Create an Amazing Liquid Apple Effect in RealFlow, Cinema 4D, and After Effects – Day 1

on Oct 7th 2009 with 47 comments
Tutorial Details
This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Amazing Liquid Apple Effect

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a bullet shooting through a liquid apple using Realflow, Cinema 4D, and After Effects . On the first day, you will learn scene setup in Realflow and proxy objects, Day 2 will cover importing Realflow data back into Cinema 4D and setting up for multipass rendering, and on the third and final Day, we will focus on importing .aec data from Cinema 4D into After Effects and isolating individual elements, as well as post effects.

Final Effect Preview

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Day 1: Real Flow

Download

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

Don’t miss more CG tutorials and guides, published daily – subscribe to Cgtuts+ by RSS.

 
Enjoyed this Post?

Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!

By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

Based in Houston, Texas, Chris Martin is a partner in the design firm 1618 Designs and a professor at a Houston college. In addition, Chris is a Forum Host / Contributing Editor for Creative COW and a regular contributing author for cg tuts+ .  

Plus Premium
 
 
  • http://www.behance.net/Modisana Modisana

    Oh that looks really cool

  • asd

    Oh that looks really not cool

  • RuiRui

    YES!NICE,hope you guys can make more amazing effects.

  • Abojung

    oh my god…by reading the authors profile, i thought this was going to be a nice one,\. but when i watched the preview, i was dissapointed.
    you should have worked a bit with the whole animation. and also by the end, where does all the light within the apple go.im sorry mate, nice try but the overall outcome was not imressive.

    • adil

      same here………..overall outcome is disappointing….

  • Kevin

    The outcome doesn’t look too good honestly.

  • Kaj

    Never used C4D, but anywho..
    The apple itself and the colors are fine looking. The bullet seems to have no texture and could have been a hell of a lot better.
    What I think really ruins this is the end where the liquid apple falls down into liquid/water and has almost none effect. The apple should be like a big drop of liquid falling into another liquid, which should have quite a splash. That only had some ripples out on the ends.
    Like Abojung just said, after reading your profile I expected a whole of a lot more, sorry.

  • asd jr

    the final effect leaves me desiring absolutely nothing.

    the authors profile is very well refined but the proof is in the pudding…your work needs a lot of…well…work.

    cutting edge? houston? for real? when i think cutting edge and houston i think 808 not 1618. sorry, dude, but it’s true.

    i wish chris all the best luck in the world. houston is a tough town. if i could make one huge recommendation it would be to remove all tutorial based clips from your demo reel. show us your best, creative and unique work not what you’ve emulated from andrew kramer or a making it look great series.

  • http://kaleb-3d.com Kaleb Aylsworth

    Wow…you C4D users sure are a tough crowd huh? lol. We’ll have to see about upping the anti then….

  • http://www.kreativedomain.com Chris Martin

    Wow guys!!! You are a tough crowd!! But I must say that I appreciate all of your comments…this has been a HUGE walkup call for me. I agree with a lot of what has been said here. Let me just say regarding the Profile…this is what I use everywhere…probably should not have used it here, in hindsight, but I did. I use it because I hope that it gets me a job…that all. Just self promotion…

    Regarding the reel…I agree, it needs to be reworked…I think that I have fallen into what so many new people in this industry fall into and that is emulating others work that you have learned on…in fact I think that this very topic was mentioned in the John Dickinson / Andrew Kramer interview a couple of weeks ago…I will do better!!!

    And by the way…I know the guys at 808…they are fantastic!!! I hope 1618 can get to that point someday.

    And finally, the tutorial, yes it could have been better…no doubt. I could have worked on it longer and probably should have. But I do think that there are some good things in there that might be of use to someone with less time using the software than myself…and that is the person that might get some use out of all of this. Anyway, I enjoy making the tutorials and think I get better as I progress and I plan to continue making them…

    Again, thanks for all of your comments, it has really been an eye-opener for me!!!

    • King

      I just feel like your reel is a bunch of jpgs being scaled, and jacked tutorials from making it look good 6 and then some.

      Your website however have some good info on realflow, but I also feel like you just modified digital tutors tutorials or stole from other sites.

      I am not saying that stealing is good or bad, but this is 2009, and I think you should reconsider how you promote yourself.

    • xsid

      hay chris, just watched the preview, u know its all bullshit these people are talking about, its just beautifull, these are all losers, keep it up,
      tell u what, u just speed the things up of the final effect and the whole effect and the comments will change, simple solution , believe me.

  • http://spiderads.blogspot.com Arvin

    Wow, nothing about what I expected the final outcome to look like looks anything like what it actually looked like, and in a bad way… The bullet burst looks completely 2D and fake looking, and the apple falling as liquid just sank in instead of exploding like a water balloon, which would’ve been cool. As it stands I can’t imagine wanting to use any of those effects in my projects.

  • Jerry P.

    … “Amazing Liquid Apple…” not so amazing :-/

  • Vishal

    Day 2 and Day 3!?

  • xsid

    beware
    cg plus upcoming next!

  • asd

    ok. chris konw now that it was not the best…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIayrDbVdJ0

    real shoots look like this. =)

    the bullet in the waterbottle for example makes a great shock wave….
    perhaps you make somthing like this.

  • http://www.imcalledandy.com imcalledandy

    I appreciate the fact you’re making tutorials and sharing your knowledge with the community.

    That being said, perhaps you could release a Day 4 based on the feedback here with all the tweaks you would have done to make the overall effect stronger.

  • norte

    uhm.. where did the apple gone at the end? I would expect it to splash all around.
    Need a bit work but thanks anyway. Can be a nice introduction to realflow

  • Matthew

    You guys are idiots, the best part of this tut was how to set up the scene in RF! Who gives a crap about the way he rendered it or what shaders he used. I don’t even use C4D I use Maya and this tut was great!

