CG Award Winner ‘Fredi Voss’ Shows How to Make a Dead Tree Trunk in Cinema 4D
In this tutorial, “CG Choice” award winner, Fredi Voss, will teach you how to model and texture a detailed, dead tree trunk, which could be used as a foreground object in a landscape, or even as a stand alone portfolio piece.
This is an intermediate to advanced level tutorial, and not recommended for beginners. The techniques and concepts depicted within are designed to show you how to create the most detailed objects (which would be of a high enough quality to be used in the foreground of a still CG render), and also to demonstrate that several techniques can be combined together to achieve a specific result.
All screenshots were taken from Cinema 4D R11, but it should be possible to apply the hints given here to other releases as well.
Final Effect Preview
Step 1
Start by creating some splines, but leave some space between them (you will see why later on). You should use “Bezier Splines” here. The angle-limit is normally set to ‘5 °’, but for this project, you need to keep it as long as possible while in the low-poly state.
Step 2
Now you can start to place the single points of your splines into the third dimension. Select them, and modify their positions. Make sure that the start point of each spline stays on the main spline level. After doing so, your construction should look like this:
Step 3
Use the splines, in combination with an “n-side” spline, in a “sweep nurb” operation (6 sides on your “n-side” spline should be perfect). The end scale of your “sweep nurb” should be set to around 10 %. You can decide what fits best for your taste, but if you are not sure, just take a look at the structure of tree branches in nature.
Step 4
You can adjust the individual parameters of the splines to get the form you want. You can also move points, or even add one more branch, but keep in mind that old ,dead, and rotting tree trunks do not have that many branches left. Note: You should also deactivate all of the bottom caps of the smaller branches, as you will not need them later on.
Once you have the general structure looking the way you would like, convert all “sweep nurbs”.
Step 5
Connect all of the converted “sweep nurbs” into one single object. The selection tags created by the caps of each “sweep nurb” can be deleted.
Step 6
Use the knife tool. In order to be able to merge the single branch segments into one solid form, you need to try to create a good base in your mesh. Note: To make your life easier, you can deactivate the “Visible-Only” option.
Step 7
Delete the selected polygons as shown here:
Step 8
Now it’s time for you to create polygons. Some of you might think that using the bridge tool would be easier, but the manual production of polys gives you more control over the result. Note: Try to get an organic connection between the trunk and the branches (like in nature). Don’t be afraid to create triangles either. In this particular case, they will emphasize the realistic appearance. But remember, no matter what, always keep your mesh clean.
Step 9
After repeating this procedure at every junction point, you should have something that looks like this:
Step 10
To get a complete and solid mesh, without separating the polygons or unused points, go into the polygon or point mode, and use the “Select All” and “Optimize” functions. Now you can do a bit more work on the mesh at the bottom cap of the trunk. Note: try to get the impression of a broken piece of wood.
Step 11
Time for the mighty “hyper nurbs” tool;) A moderate ‘1-1′ setting should do it. In my case this gave me 1877 polygons for the trunk. A ‘3-3′ setting should deliver 24197 polygons, but either way, the result will still look the same.
Step 12
Use the knife tool again. Switch the “hyper nurbs” setting on or off to get the right interaction. Adding some extra knots will add more realism. Note: Trees in reality are not that smooth. They have a special kind of structure.
Step 13
Copy and paste the trunk. Now convert the new “nurb” object, and then triangulate it.
Step 14
Go into the polygon mode. Select and delete random polygons as shown (I switched the trunk underneath to “invisible”, to demonstrate the structure more clearly).
Step 15
Select all of the polygons on the new object, and extrude them.
Step 16
At this point you should have a very good base for your final object, which is a good time to create a basic light-setup, in order to get a better impression of how your object might work in the final scene.
Step 17
Now you can start to create textures for your project. I prefer to use image-based textures (most of my image maps are photographs i took on my own for this purpose). You can download the texture files here:
Texture Files
download
Load the bark image into the color, diffusion ( 50 % strength), and the bump channel. For the sub polygon displacement, use a fusion map consisting of the photograph, and a noise at 500% global size. Note: You can also add a bit of luminance (about 5 %). This will break the ice, and reduce the typical cg-appearance of textures.
Step 18
Add the texture to the bark. Switch to “Cubic Mapping”, and scale it as shown (it is relative to the size of your image map, therefore, i can not give you exact parameters).
