Tutorial Details
- Program: Cinema 4D
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Completion Time: Several hours
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
In this tutorial you’ll learn how to model and texture a small robot from scratch and place it in a lit scene. This is a comprehensive tutorial with 127 steps and will provide a complete introduction to making 3D art for the intermediate to advanced Cinema 4D user.
Step 1
For this tutorial I want you to start with a sphere object.
Step 2
Change object type from Standard to Hexahedron.
Step 3
Change segments to 12.
Step 4
Add a mirror object to the object manager and put the sphere into it. Move it a bit aside and do a a small rotation in X direction.
Step 5
Create a new sphere object, change object type again to Hexahedron with a subdivision of 16.
Step 6
Use the boole object in A union B mode. Have ‘Create single object’ and ‘Hide new edges’ active.
Step 7
Convert it to a polygonal object (shortcut c).
Step 8
Delete one part of it. It’s not necessarily needed to optimize both sides.
Step 9
Optimize your mesh and get rid of all the junky points. Add a small edge bevel to the conjunction of both objects.
Step 10
Put the new clean object into a Mirror Object and convert it again to a polygonal object.
Step 11
Select some of the polygons from the top of your object like you can see here and use ‘Extrude Inner’.
Step 12
Extrude it a bit to the center and bevel new created edges.
Step 13
Select again some of the new polygons and do the same as before.
Step 14
Now we create the mouth part. Add some point to those two selected polygons.
Step 15
Extrude them to the center and bevel edges, then do another extrude step back to the original position.
Step 16
Select on the backside of your head object those polygons and…
Step 17
… create the ears with the ‘Extrude’ and ‘Extrude Inner’ function.
Step 18
Do an extrusion around your eyes.
Step 19
On one side, use those selected polygons to create something like a wart.
Step 20
In this step we create a neck. Draw in linear spline mode a spline containing as few as possible spline points.
Step 21
Put it underneath a Lathe NURBs object and convert it. Make sure that caps are closed. We need this for next step.
Step 22
Create a boolean object and use the union function to connect the head with the neck object. Clean up unused points and polygons so that you get an object just containing quadrangles.
Step 23
Next we add some detail to the neck.
Step 24
Use ‘Loop Selection’ to select the polygons and use ‘Extrude Inner’.
Step 25
Extrude them.
Step 26
Put the object in a Hyper NURBs object to get a result like this.
Step 27
Make sure that the connection point of the prior mirror object conversion is really connected at Null position.
Step 28
The subdivided result should now look like this.
Step 29
Now we create the hair. Copy the Hyper NURBs object and convert it to a polygon object. Select the parts where you want see hair growing.
Step 30
Add a hair object from the context menu. Scale and comp it until you get what you want.
Step 31
In this case I changed the tip color of our automatically created hair material to pink.
Save object.
Step 32
In Step 32 we are start again with a simple sphere to build the body of our tough lady.
Step 33
Change it to Hexahedron type. Segments are standard this time = 24.
Step 34
Convert it and use the Magnet tool to bring points in position.
Step 35
Add another sphere object for the “globes”. All settings are standard here.
Step 36
Get rid of one half of your object for symmetry reasons.
Step 37
Clean up points and polygons to get a clean object.
Step 38
Bring front polygons into a better looking position.
Step 39
Time for the Symmetry object!
Step 40
It should look now like this.
Step 41
Select polygons from the front…
Step 42
…and the back side.
Step 43
Use the ‘Extrude Inner’ function.
Step 44
Now Loop Selection to select polygons to get extruded right now.
Step 45
Inner extrude them again to get sharper edges for the Hyper NURBs object.
Step 46
Move polygons of our “globes” more into a direct front position and use ‘Loop Selection’ like you see here.
Step 47
Do some more extruding…
Step 48
…and ‘Extrude Inner’ steps.
Step 49
Step 50
Select the chest area.
Step 51
Add some more detail to it using our modeling tools.
Step 52
Turn your object around and select these polygons.
Step 53
Extrude them. We’ve created a gap between the extrude polygons.
Step 54
Select the opposite polygons and use the ‘Bridge Function’ from right-click menu.
Step 55
You will create this:
Step 56
Extrude the new polygons again…
Step 57
… and use all the previously described modeling tools to get something like this:
Step 58
We will add now our head object to the body. Turn your object around again to get it into a topmost position.
Step 59
Repeat the modeling process to create the ‘adapter’.
Step 60
Add the head object and bring it into the correct position to overlap the body object slightly. You may need to add some more points so you can connect the parts together correctly.
Step 61
Connect both objects together with the ‘Stitch and Sew’ function.
Step 62
Step 63
Here we are. The arms and legs are still missing. I did add some more detail on the front.
Step 64
Let’s create the hands. For this we need to create another standard sphere object.
Step 65
Rotate them round in 120° steps so that you have three identical objects. Create another sphere object in the world center.
Step 66
Delete all unnecessary parts and put your object into a ‘Symmetry Object’. Create three Instance Objects in more 120° angle steps.
Step 67
Clean up points and polygons and add an edge bevel to the connection polygons.
