Rectro

Welcome. Is there any particular area in 3d design that draws your attention?

Hello and welcome to the Cafe. Im sure with your experience your fit well with C4D. I would not try to add any render engines or plugins just yet, get used to what C4D can offer as it can easy do everything in the link shown. Coming from 2D to 3D technically will have some new challenges, but these can be fun too. Modeling will be the first port of call, so spend some time learning the basics, there is loads of good training out there, and some very talented people here to help. In order to light up edges of objects that would otherwise appear as a hard edge is in fact not as hard edge as many think, it has a slight bevel, without it 3d objects can look very flat and basic where edges do not catch the light. Although booles will be handy at times to make easy holes, many turn to them before looking for a better correct way to model it, so always try modeling rather than turn first to booles. You will want to have nice materials to look like plastics, glass, rubber. This is where your need to learn about materials and how to control reflection, refraction, traperent, and translucent properties, metals will also be part of this. Lighting will make or break a render so digging into some basic photography lighting will help a great deal, but often a simple 3 point light will be fine. Pick a tutorial that is project based where you model, apply materials lighting e.c.t. Il did about and look for some links to start you off. Dan

Sorry your right, it don't go back far enough. @Igor The C4D versions dont go back far enough for the profile settings? Dan

Welcome. Your learn plenty here, and when ready you can help others new to this game too. Look forward to seeing your works. Can you update your profile please to show what version of C4D your using as many questions and answers are feature dependant to different versions of C4D. Dan

Welcome to the cafe, good to see you hear, hope you have a good time and share your works with us soon. Dan

Welcome to the Cafe. Look forward to seeing you progress. and sharing your work. Dan

Hey Nate, love the reel like your style. Be great to see more of you and your works, maybe you post in other forums categories and iv missed your posts. I really should put a reel together myself. Keep up the cool work. Dan

@Winbush Thanks for posting these, I will watch them, this will give me some ideas of how far the rabbit hole is with this software. I have things springing up in my mind already, and questions which Im sure I will find out soon enough such as vector displacements or things like caves, overhanging cliffs. Dan

Hi Stefan, I think its great you have joined the cafe and become a sponsor, and thanks for such great software. Iv never seen it before but looking at the website I can see there are some astonishing results in the gallery, this software looks like some serious bit of kit. I will give a go when I get a bit of time, and look forward to making my first landscape. It will be nice to see how I can use it with with Substance Painter and Redshift. Thanks, Dan

Very nice video, well put together and informative. a RTX 2080 Laptop is for sure powerful but so expensive. Im using a laptop a lot, mine has a GTX 1070, it runs everything I give it including Redshift. The only thing I found is when Im using it literally as a laptop "on my lap" I must use a lap tray as the trackpad slows me down so much, a double tap for every action. I always do a project on my Desktop PC, and If I had to use this for the same thing Id be fixed at a desk with my Mouse, keyboard, and Wacom tablet which means Im no longer mobile. Dan

Hi guys. I don't often make these posts myself, but feel I need to voice out this great inconvenience regarding Redshift. I work mainly between two computers, one of which is my mobile laptop. Although I really don't much like the changes to C4D licensing, being once had access to two computers under a MSA subscription, at least I can release my licence remotely if I have internet. With Redshift it remains locked to what ever computer I used last and I often forget to release the licence forcing me to travel all the way back, start up my computer and run the licence tool. A suggestion would be at the least to do what Marvelous Designer does, offers the option to deregister the computer automatically when you close the app. Not only does Redshift not support this, the licence activation is a seperate app, and at times the licence wont even activate, buts its a pain either way to copy paste the key activate it very time I change computers. Is there any 3rd party apps that can manage licences and do the process or me, how do you manage this? Thanks, Dan

Welcome. Look forward to seeing your works soon. Dan

Great to see you here Andrew and welcome. I realy like your work especially the girl on the bear. We both share a simular interest so look forward to seeing your workflows and new works. Dan