Step 19
A first proof render should deliver something like this:
Step 20
Create the wood texture by using the map in the color, diffusion, and displacement channels. Similar to the bark, “Cubic Mapping” fits best for this purpose. If you were to use standard “UVW Mapping”, it would give you some issues with areas of stretched or squeezed textures. Further more, “Cubic Mapping” gives you more control over the orientation and scale of the image map.
Step 21
Some more tweaking, and your proof render should look like this:
Step 22
Now select the bottom area polygons and use “Set Selection”. You are going to create some extra texturing…
Step 23
As a base for the new texture, use the wood texture (that was used for the trunk), and copy and paste it. Now you need to change the displacement map. Use the “centered intensity” mode, for “sub polygon displacement”, with a strength of 100%, by 5 meters maximum height. This parameter depends very much on the actual global scale of your mesh, so you might have to change it to a higher or lower setting, in order to get the right effect. Set the parameters of the “hama noise” as shown below.
Step 24
Now add the new texture to the selection you made before, and scale it as shown.
Step 25
Create a new render. The base of the trunk now looks less smooth and “polished” than before.
Step 26
Tweak the bark mesh a bit, by using the “magnet” tool, and working on the edges of the mesh. This will give the impression of the structures that are rotting and falling apart.
Step 27
Ok, so your little project is almost done:) But something is still missing…
Step 28
Sometimes, dead trees are covered with a fiber-like substance. I want you to add that here too. Not everybody owns the “Hair Module”, so you are going to have to go the old-school way, and use an alpha plane. Use the alpha mask that was provided. Now deform the plane a bit, in order to simulate more volume.
Step 29
Attach the planes to the model, and scale, flip, and stretch to randomize them. But remember: less is more.
Step 30
To complete the effect, model some mushrooms, similar to the ones you might find living on rotting wood, and attach them to the dead tree.
Step 31
Your trunk should now look like this. Note: The whole dead tree scene is 14312 polygons, and the file size is 885 kb. You see, it is not allways necessary to beginn a polygon massacre when you want something detailed in your scene.
I hope you liked my little tutorial.
Cheers, Fredi 
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By Fredi Voss
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Wow sweet !
fisrt!
Cheers for that – somethings in the tut were very clever indeed!
love it! thanks
great tut. Thanks a lot.
maya maya maya!!!
What happend to the Plus Tut of the poster with the 3D text done in C4D?
make vide tutorial
please please please
Awesome tut…finally a C4D one.
Thanks for this one, please more Cinema 4D tutorials, i think i found my dream tool with it. Much more intuitive and fast than Maya and 3d Max.
this tut is very detailed,,you wnt reli miss a thing…thx 4 the very gud and detailed tut
thanks man!!!
Awesome I can apply the concept on making this from another 3d package as well..
pretty nice tutorial mate, very good planed and smartly executed
If you’re serious about creating VFX, you should be able to apply what you see here into the package that YOU use.
If a company hires you and you only know how to use Maya for example, you’re limiting yourself.
thanx for typing this tutorial, videos on here load to slow.
and if you insist on being FIRST TO POST since you think it actually means something, at least spell FIRST correctly.
Good call!
the average age here most be 15 if commenting first is a thrill. you wont lose your virginity online guys.. get out more! C4D/Max/May will still be here when you come back as men!
yeah and I just noticed the typos, so don’t bother pointing them out.
Looks awesome; and easy to do, either that or this tutorial is very well explained.
Would be great to see a tutorial on modeling in Cinema. I was a little lost when connecting the branches. I got it done but I’m sure it could have come out better. There are virtually no tutorials on how to model in Cinema.
It is really looking real….
Absolutely awesome, obviously a pro.
Great tutorial, keep them coming up! Screencasts would be phenomenal
nice tut!
hey masters, can i have a request? because i am having a problem on lighting for studios, global illumination and using vray.. i want some tutorials on this.. thanks guys!!
Vray tuts would be sweet.
Greyscalegorilla.com has some good global illumination tutorials for C4D
Thanks:)
There will be more and more tuts by the time…
That’s a different but a interesting object to study realistic 3D objects. Cool!
Great tutorial for cinema 4D newbie.
Thanks a lot.
This is brilliant. Not many people use Sweepnurbs for something like this. LoftNURBS would work as well (i think).
great tutorial though.
Like so many tutorials online the number of assumptions made about a users knowledge are very high. You don’t have to cover every tool or basic function, but when you say to use a particular function tell us what kind of function it is so one knows where to find it.
