our superiorly talented editor Kaleb Aylsworth and his team!

If you’re interested in advertising to the Cgtuts+ audience, ads are a complete steal at just $125 p/month … yes you read that correctly, that’s like 10 cents p/thousand impressions

So we’re off to a great start with our commitment to 3D here at Envato and we’re hoping they’ll only get bigger, badder and better in the months to come!

Long Live 3D!

Final Effect Preview

Tutorial Details

Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

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Tutorial Details

Final Effect Preview

Step 1

To complete this tutorial you also need hdri map, which you can find at the link above (under Tutorial Details). For the purpose of this tutorial I used RenoSuburb01_sm.hdr. If you want to use the same values as I do, you should keep your objects in similar dimensions (the height of character is 115cm), and also change your Working Units to centimeters. You can do this by clicking the icon shown on picture below. You can obtain 3Delight itself from the link above as well, and you will also be able to find detailed instructions for installation. The only disadvantage of the free version is the limit of two threads during rendering, so if you have a quad core processor, only two of it’s cores will work during rendering.

Step 2

For the purposes of this tutorial I used a very simple scene consisting of a floor and model of a boy. As you can see, at this time model looks very rough.

Step 3

To make a quick render using 3Delight you must add a render pass. Click 3Delight -> Add Render Pass -> Default.

Step 4

Click the render button.

Step 5

For future renders you can simply click 3Delight -> Render -> “your render pass name” (ex. delightRenderPass1).

Step 6

To access the rendering attributes, click 3Delight -> Select Render Pass -> “your render pass name”.

Step 7

After rendering you should get a poorly looking image.

Step 8

Time to invoke some renderman awesomeness. In renderman polygonal models can be rendered very smoothly without any actual mesh smoothing modifier, which can speed up your render times tremendously. All you have to do is assign special attributes to the objects that you want to render smoothly. Select your objects and click 3Delight -> Assignment Panel.

Step 9

I have selected only the boy model. In the Assignment Panel click button 1 (in the image below) to create attributes, and then click button 2 to show the attributes in the Attributes Editor.

Step 10

In the Attributes Editor, press and hold the button Add/Remove Attributes and chose ALL to assign all attributes.

Step 11

If you accidentally deselect your object, don’t assign new attributes. Just re-select the objects and find the desired tab in Attributes Editor. In my case, the model of the boy combines several objects into one group, and the attributes are added to that group. So if I only select one object in the group, there will be no attributes from 3Delight. I must select the entire group via the Outliner.

Step 12

Under Geometry check the Poly as Subd. This simple click will make your model look smooth, but with almost the same render time.

Step 13

Render, and you should get something like this.

Step 14

To make an environment light, you must first convert your HDRI map into a format that is readable by 3Delight. To do this, run the command line by hitting Start -> Run, then type CMD and press ENTER. Go to the directory where you have your HDRI map and type: tdlmake “envlatl RenoSuburb01_sm.hdr RenoSuburb01_sm.tdl

If your hdri map is in different format (light probe for example), then the command should also be different. For light probe type: tdlmake “lightprobe *.hdr *.tdl. For more information type ~tdlmake “h”.

Step 15

Create an Ambient Light by going to Create -> Lights -> Ambient Light. Leave all of the settings as default. You can place it wherever you want. You must assign a 3Delight light shader to it. Select the light and click 3Delight -> Assignment Panel. In the Assignment Panel press button (1) (in the image below) to create a light shader, then select the desired shader from the list (in this case envlight2 (3)). Hit Select (4). Now click button AE (2) to edit the attributes of the shader.

Step 16

In the Attributes Editor specify your converted hdri map by hitting the folder icon next to the envmap line. Ensure that you have selected the *.tdl file not *.hdr. Kenv lets you adjust the intensity of the light. Render. If the image is too dark, simply increase Kenv.

Step 17

The render below was done with Kenv set to 5.

Step 18

To turn occlusions on, change the value of Kocc (in the environment light shader) to 1.0 , and samples to 256 to increase the quality.

Step 19

If you render now, you will notice no changes. This is because you must make the objects visible to Rays. Make the changes under Visibility, in the 3Delight attributes of the object, to match the settings shown below. The floor plane must also have this attribute enabled. To do this, simply select the Plane and press 3Delight -> Assignment Panel, as described before.

Step 20

Render.

Step 21

This time rendering should be noticeably slower. To speed up our next steps, change the Kocc value (in the environment light shader) to 0. Now add a lighting map to the camera so the environment will be visible. In the Outliner, select the perspective camera persp, and click 3Delight -> Assignment Panel.

Step 22

In the Assignment Panel, create a background shader by clicking button (1) and choosing background shader from the list (2). Next press the Select button (3), and then the AE button (4) to show the settings in the Attributes Editor.

