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I had the great pleasure of reviewing "CINEMA 4D™ R10 Essential Training" by animation specialist Larry Mitchell. The course is one of the many that can be found on lynda.com, a terrific source for in-depth online training in a variety of software applications. The CINEMA 4D R10 training course by Larry Mitchell instructs users in how to get the most out of the new modeling, animation, rendering, and workflow features in this latest release. The course literally takes you from opening the program and learning the interface, through modeling, creating textures and clothing, learning all of the new functions of the latest release and on to rigging and animating a character. Larry covers all the new functions of CINEMA 4D R10 as well as instructing the new user on the tools and what each tool does. This training will benefit those new to the application as well as those upgrading from an earlier version. Larry also provides all the exercise files that will aid you in completing the tutorials.
The course itself includes approximately 46 MB of exercise files for download, in both .sit or .zip formats, and sixteen sections plus an introduction and a conclusion. Within each section there are sub-sections taking you through each phase of that particular topic or module.
All in all (besides the introduction and conclusion) you will find 105 video tutorials instructing you in every phase of learning. It’s a truly amazingly in depth course.
Larry begins by walking you through the new features of Release 10 and showing you where to find context sensitive help for each object and function that is now literally at your fingertips. He covers the new layers function and capabilities as well as the content browser and the time that can be saved by starting with the included content in many categories. Managing a multi-document workflow is covered as well as the new interactive render. I found that the video tutorials are a wonderful learning tool since you not only hear Larry explain each item but see it in action as he moves through the course.
I really could see the value of this course for those new to CINEMA 4D due to the fact that Larry virtually walks you through every tool and it's function no matter whether they were new in Release 10 or not. He goes on at that point to describe all of the modeling functions with examples such as "arrange", "connect", "current state to object" and more. Even nicer, he includes example files for you to download and study so that you can see how it works in a hands-on manner.
Continuing in the modeling section, he explains and shows examples of the many functions and tools such as "twist", "bend", "melt", "explode", "Boolean" and more. I can see where this course will be invaluable to those just beginning to work in CINEMA 4D in order to learn all of the toolsets and functions that are available.
Larry also explains and walks you through the various methods of applying materials to objects. He explains using ambient occlusion for creating shadows, applying multiple materials to one object, using the texture and texture axis tools, displacement and one that I have had trouble with, camera mapping. Thanks to being able to watch him set up his scene for camera mapping and following along in my own program, I now understand it fully and can set up my own scene using this method. Again, the video tutorials made it so easy to follow along and understand how to set up the scene.
All types of lights and rendering options are explained with examples of each. Lighting as well as rendering is so important to a scene that I am really happy that he included the instructions and examples of each type of lighting for us to examine. Again, all scene files are included for you to study.
As we moved into the animation portion of the course, I was happy to see the same level of clear, concise direction since this is one avenue that I am not familiar with. Larry led me through adding key frames, animating along a spline, animating with deformers, creating particle animations and using Xpresso. This section gave me a good solid overview of how things work and where it would be beneficial to use each method.
One of the newest modules for CINEMA 4D that has been getting rave reviews is the MoGraph module. Larry explains many of the different uses and methods included in MoGraph with wonderful examples. Below you will see one which is the spline effector. He explains in a concise and easily understandable way how to set each up and an example of how you would use it in your work. As in all of his videos, I found this easy to follow and his explanations were clear and exact.
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I was thrilled when the course moved into rigging of characters. This has long been a source of frustration to me. After taking every tutorial I could find, I still couldn't seem to rig a character properly. Thanks to CINEMA 4D's new MOCCA functions and Larry's great instruction in the video, I not only was able to do it, but found it easy to follow and accomplish. This alone would have sold me on the course even omitting all of the other in depth training included. Larry walks you through rigging a character from scratch, adjusting the weighting, using the new visual selector in Release 10, adding muscles which is new to Release 10 also and animating with Cappuccino. Step by step he showed how easy it now is to rig, weight and animate a character in Release 10. I was thrilled to say the least.
Last but by no means least, the course finished with Dynamics. Covering various simulations including rigid body dynamics, dynamic velocity, dynamic motors and dynamic joints, Larry instructs you on setting each one up and shows where they could be of benefit to you in your work.
CONCLUSION:
I found this training session to be an excellent course in learning the basics as well as the new functions in CINEMA 4D Release 10. It greatly enhanced my knowledge and skills. I also really liked the fact that no matter what your expertise in the program, this course will benefit you in some way. It's an excellent training session following in the wonderful tradition of supplying the top notch resources that can be found in lynda.com's online training library.
You can read more about this particular training as well as many others spanning a variety of software here at the lynda.com site. I hope that you have enjoyed this review as much as I did in doing it. I am really looking forward to moving into another of Larry Mitchell's great training sessions very soon.
Review by Kathie Berry
Websites: http://www.berry-designs.com & http://www.planit3d.com
Email: kathie@berry-designs.com
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