Step 68
Step 69
Delete the upper part of your center sphere object and create some polygons in the center that it will look thicker.
Step 70
Add some more details to the hand.
Step 71
If you put it underneath a Hyper NURBs object it will look like this.
Step 72
We start with the arm. Create another standard Sphere Object.
Step 73
Delete some top polygons.
Step 74
Extrude some more.
Step 75
Go to 2.5 D Snapping Mode (shortcut p) to bring the object axis to the object’s top position.
Step 76
Add a Symmetry object. Hold down the Alt key while keeping the original object active will automatically put this object underneath the Symmetry Object.
Step 77
Convert it and switch to Edge Mode. Use bevel to smooth the new object a bit.
Step 78
Increase the size of your upper part. You could use Soft Selection Mode here.
Step 79
Add the hand object to our arm object so that the parts fit together.
Step 80
Add some detail to the joint.
Step 81
Add a Bend Object. Put it under the original object and set up a small angle.
Step 82
Bring the arm and body objects together.
Step 83
Create something like this so you are able to make a smooth connection for the arm.
Step 84
Extrude it to the object center down to Null position. There’s no need to create more polygons here because we won’t see them.
Step 85
Move to the back side of your object to add a small tail.
Step 86
Step 87
Create a sphere object that will have the size of your later created top leg object properties.
Step 88
Use the Kinfe tool in Linear Mode with having single cut turned off to cut round the Sphere Object.
Step 89
Now delete the Sphere Object and clean up newly created points and polygons for next step.
Step 90
Repeat the process for the arm object.
Step 91
For the legs we just copy the arm object and change just the upper part a bit.
Step 92
Just increase the top part like you see here.
Step 93
For more detail add a torus object…
Step 94
…and convert it to use the Loop Selection in combination with the extrude function.
Step 95
Load and adjust the size and position of your leg objects.
Step 96
Step 97
If you put everything into a Hyper NURBS object everything would become subdivided. To avoid this you can add a Hyper NURBs weight tag and set subdivisions there to 0/0.
Step 98
That’s it – you’ve finished modeling!
Step 99
For the environment, create a big Cylinder with 1000 steps so you won’t see any steps inside and are able to place our statue object without having problems.
Step 100
Create a background color you like without specular.
Step 101
It’s time for basic lighting. Add a light source in Spot Mode with an area shadow.
Step 102
Create another spot light far away to give some mood to our object.
Step 103
Place another one next to our first light object.
Step 104
Important: if you’re not using Global Illumination, add a light object underneath our plane object – in this case the Cylinder. Make sure that shadow is turned of and the light itself isn’t very bright.
Step 105
Add some more light sources from every side so your object will be nicely lit.
Step 106
Step 107
Place your object into the scenery.
Step 108
Press the render button.
Step 109
Do some material selections on your object.
Step 110
Make a material with a bright metallic specular and add some noise as you like.
Step 111
I use only one material and change the color slightly.
Step 112
Use the settings in step 112 to 121 as a guide.
Step 113
Step 114
Step 115
Step 116
Step 117
Step 118
Step 119
Step 120
Step 121
Step 122
For a rusty look, create a rust material with an alpha channel so it can overlay on all other materials.
Step 123
Use the steps from 123 – 125 as a guide.
Step 124
Step 125
Step 126
Exchange the selection materials with your materials. Add a white glowing material and a red material with a luminace channel to your material set.
Step 127
Your hierarchy could look like this. Now set up save file path, image size and render.
Conclusion
I hope you had some fun with the tutorial. Here’s my result.
Final Product
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By Peter Hofmann (aka peXel)
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Nice!! Cute Robot!! Good Tutorial
I’m the first Hehe!!!
Yay first comment.
This is a very long tutorial. it looks great, though.
no your not!
gr8 man i want more tutorials
oooh, i don’t think so….
yay ! you’re not ! and what the fk is this all about! bein first to comment ! so what ?
Great stuff!
Me quito el sombrero!!!…
Very nice tutorial….
NEED MORE tutorials CD4 !!!!
May be a video tutorial was a better choice for this kind of thing but none the less its great effort on writes part.
thumbs up.
yes,i agree with you..
maybe video tutorial was a better choise for this tuts..
no problem if the size is big..
Indeed!
its just impossible to follow, and only advanced C4D users could follow along the instructions here. we Need to see which buttons are being pressed. thats why a Video tutorial is Much more informative, and it breaks that barrier of differences between the levels of familiarity with the software.
Nevertheless, i appreciate this 1st C4D tutorial and am waiting for more :]
hoping they will be Video-tuts :]
Yes, this tutorial is a joke with regard to usability. As noted above, no one without significant C4D knowledge can use it. TUTS+: you should be monitoring this stuff as this is not a good tutorial.
So? Who said the target audience is beginners…..
everyone is saying, “Who says this tutorial should be for beginners” THIS SHOULD BE FOR BEGINNERS BECAUSE ADVANCED C4D USERS DON’T NEED TUTORIALS, ESPECIALLY FOR CHARACTERS THAT THEY CAN’T USE ANYWAYS!!!! This would be an excellent tutorial for beginners to teach them all of the basics of 3D modelling, but these terrible instructions don’t help us at all
FREAKING AWESOME MATE!!!
keep it up
GOod tutorial, but a new user would get lost by the mirror step, i guarantee you that lol.
