C4D To AE Multipass Comp with Effects

In this collection of tutorials created for Maxon’s You Tube channel, I explore techniques you can use when working with Cinema4D Multipass rendering in combination with the After Effects exchange feature of Cinema4D.

C4D To AE Basic

Taking you step by step through the process, the tutorial starts by covering the basic principles of working with multipass rendering and exporting 3D information from your Cinema4D scene over to your After Effects projects.  Ensuring you use the correct colour management for outputting from Cinema4D and configuring your After Effects projects to make sure the files are composited in the right environment.

C4D To AE Advanced

The second tutorial then moves on to some more advanced techniques including the use of Xpresso to export 3D information from specific clones and outputting lights as separate render passes.  This information is then imported into After Effects and the 3D data used in combination with third party effects such as Trapcode Particular and Video Copilot Optical Flares.

AE To C4D - Camera Tracker

Finally I take you through the process of transferring your After Effects information over to Cinema4D.  Using The Foundry Camera Tracker, you will track and solve some footage, resulting in an After Effects camera and reference nulls being created.  This camera and null information will be exported from After Effects into Cinema4D and used to build some basic proxy geometry for catching shadows and reflecting the environment.  This is then output using Cinema4D multipass rendering and composited back over the original footage in After Effects.

AE To C4D - Camera Mapping

The powerful multipass rendering and compositing exchange features of Cinema4D allow you to access the individual render passes such as reflections, shadows and lighting from your 3D scene directly in your After Effects compositions, allowing you to grade and enhance your renders with ultimate control.  Access to 3D data taken directly from your Cinema4D scene and imported into After Effects ensures precise fidelity between native After Effects 3D elements and rendered elements from your Cinema4D scene.

C4D To AE - Light Passes

As well as discussing the exchange feature in-depth, I’ll demonstrate many useful techniques for working in Cinema4D and After Effects, including scene management, basic lighting, MoGraph Color shader, MoGraph Multishader, Cloner Object, Effectors, Rigid Body Dynamics and much more.

C4D To AE - Comp with Effects

To download the assets required to complete these tutorials please follow these links…

Download the iPod model here…

Download the footage for tracking here…

Oh, I think I forgot to mention that all of this is free, thanks to the awesome team at Maxon.  The iPod model is something I made specifically for this tutorial, it isn’t the greatest example of modelling, however it is native C4d with lowpoly mesh, hyperNURBS and other generators, it has a UV map and best of all it’s free for use in any of your projects, commercial or otherwise.  It would be nice if you do use the model in any renders or on your site if you could please link back to helloluxx.  The model is not free to distribute in any form and I’d appreciate it if you sent people to this page instead, thanks.

C4D To AE Basic: Part 1 (~25mins)

In the first part of the tutorial Tim shows you how to install the Cinema4DAE plugin into After Effects.  Walks you through the setup for the free iPod model.  In Cinema4D, you will animate the iPod model and a scene camera, manipulate the animation curves in the F-Curve manager. Create some basic materials and use the Layer Browser for organising the scene.

C4D To AE Basic: Part 2 (~32mins)

Setting up some simple lighting for the scene.  Optimising the render settings for speedy preview rendering.  Working with multipass rendering and using colour management combined with Linear Workflow when outputting your renders.  Using the compositing tag to isolate reflections to specific objects and assign object buffers.  Flight check the render settings in the Picture Viewer to ensure there are no mistakes before committing to the high quality render.  External Compositing tag and AEC export for transferring 3D information from Cinema4D to After Effects.

C4D To AE Basic: Part 3 (~20mins)

Importing the AEC file into After Effects.  Correct colour management settings for working with Linear Workflow and multipass compositing.  Screen replacement on the iPod model.  Colour correction opportunities.  Compositing the rendered shadow and reflection over After Effects layers.

C4D To AE Advanced: Part 1 (~30mins)

Setting up a Cloner Object to create a flow of hundreds of objects along a spline.  Using the MoGraph Multishader and the MoGraph Color Shader to create multiple coloured versions of your clones with corresponding coloured screen graphics. Adding variation to the animation with the Random Effector.

C4D To AE Advanced: Part 2 (~17mins)

Animating a camera using nested null objects.  Basic lighting. Configuring multipass render settings to output various light passes.

C4D To AE Advanced: Part 3 (~24mins)

Using Xpresso and User Data to determine the index value of clones and then linking objects to the position of these specific clones. Baking object animation using the Bake Objects function. Exporting and then analysing the AEC exchange file.

C4D To AE Advanced: Part 4 (~30mins)

Importing the multipass renders and 3D information from Cinema4D into After Effects.  Using the imported lights with Trapcode Particular and VideoCopilot Optical Flares.  Adding After Effects 3D solids and effects to match the Cinema4D imported camera.  Returning to Cinema4D to explore a technique for isolating mattes from individual objects within a Cloner Object.

AE To C4d: Part 1 (~18mins)

Using The Foundry Camera Tracker to track some footage in After Effects.  Set up a ground plane and reference nulls.  Export the 3D information to Cinema4D.

AE To C4d: Part 2 (~28 mins)

Create some proxy geometry in Cinema4D for catching shadows and reflecting onto objects using the reference nulls and solids exported from After Effects.  Add a dynamic particle system of spheres which interact with the proxy geometry.  Output multipass renders and return to After Effects to composite the render over the original footage.

A new collection of training for Cinema4D R12 will soon be available.

This teaser shows an example of the content that is covered in the tutorials.

In this short tutorial, I show you some more of the features available in the Cinema4D MoGraph module.

By using the Sort option in the Cloner, you can use Effectors to determine which clone from the hierarchy is displayed.

The Sorted option in the Random Effector allows you to use each child of the cloner the same number of times, or in combination with the multishader you can ensure the shaders are distributed evenly across your clones. Great for things like playing cards where you don’t want duplicate clones.

To find out more visit Vimeo and watch the tutorial.

Sorted! from Tim Clapham on Vimeo.

You can download the project file associated with this tutorial by clicking here.

Alex from aenhancers (awesome site by the way) asked an interesting question regarding the More Randomness post. He was interested to see if the same principle could be applied to lights.

So I decided to do a quick test. The answer is to use the MoGraph Color Shader in the Transparency Channel and add this to your lights. Then use the Random Effector on your Cloner Object.

Random Lights using the MoGraph Color Shader and Random Effector

Download an example scene here.

When using MoGraph in Cinema4D, the effectors can be used for several things other than affecting the position, rotation or scale.  Another option is to control the visibility of clones. If you switch to the Parameter tab of an appropriate effector, scroll down and you will see an innocent little check box labeled Visibility.  Now you won’t find this on all the effectors as it just wouldn’t make sense on some of them.  On the effectors where you can use it however, this check box  . . .  believe it or not  . . . makes clones visible or invisible!

Visibility Checkbox

You can use this to simply control which clones are visible and which are not.  Of course you can use the Falloff to control this too.  I’m made a small example scene that demonstrates this using the Random, Shader and Step Effectors.  Although the Step Effector is only really using Falloff as it’s control.

Here’s a preview of the result.

You can download this example scene here.