Table Of Contents

October 2007

Page 3 Editors Notes

Page 5-10 Interview with Artist Jan Schoenwiesner by Tavy Pasieka

Page 12-14 VRAYforC4D - First Impressions by Thomas Pasieka

Page 16-22 Making Of - Portrait Of A Silent Man by Patrick Eischen

Page 24-26 VRAYforC4D Beginner Tutorial by Thomas Pasieka

Page 27-33 Volumetric Rendering Tutorial by Rui Batista

Page 34-35 Simple Shader Tutorial by Bram Van Gerwen

Page 36 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - CINEMA 4D

Page 37-41 Pamela Kleibrink Thompson - Resumes, Portfolios and Demo Reels

Page 42-43 Freelancer Database

Page 44-48 Best Of CINEMA 4D Gallery
Page 49 Last Page - Contact Information
 Editor Notes
October 2007
Hey there Attackers!
So much to do, and so little time. As of late, it seems
as though the days pass by so quickly. Here I was en-
joying the days of summer and fall was, all of a sudden,
plopped directly on my lap. This means one thing,
winter is coming faster than I care to think. Oh
well...winter does bring some awesome things like fresh
white snow, skiing, snowball fights, and my favorite,
CHRISTMAS! I think I'm getting ahead of myself.
Maybe I should just enjoy the wonders of autumn;
leaves changing color, crisp air, bon fires at night and
trick or treating!
Just as the seasons change, so do many things in life.
Though we may not be comfortable with all of those
changes at first, we learn to keep all of the good we find
in them. Sometimes change is needed. Soon, 3D At-
tack will be going through some changes. As I said
before, it may be a little uncomfortable for some at first,
but I have no doubt you will find the good and be very
pleased.
As always, if you would like to leave feedback, have
questions or concerns feel free to drop us a line at
3dattack@3dattack.net. What you think matters!
KEEP ON ATTACKING!
Tavy
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GOODIES
All of your goodies for this and previous issues of 3D
Attack - The CINEMA 4D Magazine can be found here:
www.3dattack.net/goodies/
ADVERTISING WITH 3D ATTACK
If you would like to advertise with 3D Attack
send us an e-mail requesting our media kit and
rate card. 3dattack@3dattack.net
Contact Information:
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E-mail: 3dattack@3dattack.net
TUTORIALS
If you have any questions or comments regarding
the tutorials within the magazine, please feel free
to express them on or CINEMA 4D discussion
forum at www.3dattack.net
CALLING ALL WRITERS
If you have a knack for writing and would be interested
in writing tutorials and/or articles for 3D
Attack, feel free to drop us an e-mail at
3dattack@3dattack.net net for more information.
 Interview with Jan Schoenwiesner
By Tavy Pasieka
Tavy: Hi Jan. Thanks for taking time to share a
bit about yourself and your work with our readers.
First, can you tell us a little about you and what
you do?
Jan: My name is Jan Schoenwiesner and I cur-
rently live in Dessau, Germany. I recently gradu-
ated from the Anhalt University of Applied Sci-
ences (Bauhaus) with a degree in design. My field
of expertise is motion design and illustration.
Tavy: When did you first discover your love for
the digital arts?
Jan: I was born in East Germany. When the wall
came down in 1989 we had the chance to visit the
western part of Berlin. During that trip my older
brother bought a Commodore C64.
It had no hard drive, so you had to write the code
for any given program every single time you
turned on the C64. There is a beauty in that sim-
plicity that modern computers lack. The knowl-
edge of BASIC came in handy when we bought
an Intel 368 DX. That machine was able to run
5
Shot from Amon Tobin Music Video
paint programs and scan software. I was only a
kid at the time, but I was fascinated by the possi-
bilities. Years later (in 1998) my brother intro-
duced me to Photoshop, but without a graphics
tablet, which was unheard of at that time in East
Germany, I used it for photo manipulation and
graphic design only.
During my studies at the Anhalt University of Ap-
plied Sciences, I became interested in Animation
and Movie Making. My drawing skills degenerated
by the day.
A big change came in 2006. I did an exchange
semester at the Cleveland Institute of Art and got
into the Illustration class. For the next 6 months I
used a Wacom every single day and by the time I
left Cleveland I knew I had to get one myself as
soon as possible. Since then I am constantly try-
ing to improve my drawing skills.
Tavy: Recently I viewed a music video you
worked on, "Visual Music (Amon Tobin-music
video)" http://12frames.de/motion. Can you tell
us a little about the production of this video?
Interview with Jan Schoenwiesner
By Tavy Pasieka