Ill make a video tutorial of this soon.
You’re right about a new user getting lost by the mirror step. This is a good tutorial but for a fairly new user like myself I would like to see which buttons are being pressed.
How do you do the mirror step?
Step 38? It plainly says to use a symmetry object (it’s hidden under the array object). Then make the object you want mirrored a child of the symmetry by dragging it onto the symmetry object.
Nice to see tutorials from you over here, peXel :). Great work I’ll take a look at it in my spare time.
Greetings accessoire from cgnetwork
Very awsome tutorial.
Love the final product :)
Just amazing… Nice tuts here.
will be waiting for video tutorials.coz i am starter i dont even know basics of this.
Basic tuts would be gr8 first.
Nice one, i like cinema 4d but I prefer max..
good and helpful tut, a little bit to long
Really nice one :)
Looking forward to more C4D tuts, and hopefully some video tutorials.
Very nice tutorial.We wont more tutorials c4d
I’ll try this in 3ds Max ;)
Hi peXel,
awesome tutorial. Very interesting is the lighting part!
best wishes from CGN :)
Incredible, good job and good inspiration! thanx ;)
Awesome. I know CGTuts is in your beginning, but this is the best tutorial so far.
This was very nice!
serious tuts , very good
Can we get a video version of this?
you da’man
This looks amazing, it’s inspiring me to get back into 3D. C4D is my fave 3D app, thanks for this!
thanks 4 da effort
pretty nice man
this might help
how to mirror an object from c4dcafe..
http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=39443
Wonderful tutorial. I was waiting for a this type of site to be added to the tutsplus gang. Keep ‘em coming man.
An amazing graphic artist with a great result. I’m sure that at my level I don’t appreciate the work that it took fully as it looks like it’s aimed for very advanced users. It looks as though, for the purposes of this tut you had to work it all over again to obtain the photos – too bad that you weren’t able to capture a screencast at the same time that might have broadened your audience a bit more. Just a thought. From what I’ve seen so far of the tuts on this site – I think screencasting is going to be much more the way to go for most tuts, just too complicated to understand for most of it unless you are already very skilled, and almost don’t need the tut.
This is a workflow tutorial and as such, it is very good and it can be followed with other software. Come on guys, don’t get stuck on the “toolbar” of the 3d soft of your choice.
wawoooo 127 steps !!!!!
really thanks man
Maybe it’s just me, but hasen’t anyone else noticed that the final result kinna looks like a metal chicken with…
ehm… chest cushions…. you know, head lights, eh,, Fun bags……..
Boobs
could be just me though… :P
great tut for Cinema 4D users BTW
Wow, make more C4D tutorials!
This is a wonderful tutorial! Sometimes a little difficult to follow. Some beginner-stuff (with Bodypaint – for me) like at ae-tuts and videos would be great!
There is alot of basic stuff covered in this tut :D
Cool
Personally, I dont think cgtuts Authors should be paid the same amount as crappy vectortuts authors. God help you guys having to write some much…
also please try screencasts.
I also agree, they should be paid way more.
ps: this tutorial is so extensive its freakin’ awesome.
Hey Sirwan,
Payment for each tutorial is negotiated individually according to the time spent on it and the caliber of the author. Each tutorial costs between $150 and up to $800.
Interesting, I didn’t know that. I always just thought it was $150 no matter what (as that’s always what’s in the payment emails I get after submitting one).
I agree with people talking about possibility of a video tutorial.
This tuto looks good but I don’t understand which function you’re talking about, because in the french version of c4d the command’s names are differents.
If I had sew which button you hit it would have been easier…
by the way it’s a good tutorial, thanks for your time, and don’t forget beginners and strangers.
I expect my english is correct… apologize if you don’t understand ; )
niceeee
I think this is a great tut just needs to be a bit more descriptive to those not as familiar with C4D. Also in steps 112-121 it says look at the pictures for the settings but you can’t make them bigger and you definitely can’t read the settings in the images. Makes the tutorial impossible to do :(
End result is really fantastic though…just let us click for larger images!
Beautiful result and nice tutorial! I’d love to see more from you!
at last me :D
-
nice to see that psd.tuts has arrived with an awesome sister. (cg.tuts) :D
great,
i agree withyou Sirwan, this is a lot of work and time for to write a tutorial like this one, is not just making line or using brushes in photoshop!
cool tut i luv every bit of it
cool
but how you did the effects of the fina image ??
Definitely im going to check this one out!
THIS IS INCREDIBLE! Pretty nice tutorial – but the result is just mind blowing! Thanks for sharing!
Wauw, that’s an awesome model!
Robot chicken with giant boobs for the win !
For your convenience i wanted to upload this tutorial as offline pdf… am i allowed to? this is better for all the people don’t having cinema4d on a pc with internet…. answer if i am.
-g.
nice, might wanna think about lowering poly count tho. games industry demands it :P