    I just needed some info on RF and I can do all the shaders and lighting in maya myself.

    I swear if someone doesn’t hold your hand and walk you through everything most of you bitch and complain. It’s very sickening seeing so many people cry over the fact that no one is going to paint the picture for them. Grab any information you can while it’s there!

  • http://kaleb-3d.com Kaleb Aylsworth

    I think that it’s time I added my two cents here. Many of you seem to be disappointed that this final result is not professional commercial level, or “Cutting edge” enough, but what I think you fail to realize is that the tutorial itself is just that…at “tutorial”, and not meant to be a professional commercial piece, or representative of Chris’ total cumulative skillset. A tutorial exists not to say “look a the awesome stuff ‘I’ can do”, but to show you a small set of techniques, or to introduce you to a particular workflow, so that YOU can incorporate it into your OWN cumulative skillset, and then say “look at the awesome stuff ‘I’ can do. It goes without saying that Chris obviously spent at lot of his own time and energy trying to prepare this resource for the community, so even if you don’t like the final result, I think you at least have to give him credit for his effort. Bearing that in mind, I think that many of you are being a little too critical of this tutorial series…and most certainly of Chris himself.

  • http://yimbo.com.mx Yimbo

    I thinks it’s cool that everyone here has their opinion on the tutorial and to be tough on it, but let’s not forget that we are getting them for free, and the main thing with the tutorials it’s to get tips, not to emulate the same thing. We could take the great info on the tutorial and try to get something better. Sure, the bullet doesn’t look realistic and the water doesn’t splash like it should, but we can get that done spending some time experimenting in Realflow.

    I can’t complain about this 3 part tutorial because I learned a thing or two, keep the good work Chris

  • http://macosxpcdestek.blogspot.com Mac OS X PC Destek TR

    Good tutorial, thanks.

  • Nyk

    Yeah, I’ve never commented here before, but I just feel the need to chime in. I think Kaleb hit the nail on the head. The end product is not what matters in a tutorial; it’s the process. You watch a tutorial to glean techniques and tips that you can use in your own projects. It’s ridiculous that many of you are completely trashing this when clearly Chris has taken a project from start to finish and demonstrated a great deal that you could learn from. A lot of the most advanced tutorials don’t even have an end product; it’s to show you workflow or a process, and you do the actual design yourself.

    I do this kind of stuff professionally, and it’s pretty amazing the amount of reels that I see that have straight up copies of tutorials in them. If a producer (or whoever) sees a reel with a tutorial in it, you most certainly won’t be hired. You need to learn the techniques from tutorials and then create your own design with your own aesthetic or else you will never improve.

    Anyway, I watched the tutorial, and I learned some new tips from it, so I appreciate the effort put into it.

  • TwoCentsTwo

    Lets not forget that this is a tutorial, Not a “how to rip someone off and make something for yourself”. He goes over alot of the process for using realflow and C4D. How can you look at a preview and judge the tute? I do have a question though, my “apple” does not spew the drops out when the rocket comes out of the other side like yours,(my liquid in more like paint, or puddy) I did use just a sphere but, should it make a difference, I have been playing with the density and pressures of the fill-object and I think I am getting there. Any thought and or suggestions? Thanks for your time.

    • http://www.kreativedomain.com Chris Martin

      hmmmm…I assume that your setting are similar to the ones that I used…are you sure that the bullet…or whatever you are using to go through the apple, is large enough to pull the liquid out and away from the apple?

  • wing

    Cool man , but i cant find the NEXTLIMIT plug-in, why?? how can i install this plug-in?

  • steur

    i cant watch the video !

  • Nexusanimarum

    the video fails to load

  • naxodious

    fool haters….

  • Ben

    Please make this viewable again.

  • http://kaleb-3d.com Kaleb Aylsworth

    I’m waiting on a reply from our video host

  • J. B.

    Or just make the download work again, please!

  • erdem

    great tutorial, but I cant download, tutorial movie. please refresh the download link

  • mike

    please get this working =[

    • http://kaleb-3d.com Kaleb Aylsworth

      Still waiting on the video host to fix it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

  • Zackk

    this video sucks. the water below consumes an apple and it all of a sudden just disappears.. i think the patch of grass that i made in 20 seconds is better than this lol.

  • xg90115578

    we are so great!!!!

  • daniel Schinagl

    hi

    Please let me know how to install the plugin into cinema 4d there is a nextlimit .cdl file and a res called folder what to do with them?

    I tried to paste them to cinema 4d plugins and after also to exchange plugins folder, but it is not working
    please help me!

  • daniel

    please let me know how to install nextlimit plugins I tried to copy the res folder and nextlimit .cdl file but it is not working

    thank You very much!!

  • raw

    is the simulation supposed to take forever….

  • lisi

    hi.. it´s so great your tutorial, but only have one things to tell you, please, can you do espanish tutorials?… I can´t speak english very well, but i like every things about 3d and i would like teach more..
    thanks
    sorry for my worst english.. i´m going to try to improve..

    att: lis

  • tootoo

    please, suggest me….
    how to try …. use software

  • Pepe el cacheton

    i CAN SEE there a bunch of no lifes here if they complain

  • lo

    hi! im new to realflow but i cant do the first simulation, how long does it takes? im i doing something wrong because i left it over 12 hours and it didnt do anything! please help…

  • omegaindustry

    really nice, but where do i get the apple?!?!!?

  • Scubbs

    Great tutorial, but what the hell is the music (If you can call it that) at the beginning of each video. Should come with a warning to turn your speakers down, other than that it was brilliant