10.21TUTORIAL: Dynamic Modelling in C4D Using MoGraph
Does your client want “that light grid look from all of the music videos a little while back”? FINE…but you need to scroll a bunch of text through it…which means you need to be able to switch in new text on the fly. PROBLEM…until now. You would have to fake the lights using some sort of animated texture map. That’s not a bad solution until you need to get CLOSE to the lights and then they’ll end up looking like crap. Using the Volume Effector from C4D’s MoGraph module you can model dynamically, leaving your text in a procedural generator (Text Object), ready for changes.
In the first part of this tutorial we’ll go through the theory and setup the basic MoGraph model and get it running. In part two, we’ll work on actually modeling the lights and the rig to get a good-looking final model.
STEP 01: The Bulb
Create a simple sphere object and make it very small. We’ll also reduce the number of segments to something low so we won’t slow down our viewport.
STEP 02: The Rig Holding the Light
Create three cylinder objects and offset them behind our sphere.
STEP 03: Grouping the Objects Properly
Then add the three cylinder objects into the group. (This is important so that our axis center for the group remains at the sphere’s center.)
STEP 04: Matrix Object
Create a matrix object from the mograph menu. (You could just use a cloner object, but we are going to be linking multiple cloner objects from this matrix object, so if we need to change any of the characteristics of the matrix object, it will update in both of our cloner objects.)
STEP 05: Cloner Object
With our bulb group selected, create a cloner object while holding down option (this will make the new cloner object a parent of the bulb group). Under the cloner object’s attribute settings change the mode to object and drag the matrix object into the object dialog box.
NOTE: After creating the cloner object, I realized that my cylinders we too fat and short. I changed their settings a bit. (this is why procedural objects are great!)
STEP 06: Our Text
Create your normal text object with a text spline and an extrude nurbs. In the extrude nurbs settings change the movement to 0m. We just want plain flat text.
STEP 07: “Lights On”
Duplicate our cloner object and then delete all of the cylinders. Also make the radius of the sphere smaller than that of our bulbs. (These spheres will be the bright spot inside the bulbs that are “on”)
STEP 08: Volume Effector
With our new cloner still selected, create a new volume effector from the Mograph menu. In it’s settings, drag the text’s extrude nurbs object into the volume object dialog box. At the bottom of the attribute menu check the Visibility checkbox to on. (This will make it so our “on” bulbs only show up where the text intersects with our matrix objects (kind of like a boolean object, all of the other “on” bulbs will be hidden.)
STEP 09: Some simple textures
First we’ll make a transparent texture for the outer bulbs (use a Fresnel shader for more realistic transparency. Then make a luminescent texture for our “on” lights.
Apply them to our objects and hit render. We’re done. We now have a lighting grid that we can still edit whatever text is being illuminated.
In part two, we’ll work on giving the bulbs, lights, and rack models a little more detail to add some style. I hope you’ll check it out.
Did I miss something? Leave me a comment!
Do you have a question? Leave me a comment!
Was this helpful? Leave me a comment!
Thanks so much, that make me learn much more tuts about this software, i like c4d !!!
Hope you sharing more tuts about c4d, thanks
October 27th, 2009 at 10:39 am
hey
great tutorial. but can you also add the c4d file:)
thanks
November 28th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
what happened to part 2
December 1st, 2009 at 12:25 am
and great tut
December 1st, 2009 at 12:27 am
I had a go at this and its brilliant, so easy to follow and do and this is what i came up with
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHtI3_VX79A
December 27th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Glad you liked it! It’s great to see what you came up with!
December 27th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
[...] http://stochasticity.cdawson.tv/tutorial-dynamic-modelling-in-c4d-using-mograph/ [...]
January 14th, 2010 at 7:38 am
[...] Tutorial Link [...]
March 12th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
[...] Tutorial Link Categories: External Tutorials, News [...]
March 16th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
and part 2?
April 28th, 2010 at 1:19 am
bueno nueno no queda mas que decir muchas gracias por este aporte tan excelente, ahora me que da mas que probarlo, muchas gracias…
May 6th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Gracias!
May 26th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Great tutorial and good explanation, i were looking for a tutorial about create a Disco Floor of 70’s, I wonder if you know how to creat that fx with the lights on the floor to the rythim, I mean, that the lights follow a sequence like the old machines for that fx. Thank you for hear me anyway.
June 1st, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Hello Sandro,
There are two ways I would go about making a disco floor in C4D. The first would be to use lights in a cloner object. The second would be to use planes in a cloner object with a mographer color shader in the luminence channel of a texture. Both would involve using a sound effector to time the lights to the music.
For the first answer, there is a great tip from Tim Clapham over at helloluxx, another great C4D blog.
http://www.helloluxx.com/cinema4d-mograph/randomness-with-lights/
I’ll look around for a tutorial on the second answer. If I can’t find one, maybe I’ll write it!
Thanks for reading!
cDawson
June 2nd, 2010 at 8:57 am