Introduction to Cinema 4D & Creating a Logo

Cinema 4D - considering as a design/visual tool

-workflows and techniques

-using illustrator first and how to bring in to cinema 4d

- dynamics and particle systems

new- a4 document illustrator view - rulers- move zero to the right place - on rulers- top left corner- cross hair - click and drag until in the middle- green dot comes when it's in the middle

create text - make big - type - character needs to be closed path

type - create outlines object- ungroup

each object - closed path

File - save as - logo - illustrator 8 - ok

quit illustrator

Folder structures

how to save and archive:

-project folder 

-new folder 'project folder'

-3 folders inside

-1 for cinema 4d

-1 for artwork (logo)

-1 for output

Open cinema 4d  - setting up- (orange buttons at top considered with rendering) (right one  - render settings - custom settings - dropdown arrow, options, print, a4, portrait - change to landscape). change measurement from cm to mm, 300 dpi for quality. ignore film aspect. frame range - select current frame - ok.

- light grey -> renderable area
- right hand side - object box
select 'mode' - then 'view settings' - change attributes at bottom - go to view menu - tick action st... set to 95% - working edge round document.
- can change tinted border to 50 % for visibility 
-save it out - file - save as - desktop - project folder - cinema 4d - template - then save again as 'logo' - the one to work in. put illustrator file in  to artwork folder in project folder.
















- 'Import' is 'Merge'
-File - Merge- find logo file- open
- Dialogue box - what scale- leave at 1 cm - ok
Should get a white outline indicating logo shape when selected
- Select in list at top right hand corner 'logo' - attributes - coordinates- select and hit zero - right click on little arrows to 'Zero Out'/

At this point we quick saved out work.

- Go to list, little box plus, opens components of group 'hierarchical structure', different letters, different paths - keep grouped to move as one object.

- Test render is left orange button in top button bar. At this point nothing showed in the test render. Parametric objects can only be rendered.
-Illustrator logo needs parameters.

-Select one of the paths in the group - add extrude object- two green objects at top shelf - subdividing surface- rounded cube - little arrow. We needed 'extrude'. Drag path in to 'extrude' object. Drag right on top of extrude object. Object should change in view port. 

-At top right side - arrows move object. Big arrow zooms in and out, round arrows - turn round, big square and little square changed view port - opens it out - top, side, front view.

-Click in list on extrude object - parameters seen below - 'movement' - thickness of object - click and drag on arrow head changed thickness.

-If test render can see object now.

-Hard edges on object not desirable - ways to soften.

-In extrude object go to Caps tab, start and end add Fillet Cap - adds bevel. Change radius to 1. Adds another dimension to design.

*

-Select extrude object - cmd + drag - delete path to then add a new path to it so it has the same settings.

- If single line - drag on to copied extrude object.

-In Cinema 4D there is a text option 'Motext'.

- Making logo one object - drag objects out of extrude - right click on 3 object - connect objects- delete - drag now one object in to first extrude object and can delete others.

- Once happy save file

-Under Mograph select Motext.

- Object two - depth - same as movement option in extrude

- there is also a type box to type text in to

- If go to caps tab - save settings - fillet cap - 3 steps on each end

-Soft edge on type

- Click on pen tool and hold - options come up

- Pen tool just like in Illustrator, never do in perspective viewpoint

- There is a text tool but flat like artwork brought in from Illustrator

- Add circle - change radius, add ring, second radius, extrude

- When moving object in view port use red,green and blue arrows - constrains to axis, so doesn't move everywhere. 

-Adding colour and background 

-Setting up backdrop/ ground object

- along top shelf - create button bar - create landscape- lots of options - select background - text render shows flat background

- Creating shadows needs something to reflect off

- Add floor object - conceals objects - move object up (logo and text) click and drag all object in list (text, logo, ring) right click - group object, easy to move at once

- Use green arrow head and move up logo

- Adding colour - at bottom of right window in left hand side - create material by double clicking

-If you click material a dialogue box appears - basic - colour - go to basics tab -can add more attributes like glow, alpha etc, but we just went to colour tab.

- Change to RGB, HSV

- Drag material to object in the list (floor for example). Name material by clicking yellow box beneath material at bottom. 'Floor'

- Drag colour/material to background- when rendering you see different colour of background to floor even though they are the samr colour.

*to get white - double click material - white isn't white because of shadow - drag to floor/background to replace colour. Go to basic tabs, switch off colour and luminescence to get true white.

How to create ramped background:

- Compositing tag - putting layers together

- Composite the background

- Floor selected in top window - tags - cinema 4d - tags - compositing tag

- Tick top box

- Background and floor should now be joined together

(see in render)

- make sure you can see horizon.