I have yet to find more than a handful of tutorials which at least give clues as to the assumed knowledge. It’s okay to assume certain knowledge if you tell the reader what is assumed (not the details of it, just point to “this is what to go find out about”). But again in this tutorial the number of assumptions make it useless for someone who is not already familiar with all of the tools, and leave no way for someone to back track to find their bearings.
Yes you’re right. This is an advanced level tutorial (as mentioned in the forward), and it is assumed that you already have a somewhat thorough knowledge of Cinema 4D before you begin.
There are a ton of beginner tuts out there for Cinema 4d! Just google “Cinema 4D tutorials”
I would really like to thank Fredi for this outstanding tutorial…! It helped me so much. Iv’e been using Cinema4D on and off, mostly for fun, for a couple of years now. But I never quite figured out that hands-on polygon manipulation, until today..!
Thanks Fredi, outstanding tut
Niiiiiice!! Would have taken me days to create something like that if I hadn’t read the tutorial.
Please more!!!
s Cubic Mapping new to C4d 11? I’ve never seen that. I googled and still was unable to find any info.
“Is Cubic Mapping new to C4d 11? I’ve never seen that. I googled and still was unable to find any info.”
( Reply )
No,Cubic Mapping is implementated for lots of releases in C4D now.
Cheers,Fredi
holy crap!!!! thnx… ^^
Thanhs, very nyce.
Regards
Gracias se ve muy bien……
muchas gracias…….
its real good demo it
Just wondering but how possible would you think it to be in any application (blender, cinema 4d, max, maya) to make a script to do all this? and maybe do some randomising as well?
“Just wondering but how possible would you think it to be in any application (blender, cinema 4d, max, maya) to make a script to do all this? and maybe do some randomising as well?”
Well,some applications do something similar ,actually. Xfrog for example.But as i mentioned in the beginning, they are not really capable to create this fine modeled connections between the trunks and the twigs in that special case. This is something you have to do by hand. Automated modelling is possible, but it does not look very convincing in most cases. You need to have that special individual touch in order to get a good result.When you want to use you model in the midground or background section of your scene, automated applications do a great job.
Cheers Fredi.
Wow, what a great tutorial. If I find the time I am trying to rebuild it on my own. Thanks Fredi!!!
Awesome!!
Hi,
I am new to Cinema, how are step 6 asnd 7 ment, using the knife tool?
Hi Pissi,
yes,it´s the knife tool here.
Cheers, Fredivoss.
Thanks a lot Fredivoss! Made a mistake while converting the nubs.
Hi and thanks!
Good tutorial. I’ve done a wee bit of modelling before so I managed to find the tools alright. What I need more practice of is lighting and texturing – hence what’s the basic lighting you use?
I could only see one light source – so I figured it was “daylight” BUT I’m not sure if it is “bad practise to use that.. Or did you use one spot light far away?
Thanks again!
Hi,
yes the light setup is very simple here.I used one infinite light and Gi for this.
I would not recommend to use the sun-light-type here, because infinite lightsources are more flexible .But it might be a good idea to write a lighting-tut.I´ll keep that in mind.
Cheers
Hey! Thanks for your reply – I’m still on this tutorial stuck at point 19 cause Displacement really slows down renders and eventually crashes. I think it might be a r10 issue. Or is that the case in newer versions too?
Secondly when creating the Bark surface – after deleting polygons I occasionally see a a random criss cross of lines when selecting the surface – like a spiderweb over the tree.. I figure it’s could be some glitch with left over points after deleting the polygons – but I don’t know how to get rid of them!!
Now I notice that “untriangulate” leaves me with two lines, and triangulate with uncountable lines..
Hoi.
This tut was done in R11. Displacement is faster here.But i think you have to make shure, that your polycount is not to high. In case of triangulation you should ta care of the angle-settings for this tool.
Concerning the points after deleting polygons: thats normal.to get rid of unused points, you have to use the “select all” funtion and then “optimize”.
All points which are not needed will be deleted.
Great Tut I like too much, but.. I am lost in the connect objects option, I guess that I’m doing something wrong, cuz I connected the objects and when I’m going to delete the branches those disappear, Would you tell me please which option is the right one? for I can connect the branches weill…
Thank You (:
by the way… I’m sorry for my bad English ):
After you converted all sweepnurbs to get them out of the parametric state, you select all objects including theirl children and use the “connect” function. Then you swap into the polygonemode (make sure that your branches group is active) and select the polygons like shown in the tut and delete them where necessary.After you closed the holes by using the “create polygon” option you should have a solid object. To get now rid of the unused points, just use “select all” and then “optimize”.