What kind of software was used? Plug-ins?

Module? How long did it take to complete the pro-
ject from start to finish?

Jan: The music video is the result of the practical

part of my thesis. I had 3 month to complete the
whole project, but since you have to write a paper
on a theoretical subject you end up with 2
months. I tried to pack all the ideas I've had and
what I learned during my studies at the Bauhaus
into those 4 minutes.

The main thought was: can you transport the ab-

stract animation of Fischinger and McLaren into
reality? Abstract animation can hold an audiences
attention only for a few minutes. In my experi-
ence, two at the most, so I looked for ways to im-
plement motion caused by sound into ordinary
objects. I also started looking for a good track to
use as a base for the video.

Amon Tobin's use of samples was a perfect fit and

provided a philosophy for many aspects of the
clip: his samples equal the units of the buildings
that start to come to life and influenced the pace
in general. Story development and storyboarding
offered me a first chance to "edit" a rough cut of
the clip.

Due to the lack of people (the university's policy

is: No help - do everything on your own!) we had
no second unit, so shooting the actual narrative
and scouting and shooting the plates for the ef-
fects work was done by only 2 people in 2 days.

To achieve true Depth of Field and avoid the

dreaded "video look" I designed and built a 35mm
adapter that would allow the use of SLR lenses
on a Sony HD camera. The fast development
(approximately 3 months) was possible because
there are so many ideas and designs being dis-
cussed and shared on various boards and fo-
rums. During a phase of trial and error we were
able to combine and improve various designs and
come up with an easy to use, production-save
and reliable adapter.

I modeled and mapped the "Plattenbauten" (build-

ings made with precast concrete slabs) within four
days in CINEMA 4D, but it took me another six

6
 Interview with Jan Schoenwiesner
By Tavy Pasieka

months to figure out the best way to use MoGraph

for the beat driven animation of the building's ba-
sic units. Color correction was the last step before
mastering a DVD in Premiere and preparing my
presentation for the screening at the University.

I really enjoyed my last project as a student. It

offered so many opportunities to learn something
new without knowing exactly how to achieve cer-
tain effects. There was a proper production
schedule, so I never had to rush anything and got
a decent amount of sleep the night before the offi-
cial presentation.

To sum things up: This music video is a no budget

project and could only be realized because of the
commitment and support of many people (al-
though, compared to a regular crew, we were only
a few).

Tavy: Not only are you a fantastic 3D Artist, but

2D as well. Does having a background in 2D Art
affect your 3D work? If so, how?

Jan: First of all: I am by no means a fantastic 2D

artist. I am working on it, though. Knowing how to
hold a pencil is an invaluable asset to any task
involving visual output. You see a lot of 3D ani-
mated shorts on the Internet and you can always
tell whether there was a concept artist involved or
not.

There is a lot of stuff being modeled by people

who are technically really good and know their
way around in Maya/3D Max, but can't draw a
decent character. This shines through in their 3D
Characters. It's a shame because they invest so
much time into these shorts and they would look
so much better with proper visual development.

When working in 3D I try to keep things like line-

quality, volume, and easy to read poses in mind. It
is a lot harder in 3D because you encounter so
much technical stuff. We still have to deal with
very clumsy interfaces and long, unintuitive work-
flows. I hope in the future we will see programs
that are as easy to use as a pencil.