Step 23

In Attributes Editor chose a background image (the same as for the environment light). Ensure that you have selected the *.tdl file and not the *.hdr.

Step 24

After you render you may notice that the map is not correctly placed. This information is very important because the map for the environment light is placed the same way. In upper left corner you should see the bottom of the map, which tells you the way it must be rotated in order to place it correctly.

Step 25

To change the placement of the background image and light map, you must create a Coordinate System. Press 3Delight -> Add Coordinate System.

Step 26

Change the name of the Coordinate System to env_coord, and set the Draw Method to sphere.

Step 27

You can resize your sphere for a better view. Resizing does not affect the render.

Step 28

Select your perspective camera and assign the new Coordinate System to it. Type the name given to the Coordinate System in the bgspace field.

Step 29

Make similar changes to the environment light. Type the Coordinate System name in the envspace field.

Step 30

The Coordinate System is now assigned. You must then rotate it to the correct position. Test renders from different angles might be helpful to check the current position of the map. In this case, the Coordinate System is rotated on the X-axis because I wanted the sun from the map in front of the Boy.

Step 31

Render.

Step 32

Add one Directional Light to simulate the sun. Turn on shadows for this light, and change the Kocc value of the Environment Light to 1.0. Render again, and you’re done! You should have a nice quick render using IBL and AO in 3Delight!!

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Final Effect Preview

Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

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27 Free Christmas Illustrations

The best thing about the holiday season is getting presents, so we asked the very talented Kai Loon to put together a special set of completely free illustrations to give away. The set includes 27 illustrations to mix and match with everything you need to make cards and promotions. Download the set for free, to use in personal or commercial projects.

Seasonal Files!

Around this time of year you often find yourself in need of some creative assets themed for Christmas, new year and the holidays! We’ve assembled some of the best seasonal files from around the Envato Marketplaces into 5 great collections:

1. Top Holiday Flash Files
2. Christmas & Holiday Music
3. Seasonal Vectors and Graphics
4. Holiday Themed Motion Graphics
5. Seasonal Email Templates

$7000 of Giveaways over 24 Days on AppStorm

Enjoy apps? Well our two App review blogs – Mac.AppStorm and Web.AppStorm – are running giveaways every single day for 24 days leading up to Christmas! It’s a total of 138 licenses worth over $7000 up for grabs, and David’s even thrown in a few free AppStorm holiday wallpapers! And if you enjoy AppStorm, look out for our third AppStorm site which is due to launch right after the giveaways, along with a redesign and a hub site at AppStorm.net!

Winter of WordPress

Selling WordPress themes has rapidly turned into a cottage industry allowing web designers and developers everywhere to earn a steady stream of income ranging from hundreds to many thousands of dollars a month. Because the quiet winter months are one of the best times to invest some time theming we’ve put together a little showcase site called Winter of WordPress to tell you all about the opportunities in WP theming!

96 Tuts+ Giveaways + Wallpaper + Caricatures

For 12 days starting on December 21st, Tuts+ is going to be hosting a massive set of 96 giveaways across all 8 Tuts+ sites including pillows, books, Amazon vouchers and Plus memberships. On New Year’s Day there will also be a special 2010 wallpaper by James White and our very own Ian Yates is putting together caricatures of the entire Tuts+ team

Special Edition Comics Plus ThinkGeek Giveaways

Over on our work blogs FreelanceSwitch and WorkAwesome we’re celebrating the holiday season with ThinkGeek and Marketcircle giveaways along with our annual NC Winter’s FreelanceFreedom and Memo:random special comic strips!

Happy New Year from Envato!

So keep an eye out for it all happening across the Envato network throughout December! And from all of us here at Envato, have a lovely holiday season and a happy new year!

Final Effect Preview

Click on Image for High-Rez Version

Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

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This tutorial is Day 2 in a series – Go to Day 1

Final Effect Preview

Click for Larger Image

Step 1

Open the “interior1.c4d” file (or continue from part one). Select all of the cups in the Object panel and group them (Alt + G). Name the Null Object “cups”.

Step 2

Do the same thing with everything that has multiples in Object panel (files, chairs, hooks etc.).

Step 3

Go to the render settings (Ctrl + B).

Step 4

Go to the Effects tab, and select Vray Bridge from the list.

Step 5

Go to the Antialiasing tab and change the “Type” to “Adaptive DMC”. Check “Filter” on and set the type to “Mitchell-Netravali”. Set the “Filter radius” to 2, “Blur” to 0, and “Ringing” to 0.33.

Step 6

Go to the “DMC Sampler” tab. Set the “Adaptive amount” to 0.75, “Noise threshold” to 0.005, and “Minimum samples” to 12.

