Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer

http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]

Cinema 4D Tutorial How to Create
3D Grass
Tutorials August 13, 2008
Ok! This is a Cinema 4D Tutorial Ive created which will
introduce you to object manipulation, textures, fur and also
general familiarity with the program itself. Im using Cinema
4D 10 and you can download the demo directly from Maxon.
Tutorial by Adam Woodhouse: www.adamwoodhouse.co.uk

Search...
Submit
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
Cinema 4D Tutorial How to
Create 3D Grass
Step 1 Creating a base
First of all open the Cinema 4D application, which will
automatically create a new scene for you to start working with.
You then need to create a base for your grass to be attached
to, Im going to add a cube and modify it Objects >
Primitive > Cube.Your canvas should look exactly like this
now :
Step 2 Modifying out base
Now we have out cube, we can edit to to be more of a
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
interesting shape by firstly clicking it, and in the Attributes
pane, increasing Segments X, Y & Z to a higher number ( I
am going to select 50 and this will enable me to edit the
shape more smoothly )
Im going to manually edit my cube, by selecting the orange
square on the cube and dragging them to a desired position in
the X, Y and Z plains. You can alternatively change the size of
the image in the attributes panel by typing X, Y Z variables,
but lets keep this simple and quick.
Then I am going to hit the C key on my keyboard ( Make
Editable from the menu Functions > Make Editable ) This
allows me to then use the Magnet tool to manipulate my plain
further. Select the magnet tool ( Structure > Magnet ) And
click and drag the cursor on the plane to create any desired
effect.
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
I used the tool to add a hilly effect to the plane:
Step 3 Adding texture to the base
We now need to make out base look relatively organic, so we
are going to add a soil type texture. In the materials pane, (
bottom of the screen ) click File > New Material, underneath
where you just clicked a new texture will appear in the shape
of a circle named Mat Double click on the word Mat and
rename it Soil.Double click on the Soil Sphere texture, and a
new dialog box will pop up looking like this :
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
Click the arrow where the option for Texture Appears on the
right area of the dialog box. A list will display below, click on
Gradient. You will notice the circle with the texture displayed
in the dialog box will change. What we are going to do now is
change the gradient itself, so double click where the flat
gradient is displayed ( underneath the texture arrow ) and
change the values in the shader properties to something like
this:
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
We want to now click the close button on this panel, and apply
the texture to our plane. You need to click and drag the
texture onto out plane, this is illustrated below :
Step 4 Selecting the placement of the grass
Ok if you have got this far you are doing pretty well. We now
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
need to click the window icon, which will allow us to see
multiple views of our scene.
Clicking this will change our view to this:
Ok, we only now care about the top right view, click the Use
polygon tool so select Tools > Polygons from the menu.
Now we need to select the rectangle selection tool and select
all polygons in the top right window labeled Top. (Basically
this will be the area the grass will be placed on) So select
Selection Rectangle selection From the menu. Move the
cursor to the top right view and in a click drag motion, select
all the polygons until they all turn orange.
Now your view will look like this:
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
Now come out of this view by pressing the same window icon
as you did before, however, click the one in the top left (
Perspective view ). You will now be able to see your object
with only the top polygons selected.
Step 5 Adding the grass
Now we have our top layer of the plane selected, we need to
add grass, ok ok, so I lied to you, its not grass. Its Cinema
4ds Fur Tool, but does a sweet job or replicating grass. All
you need to do now is click from the menu Hair > Fur and
some spikes will appear on the plane in the perspective
view.We are now going to increase the amount of fur, so in
the objects panel, select Fur which will update the Attributes
view. Where you can change the Count Aka, amount of fur.
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
Its initially at 10000, but Im going to change mine to 30000,
but you will have to experiment to ensure you will have the
full area covered in grass depending on how large you made
your plane. Also we will change the Randomness of the grass,
by adding a variable randomize setting of 6 degrees.
This might sound like gibberish but experiment with the
attributes, and who knows, you might create some really cool
stuff.
Step 6 Add texture to the grass
Thats basically it to be honest, but we will need to add a new
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
texture to the grass to make it green. When you added the
grass, a new texture was made in the textures panel. It should
be called Fur Mat double click it to open the texture
dialogAll I am going to do here is change the gradient of the
grass to two shades of green. You can change the thickness
etc via the left hand menu if you want to experiment!
Step 7 Rendering
Thats it! You have made some grass on a plane, if you got
this far congratulations! Now we need to just render the
image to see the final result, so click Render > Render View
From the menu which will show you exactly what you have
created! I just added a background ( Objects > Scene >
Background ) and changed the attributes to Use color >
Always. Heres my final result!
Cheers,
Adam Woodhouse ( www.adamwoodhouse.co.uk )
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
Tweet
21
3
16K
Share This Post
Author: Cadence Wu
Cadence is You The Designer's senior blogger, and
the most jack-of-all-trades of the staff. She's always
trying out something different every day, some of
which fuels her posts here on the blog. Let her know
if you want us to post more about your favorite
topic - she might know more than a thing or two about it!
You might also like
85
Like
Share
10
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
d 5 Comments You The Designer Login
Sort by Best Share

J oin the discussion

Reply
Jhon 8 months ago
Thank you for your post, I look for such article along time,today i find it
finally.This postgive me lots of advise it is very useful for me .I will pay
more attention to you ,I hope you can go on posting more such post, i will
support you all the time.Explore for more info at www.ortocanis.com/en


Reply
Sgt Hack 9 months ago
Great tutorial and a lot of good information for us. I request to you , please
share more such tutorial classes. I will wait your responces, please
consider my request.


Reply
Necmedin Kera a year ago
Nice , thank you!


Hasan Ar a year ago
i like this tutorial thanks Cadence
Favorite

Share
Share
Share
10 Free
Responsive Tumblr
Themes
You! Be Inspired!
Dangerously
Beautiful
Chalkboard
Typography
Awesome Playing
Cards for Web
Developers
Cinema 4D Tutorial - How to Create 3D Grass - You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/08/13/cinema-4d-tutorial-how-to-create-3d-grass/[7/12/2014 12:38:30 PM]
Inspiration Articles Resources
Freebies Contests Print Templates
Blog
About Us Privacy Policy Contact Us
Terms of Service Write For Us Download Terms
Site Map Advertise
Information
Twitter Google Plus Facebook
Tumblr RSS Pinterest
Follow Us
You The Designer | Graphic Design Lifestyle Blog
Copyright 2013. All Rights Reserved