February 20, 2013

3D practicing


Working hard to acquire C4D (Cinema 4D) modeling skills. In a few weeks time I am ready to make something that resembles an airplane.



Modeling practice in Cinema 4D - Airplane



The advantage of 3D modeling over other types of digital and analog art is that anything can be changed afterward without too much trouble (this is of course relative for complex images or animations). Objects can be viewed from any angle, their coloring and texturing can be changed, while lighting set-ups allow to do things that are not even possible in real life.

Lights can be tuned in an almost infinite ways; they can be placed even inside objects, configured to produce shadows or not, the light fall off can be changed and dozens of different lights can be used - spot lights, infinite lights, sun light (including date and coordinates on any place on earth), omni lights, area lights etc.

Objects can be set up to reflect or not, having the choice which objects to reflect (which is impossible in real life and requires a lot of editing in Photoshop to approximate). Artists skilled in UV-mapping can place any type of paint scheme on any type of object (must get into this complex type of modeling / rendering still).

Apart from stills, it is also possible to create animations that can be changed afterward as well. In 3D programs like Cinema 4D it is possible to entirely ignore the laws of gravity and other inevitable rules of physics that apply to real life. The only limitations are the artist's skill and imagination. It is quite a steep learning curve, but one that I find very much worthwhile. Even if I almost totally missed out on sleep for two weeks in a row.