- Create some more colours  - add to objects - to separate elements just drag colour to whatever object you want it to be on.

Adding lighting and shadow: 

- Can create studio lighting setups. 

- Add camera first - hold position of design work - change view point on lights camera shot.

- On top shelf - Camera

- Set up artwork so it looks how you want

- Don't move after you've created camera

- Set up with view port settings you've got in place

- Can see camera in background if rotate around

- In list next to camera - little white box with X in - click this - switched camera on and off. If white - you're looking through camera - if move you will lose it

- basic 3 point lighting system

- Click light bulb. everything goes black. need to position light. lift green arrow up - red to left hand side. Always have light over left-hand shoulder in photography.

- Shading added to object - see in text render

- Double click light and rename 'key' (key light)

- Add shadows - settings under general under colour box, change shadow to shadow maps over - attributes, mode, view settings, view - right at the bottom, tick box that says 'shadow'.

-Go back to light, coordinates - X,Y,Z. Click and drag arrow heads, want shadow to come on to right hand side - looks harsh - filled in with other light. Even shadows out with fill light:

-Copy light (cmd and drag) key light- call it 'Fill', in top window port use red arrow move across to other side of camera. Go in to eneral and turn off shadows.

- shadow softened up

- Turn intensity of light down on 'fill' to 50%

- Go back to key light - right now both white light - change light to slightly blue. 207 degrees, saturation at 5%

- Go to fill light - change to slightly yellow , 5% yellow

- blue and yellow add warmth and colour: makes light look interesting

- 'Volumetrics' - bloom around light - select key - visible light - volumetrics visibility - top view port - circle around light, can drag to make bigger using outer drag buttons, only works with darker colours for background

- Visibility - subtle, positioned behind camera

- do the same to fill light = other side

- changing % makes bloom more obvious

- Save file

- How to render image out:

- Right hand orange button, set up output - current frame, save button -> format - jpeg

depth - 8mm, set up options: 95 %

click OK. 

File - project - folder - output folder - Save

Close dialogue box, click middle orange button to render - go to output folder- open image in preview- will see quality image - full effects of bloom and light visible.

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I found the pace of this session quite fast and having never used Cinema4D before it felt like quite a lot to take on at first which is why I focused on note taking all the steps so I could refer back to the instructions. Although this helped me it also meant that within the session I managed on the first task of creating the logo and did not get to adding light or a ring round the text or adding additional text. This is something I want to try, also note taking and the fast rate at which the instructions were given meant that I didn't take as many screen shots of the process which for the purpose of this blog post means that visually there is nothing much interesting to show. 

Using Cameras and 3D space in After Effects

In this workshop we learnt about how to create a '3D' 10 second clip and how to use cameras in After Effects. Creating 3D work in After EFFects is a particular style where 2D objects exist in 3D space.

Our stylistic and process reference for the session was the music video for MGMT - All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, which can be seen here:



MGMT - All We Ever Wanted Was Everything from oneedo on Vimeo.


We began by preparing our assets in Illustrator. One thing we had to make sure was correct was the order of the layers- the objects in the background being at the bottom of the layer stack and the objects in the foreground being at the top. Also we had to stretch the art board so that all objects were inside the board so that in after effects when the camera pulls back the correct portion of the images can be shown. We then saved this file as a stretched art board version so the original could be kept as well.

We then opened After Effects and imported our material by going to Menu - Import - Composition - and selecting 'retain layer size' so that all the individual layers were imported. We then arranged the composition settings so that the fps was 25 and the duration was 10 seconds.

We then prepared the layers. In the timeline we made sure the switches were visible on the toggles/switches and modes. We then clicked on the cube icon which allows the layers to be manipulated in three dimensions. 

We then learnt about the different coloured arrows and what they mean, for instance the green arrow - Y - moves up and down. After this we set up two views on the screen horizontally, the view on the right being the top camera and the one on the left being the active camera. 

Then we looked at how to use the cameras.  With the main comp selected we clicked - layer - new - camera - and chose 35 or 50 mil camera and the type being two node camera. When animating using camera the Position and point of interest of camera are the aspects to focus on. On the camera layer we then selected Transform. We the hovered over the bottom point of the camera and moved this to the top of the art board, we then added a keyframe on the point of interest and position options. 

After this we moved the playback head to the end of the timeline and moved the camera point down until the whole scene was in focus, adding a keyframe here as well.

If the clip was moving too fast we could spread out the layers to make them be revealed more slowly. We also learnt that if if you want to move objects around, get the camera to move up or around objects, changing your views - lift up X axis a bit so it goes over the object. 

