Simple Grafix

Creating an Abstract C4D Render

This Cinema 4D tutorial will explain how to create abstract renders like these:

Let’s begin by opening up your Cinema 4D Program

1. Press F5 to open multi-paned all views window. Your display should have split into four sections.

2. Now select Objects > Create Spline > Linear. We will randomly draw shapes in 3 of the 4 windows. There are two ways you can open and create your spline.

You should have something like this after drawing your objects in the three windows. The numbers are the order and windows I created my shapes in.

3. Press F1 to go back to the main view. We will now add a Loft NURB for our object to take on some shape.

After F1:

Adding a Loft NURB:

Now look on the right side in your object tree manager, you should see this:

Click on the first Spline, then hold your shift key and click on the other two splines. They should all turn white (or whatever your highlight color is). We need to move all three under the Loft NURB, to do this simply drag them to the Loft NURBS and when you see the down arrow release. If done right it should look like this:

We now have a basic shape or a blob is more like it. We need to create the spikes from this mess. Here’s how:

Before we continue with creating spikes there are some vital tools we need to be familiar with as we will use them in the next several steps.

Your object move tool. Click and hold then move your mouse up, down, left and right to position your object in the window.

Your object zoom tool. Click and hold your left mouse button, and move the mouse left and right to zoom in and out.

Your Rotate or camera angle tool. Click and hold, as you move your mouse around it rotates your object’s position and angle.

Experiment with those and find a good position and angle for your object, when you get something you like position the object in the center.

Creating Spikes:

4. Click on your Loft NURBS in the object tree manager, Now press “C” to make it editable.

Here’s the fun/money part! Turn on your Polygon Tool > then right click the object in the main window > and select Extrude Inner

Click on your object and move your mouse to the right or left slightly…go easy at first.

Continue until you see some spikes starting to form. Now, click on a different part of your object and repeat until you see spikes forming.

Use the tools we went over previously to rotate, zoom and move your object.

5. Reposition your object and continue with the extrude. Keep repeating this process until you get something you like. Here is my result from this process:

6. Add your materials and render steps:

You can add stock/default materials by selecting one and dragging it to your Loft NURBS layer.

You can search for a tutorial on how to make your own materials and I might follow up with my own tutorial for this. The more advanced or more you add the rendering process can significantly slow down the process.

Adding Stock/Default Materials

Those are my stock materials, experiment and find what works best for you. I used a Danel for this tutorial.

7. Rendering: Go to toolbar > Render > Render Settings and set the following:

Also be sure to change your “Output” my preference is to set it at 1024×768.

All that is left to do is Render to Picture Viewer > Save and add your effects in Photoshop..Optional of course but can really enhance your Render.