Step 7

Go to the “Indirect illumination (GI)” tab and check “GI on”. Change the “Preset” to “High Quality”.

Step 8

Go to the “Color Mapping” tab and change the “Type” to “Exponential”. Check “Subpixel mapping” on and “Clamp output” off. Close the Render Settings panel.

Step 9

Go to “Objects > Scene> Camera”.

Step 10

Right click on it in the Object panel and select “VrayPhysicalCamera” under “VrayBridge Tags”.

Step 11

Right click on the Camera in Object panel and select “Protection” under “Cinema 4D Tags”. This will help you avoid moving the camera accidentally.

Step 12

Select the VrayPhysicalCamera Tag and go to Attributes panel. Change the “Shutter speed” to 50 and “Film ISO” to 150.

Step 13

Go to “Objects > Scene > Infinite Light”. Place the light at the coordinates: -2500 cm, 1500 cm, and -1500 cm.

Step 14

Right click on the Light in the Object panel and select “Target” under “Cinema 4D Tags”.

Step 15

Select the “Target” tag in the Object panel, then go to the Attributes panel. Now drag the carpet object from Object panel into “Target” Object.

Step 16

Right click on the Light in the Object panel, and select VrayLight under “VrayBridge Tags”.

Step 17

Select the VrayLight Tag and go to the Attributes panel. In the “Sun light” tab check on everything. Change the “Intensity multiplier” to 1, and the “Photon emit radius” to 130.

Step 18

Go to the “Common” tab, and check on “Enable shadows”. Set the “Shadow bias” to 0.05 cm.

Step 19

Now we have to prevent any pervasion of light rays into the scene from the top. Create new Plane for the ceiling, and change the coordinates to: -50 cm, 250 cm, 0 cm.

Step 20

Hide the Light in the editor.

Step 21

Go to the Materials panel, and create new VrayMaterial by going to “File > VrayMaterial”. Name it “walls”.

Step 22

Double click on the new material, and change the “Diffuse Color” to 80, 120, and 5, and the “Brightness” to 90%.

Step 23

Assign the “walls” material to the walls objects in the Object panel. To do this, just drag the material from Materials panel onto the walls object in the Object panel.

Step 24

Create a new Vray material and name it “tiles”. Double click on it and set the “Texture Map” under the “Diffuse Layer 1″ tab to “Tiles”.

Step 25

Click on “Tiles” now and set the colors according to picture below. Set the “Bevel Width” to 10%. You can play with the “Pattern” also, but I left it with “Squares”.

Step 26

Click on “Diffuse Layer 1″ and copy the channel we have just made.

Step 27

Check on the “Bump”channel and paste it into the “Texture Map”. Change the “Bump amount” to 0.3 cm, and assign the material to the blocks object. Select the material tag, in Object panel, and change the “Projection” to “Cubic”. Change count of tiles in both directions to 5.

Step 28

Create a new Vray Material and name it “wood”. Load the woodTiles.jpg file into the “Diffuse Layer 1″. Do the same in the “Bump Layer”. Set the “Bump amount” to 0.3, and check “Bump Shadows” and “Specular Layer 1″ on. Apply the material to the walls object.

Step 29

Select the walls object in the Object panel, and go to Polygon Mode. Select the floor polygons, and go to “Selection > Set Selection”.

Step 30

Select the wood tag in Attributes panel, and drag the selection tag from Object panel (orange triangle) into the Selection item in Attributes panel.

Step 31

Change the “Projection” to “Cubic”, and count of tiles in both directions to 2.

32

Create a new Vray Material and name it “cupboard”. Load the woodCupboard.jpg file into the “Diffuse Layer 1″. Do the same for the “Bump Layer”, set the “Bump amount” to 0.3, and check “Bump Shadows” on. Check on “Specular Layer 1″, and set the amount to 95%. Go back to the “Diffuse Layer”, click on the “Texture Map” arrow again, and select “Layer”.

33

Click on the Layer, select “Brightness / Contrast / Gamma” from the “Effects” tab, and set the “Gamma” to 1.6.

Step 34

Assign the “cupboard” material to the “doors” group in the Object panel. Change the “Projection” to “Cubic”, and set the count of tiles in both directions to 2.5.

Step 35

Duplicate the cupboard material, name it “cupboardDark”, and change the “Gamma” value to 1.1.

Step 36

Assign this material to the objects shown below. Change the “Projection” on everything to “Cubic” with 3 tiles in both directions.

Step 37

Create a new Vray Material and name it “lustrous”. Check on the “Specular Layer 1″ and the “Reflection Layer”. Change the “Diffuse color” to black. Assign the material to the lamp, the little holders, the hooks, the holders, the oven, the sink unit, the sink, and all of the door handles.