Tavy: What software applications do you cur-

rently use?

7
 Interview with Jan Schoenwiesner
By Tavy Pasieka

Jan: I use Photoshop a lot, After Effects, Pre- Jan: Norman McLaren, hands
miere, Illustrator, Indesign and CINEMA 4D. down. All his shorts are so in-
ventive, and they pushed the
Tavy: Are there any other software applications technology at the same time.
you are interested in learning and perhaps adding His use of stop motion to con-
to your workflow? vey a gripping yet witty story is
unparalleled. It is a shame
Jan: I am trying to decide whether I should learn though that some people copy
Painter, but it seems like Photoshop is capable of (or "pay tribute to", as they call
everything that painter offers and more. Adding it) ideas he had 50 years ago
zBrush to the 3D workflow will be my personal and get away with it. If you like
homework for the next few weeks. really good shorts, check out
his work! It is a 'must see' if you
Tavy: What is your dream job? are an animator.

Jan: This is the most difficult question ever. I Tavy: Do you find Internet
really enjoy developing and making short films, based forums and boards a
but drawing and concept art have also become a useful tool for learning and get-
huge influence during the last few years. ting feedback on your work?
What Internet forums do you
The ideal job would allow me to combine those frequent?
interests. In the long run, being an art director for
motion pictures would be very interesting. Jan: The Internet is a blessing for anyone who
wants to learn something. Chances are, someone
Tavy: If you could pick one person who has influ- out there has written a tutorial. I grew up in a time
enced your work the most, who would they be when the only source of information was the local
and why? library.

8
 Interview with Jan Schoenwiesner
By Tavy Pasieka

That was kind of limiting. Now you can read mil-
lions of papers on color theory, basic drawing, and
advanced use of Photoshop for free. You can post
your work on a forum or board, get critique, and
useful comments, generate traffic, get exposure
and put your name out there (myspace anyone?).
To me it's still unbelievable how far we have come
technically during the last ten years. What we are
experiencing right now was material for science
fiction books when I was young. I frequent
CGtalk.org, Conceptart.org and 3dtotal.com.

9
Interview with Jan Schoenwiesner
By Tavy Pasieka

Tavy: Where would you like to see yourself in 5

years?

Jan: Getting paid for what I love to do, and still

having enough time to share with my friends and
family.

Tavy: Jan thanks again for taking the time to

speak with us today. I'll give you the last word...

Jan: Thank you for having me!

10
 VRAYforC4D is out! First impressions...
By Thomas Pasieka

In case you havent heard, VRAYforC4D is out!

What does this mean? What is it? First off, VRAY-
forC4D is a render engine created by Chaos-
group - http://www.chaosgroup.com/

Vray has been on the market for quite some time,

(starting in 2001), and has been used by produc-
tion studios all over the world. VRAY was the first
choice of render engines for 3D Studio Max users
and is still the best solution.

Stefan Laub, Renato Tarabella and Daniele Ficini

are responsible for what now is called VRAY-
forC4D. Stefan Laub initiated the idea of porting
Vray to CINEMA 4D and partnered up with Re-
nato Tarabella and Daniele Ficini (both are pro-
grammers). 14 have months passed and the first
version of VRAYforC4D is born!

How does VRAYforC4D integrate into CINEMA
4D, you may ask? Well, its not just a plugin that
supports access to the render engine. It is fully
integrated into CINEMA 4D! You can access all its
parameters and features within CINEMA 4D.
Who are those 3 guys that took the initiative to
bring us this great render engine? Lets have a
closer look at these guys.
Daniele Ficini: Daniele teamed up with Renato
and Stefan to help Renato on this rather large
undertaking. Daniele has 15+ years of experience
with Houdini, Softimage and Renderman shader
programming. Danieles love for CINEMA 4D be-
gan while working on this project. Daniele is re-
sponsible for the integration of all VRAY compo-
nents into the VrayBridge, such as the interface
and lighting.