What impact does the gpu memory have, was thinking of 2x gtx 1070ti when I can afford them but get a single 1070ti now? Dan

Yea Im thinking of getting it, Chaosgroup has left me with a render engine that I cant use by r21 onwards unless I keep going back to older version of C4D all the time. IPR is nice to have for sure, and like you said a GTX 1070 to down the line will speed it up even more. Its hard to convert a scene when its tailored for another render engine. Dan

Hi guys. After seeing Redshift was on sale I thought id give it a go with the demo. I picked my last render to compare it with so used the same scene. It took me a good while to translate things which its still 100% but I think it makes a comparable render to Vray Alsurface. Vray Alsurface took 5hours, Redshift took 2hr 3min. Same multi pass setup and basic post. Cpu 5930k 6core "4.3ghz GPU GTX 780 g6b Dan

Better Workflow between Zbrush and C4D Stepping into the link between Zbrush and C4D Iv found a much better workflow this time around. I do not bother with maps during the likeness process but duplicate the Zbrush model and delete all levels apart from level 4. I send this over to C4D to check likeness. The lighting, SSS, hair, shadows and certainly the camera perspective can change allot. Dan

This is the first main pass for her anatomy, and likeness. The hair was made from hair system using generate polygons from hair, then I run it though Volumes. Im very pleased with the results so far even as a sculpt. The time spent on making a good base mesh has really helped. I also can't over emphasise how good the sculpting tools are in C4D, this is not all Zbrush sculpting. The render below is in C4D using Vray Alsurface, no GI. Il work on this maybe Monday, but its hard to pull myself away when I'm in flow. Dan

Thank you, Im glad you can see she is looking like her.

Here is some updates, until Monday I think, gota spend time with family. Iv made the extras like Eyes, Tongue, Teeth, Tear Ducts, Lashes. This will all help me get the feel for the progress of the look. Next I will make some mock up hair to aid in this. Iv done Uvs in Unfold3D, and have taken her into Zbrush to get the Primary and part of secondary forms, but before I aim for total likeness I use just anatomy forms first, then tweak it. Il stick with these levels for a while as I tweak her likeness, then add detail last.

Thanks, have to keep pushing one self in order to progress much like bodybuilding, progressive overload. Yea its not going to be easy thats for sure, but I will get better with each try. Females apparently are much harder to get likeness. Wouldn't that be good! Im using Vray 3.6, is has the best skin shader options one being ALsurface. Dan

Last update for today. Added some details for certain anatomical land marks. This mesh is intended for sculpting use. If I intended this for animation id pay more attention to certain areas but this should get me a decent mesh to work off. I didnt use any reference for body so will do some tweaking to get it more as I want tomorrow If I get time.

Quick update: Finishing head and body. I apply a smooth deformer at low level to smooth the mesh out, then use C4D sculpting tools to get general form. I make eye lashes from Hair system then converted them to geometry. These are stand in ones for now while I spend the next part getting likeness, and breaking symmetry. From here I will finnish hands and feet the push it over to Zbrush. Dan

Hi Its a organic shape so would be impossible to have the polygons planar, more so when you get the sculpting brush on it. For adding loops I use the (Loop/Path) tool. I would add the essential loops as I extrude with the polypen tool then use the (Loop/Path) tool after. Im going to try to get her likeness in general then I could maybe put her into Character such as Aeon Flux. Thanks, yes I will get there. Thanks. Yea, cant beat the old way, results are always good. Yea I think so too. Iv been meaning to model her for some time. Scarlett Johansson is on my list too.

Good idea. She is going to be a challenge as iv searched through hundreds of images and she looks so different from one set to another, some images it dont even look like her. I think by the time I get there there will be quite a few different versions, its going to take a fair while but its a personal project so as long as I can keep my focus it wont matter. I make the base mesh so its sculptable animatable to a certain degree so I can make these changes as morph targets like I did my last project. Dan