Step 38

Create a new Vray Material and name it “carpet”. Select the Checkerboard surface as the “Texture Map”. Go to the Checkerboard settings and change the “U Frequency” to 5 and the “V Frequency” to 0. Change the black color to green (80, 100, 0), check on “Bump”, set the “Bump amount” to 3 cm, and enable “Shadows”. Select the “Noise” shader as a “Texture Map”. Go to the “Noise” settings and change the “Global Scale” to 5%. Assign the material to the “carpet” object, and change the “Projection” to “cubic” with 2.5 tiles.

Step 39

Duplicate the walls material and name it “chairsGreen”, then check “Specular Layer 1″ on. Duplicate the “chairsGreen” material, name it “chairsOrange”, and set the color to orange (255, 128, 0). Assign the materials to chairs.

Step 40

Make three copies of the chairs material and name them “dishes1″, “dishes2″, and “dishes3″. Change the colors to orange, brown and white. Assign those materials to the various cups and bowls. Assign the dishes3 material to the oven door and the top part.

Step 41

Create a new Vray Material and name it “cooker”. Load the cooker.jpg file into the “Diffuse Layer 1″ as a “Texture Map”. Assign the material to cooker object. Set the “Projection” to “Cubic” with 4 tiles in both directions.

Step 42

Create a new Vray Material and name it “painting”. Load your favorite image or photo to the “Texture Map” and assign the material to the painting object. I used skinnyGirls.jpg for mine. Play with the X and Y Length in Attributes panel to fit the picture properly, and change the “Projection” to “Cubic”.

Step 43

Duplicate the walls material and name it “files”. Change the “Diffuse color” to orange (240, 80, 0). Assign the material to files in the Object panel.

Step 44

Open a new Cinema 4D file and create a plane. Set the proportions to 15 cm x 30 cm, and the segments to 10 and 20. Make it editable (C). Go to the Polygon Mode. Go to the right view (F3). Pick the Brush Tool (MC), set the “Radius” to 20 cm, and imitate the leaf profile.

Step 45

Switch to the top view (F2) and do the same with Brush, but imitate the leaf shape this time.

Step 46

Duplicate the leaves, and distribute them into the circle. You can rotate them and move them to give them natural look.

Step 47

Group the leafs and name it “leafs”. Paste it into the main scene and change the coordinates to -125 cm, 98 cm, -90 cm.

Step 48

Create a new Vray Material and name it “leaf”. Go to the “Material Weight” tab and load the leafAlpha.jpg file as a “Texture Map”. Go to the “Diffuse Layer 1″ and load the leafDiffuse.jpg file as a “Texture Map”. Load the same file into the “Bump” tab, and change the “Bump amount” to 0.2 cm. Assign this material to every leaf in the leafs group.

Step 49

Now distribute the flowers about the scene to give it better look. You can copy some of objects and place them into the empty spaces.

Step 50

Assign the cupboard material to the last unit object, and set the “Projection” to “cubic” with 2 tiles in both directions.

Step 51

Select the “kitchen_unit” object.

Step 52

Switch to the right view (F3), and go to Point Mode. Pick the Rectangle Selection Tool and check off Only Select Visible Elements in the Attributes Panel. Select the points of the top of the table surface.

Step 53

Go to the perspective view (F1), hold down the Ctrl key, and click on the Polygon Mode icon. The selection is now converted from point to polygons. Go to “Selection > Set Selection”.

Step 54

Create a new Vray Material and name it “marble”. Set the “Noise” shader as the “Texture Map”. Go to the noise settings, change the “Noise” to “Fire”, an set the “High Clip” to 45%, and the “Contrast” to 90%. Check on “Specular Layer 1″ and “Reflection Layer”. Set the “Reflection Amount” to 85%.

Step 55

Assign the material to the “kitchen_unit” object. Select the Material tag and drag the selection you made before into the “Selection” field in the Attributes panel. Change the “Projection” to “Cubic”.

Step 56

Open the Render Settings (Ctrl + B) and disable “Render As Editor”.

Step 57

Go to the “Output” tab and set the “Resolution” to 1000px x 600px.

Step 58

Go to the “Save” tab and type “kitchenRender” in the “Path”. Close the Render Settings, make sure you are on the camera, and render the image (Shift + R).

Step 59

When the image is done rendering, open it in Photoshop. Add new “Brightness/Contrast” adjustment layer, and set the values to 30 and 35. Go to the mask of the “Brightness/Contrast” layer and pick a soft round brush with a 500 px diameter. Set the foreground color to black, and start painting onthe mask over the light spaces of the image.

Step 60

End of tutorial! Hope you enjoyed it!!

This tutorial is Day 2 in a series – Go to Day 1

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