Once we had gone over the use of camera we then focused on the visual aspect of the clip. The artwork need to come back to original Illustrator artwork. If your artwork had lost quality you could select the diagonal solid line to make it the highest quality and less fuzzy. We also had to make sure all objects were in the frame. At this point I realised that if I had separated my London Eye object layers in Illustrator then I could have a rotating wheel, however I had put the wheel and stand on one layer so I would need to go back in to Illustrator and separate these layers to allow this. 

Adding textures:

Taking inspiration from the MGMT reference, we were told to select around 6 subtle textures to use. We selected File - Import - textures in one folder - Open, and then created smaller comps within the main comp, something that is done in complex projects, called Precomposing. 

To do this we selected a layer, went to layer menu- precompose, and called the pre comp 'Texture pre comp', and selected 'leave all attributes in main comp'. We then double clicked in the comp and dropped the texture in to the background. Then in the toggles/switches and modes we selected track mattes then 'alpha matte'. (Making sure the texture was placed under the layer/precomp). Everything done in the pre comp will show up in the main comp. 

To add the 'flip up' effect:

Firstly we selected a layer to work with, then chose a point in the timeline where  we wanted the effect to start reveal. To apply the effect we went to Effects-distort- CC Page Turn, then in the controls selected Classic UI - controls where it starts from- then to control the angle  we input -180 degrees. We then dragged the cross hair to the bottom and off the screen, activating the keyframes where it said 'fold position'.
We then moved the playback head and dragged the cross hair to the top so everything was fully revealed. If you wanted to you could change the opacity and colour of the back of the 'paper'. 

 Here is my final clip:


Using cameras and 3D space in After Effects from Libby Howker on Vimeo.


Overall I am quite pleased with my final outcome, and think I have used the techniques shown in the session effectively, and even though I still find working with After Effects slightly challenging I managed to keep up. One thing which could improve the final outcome would be to make the wheel rotate and maybe add some audio. 

Martha Rosler, The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems, 1974-1975

'The Bowery' - an area in New York

Rosler describes the place as a 'skidrow' - a 'place of down and outs'

Text does work of descriptive

- 'An act of refusal'. She is refusing to ignore them by not photographing the people

- doesn't want to objectify the poor or 'other' like Jacob Riis, children sleeping Mulberry street New York city, How the other lives, NY, 1890

- refusal of aestheticising poverty

-Rosler didn't want to depict ethnographic photography "others" exoticism

or war photography like Don McCullin, 1971, where work becomes spectacle

Michael Zettler - The Bowery (book) 1975 - opposite of what Rosler created

Rosler working against Diane Arbus 'freak photographs' 1970.

Rosler wrote an essay against Richard Billingham's photographs

Rosler's work starts off with words. Pictures of environments. Words take place of people in the imagery. The Bowery today has been completely gentrified. 

National Bank image- building contrasted against two bottles - the bottles in place of the people who sit and drink there. Capitalisation contrasted against those who fall outside capitalist ideals. The people are invisible. 

Rosler's work talks about people without objectifying them.

Paul Wells - Animation & Adaptation

Affect Theory

We started off the lecture by discussing how independent emotions runs through a person and how emotions are part of the material world. 

Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics, 1677 : "I shall consider human actions and desires in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes and solids" - double aspect theory. 

- Spinoza was an Atheist/heretic and excommunicated from the Jewish faith. 

-Affect is often, but not exclusively, used as a synonym for passion, sentiment, mood, feeling and emotion.

-Two worlds:  world of emotions- psychological, world of materiality- bodily

- wants world to be fundamentally creative
- 'felt' or studied scientifically

In media theory - psychology and philosophy intertwined: focus on transmission (artwork/media channels)

2 traditions - one, derived from Spinoza, insists on the interrelation of affect and cognition (thought). All activity including cognition produces and is produced by affect - Bergson: part or aspect of the inside of our bodies which mix with the image of external bodies - 'there is no perception without affection'

Affect theory - double aspect behaviour - affect as embodied force that influences mind 

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Aristotle: "that which leads ones condition to become so transformed that his judgement is affected and which is accompanied by pleasure and pain" 
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affect is an embodied condition that shifts our judgement
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media theories derived from this tradition focus upon imitation - tragedy: imitates actions with excite pity and fear 
- music: music is distinguished by its imitation of human action.

Criticism

Marshall Mcluhan - Affect is a fundamental part of human cognition.

Frederic Jameson - the waning of affect in postmodernism

Greenberg - art which exists to produce emotional affect is 'kitsch'