Stefan Laub: He is the owner, initiator and man-
ager of VrayforC4D. He owns and operates LAU-
Blab with his wife Sabine Laub. LAUBlab is a stu-
dio, based in Vienna, Austria Europe, producing
3D Graphics and software. You can visit their
website under: http://www.laublab.com
Renato Tarabella: Renato is the chief program-
mer and project partner with Stefan. He did an
amazing job on integrating and merging the Vray
SDK directly into CINEMA 4D. He has extensive
knowledge and experience with programming for
CINEMA 4D and VRay. Because of that knowl-
edge, he made it possible that the project evolved
from a small export bridge plugin to a full, high-
end render engine for all CINEMA 4D users. Re-
nato is responsible for the high level integration
and stability. His website and plugins can be
found at: http://www.tarabella.it/c4d/
It seems that more and more companies and indi-
viduals realize the importance and power of third
party render engines. Over the pst years we have
been blessed with render engines like Maxwell,
FinalRender, Fry Render and now, VRAYforC4D!
The release of VrayforC4D is of great importance
to architects, product and exhibition designers
and the likes using CINEMA 4D. Users of CIN-
EMA 4D are always hungry for new render en-
gines. FinalRender and Maxwell are both excel-
lent render engines, but the absence of the prom-
ised version of FinalRender for OS X has shed a
negative light on Cebas in past months.
Word on the street is that the OS X release of
FinalRender is nearly finished. That should
brighten up the sky for those waiting on Final-
Render for OS X.

12
 VRAYforC4D is out! First impressions...
By Thomas Pasieka
The price for VRAYforC4D (plugin plus render
engine) is 790 Euro. Thats around $1.100 if you
are located in the United States.
We are currently testing the engine, in-house,
here at 3D ATTACK and will have an in-depth re-
view on VRAYforC4D in our next issue!
My first impression of VRAYforC4D:
Well, to tell you the truth, I was blown away by the
brilliant clean render results. Setting up VRAY can
be easy and complicated at the same time.
The features are a bit overwhelming if you have
never used anything other than Advanced Ren-
der. However, after a short time and reading the
manual, you will be able to create some stunning
13
renders. One thing is for sure, the faster your
CPU the better. Got dual or quad core? Even bet-
ter! VRAYforC4D will render extremely fast on
newer machines.
I did a test on my G5 Dual 2.0 Ghz (3 years old)
and my Macbook (few months old). The Macbook
($1000) was 2 times faster than my Dual 2.0 PPC
Mac (2 minutes 20 seconds)! I guess its time for
a new Mac.
Speaking of which, I had my partner, Kevin
Capizzi, render the same scene on his 8 core
Mac. He rendered the scene in 33 seconds!!
Render time on my PPC G5 was 4 minutes 40
seconds.
Image by Francesco Guazzi
 VRAYforC4D is out! First impressions...
By Thomas Pasieka

VRAYforC4D is very impressive and, I have to
say, the team did a fantastic job! Of course there
are little bugs here and there, but Renato, Daniele
and Stefan are basically working 24/7 to fix those
issues and implement new features.
What would a piece of software be without a fo-
rum? If you ever have trouble or questions re-
garding VRAYforC4D, you should definitely hop
over to their forum that you can find here:
Dont miss our full review on VRAYforC4D in our
next issue! We will be testing for a month to give it
a fair test run under hardcore situations and every
day use.
I have a lot of respect for the team who did not fail
to deliver an excellent render engine to the CIN-
EMA 4D community! A lot of effort, time and pa-
tience has been put into this and I am very sure it
will pay off!

http://vrayforc4d.com/forum/ Congratulations to the development team and

those who own VRAYforC4D!
Stefan, Renato, Daniele and many others are
there to help you. They are surely busy bees, but
they still have an ear for everyones needs and Thomas Pasieka
questions. Very friendly people!

In my opinion, VRAYforC4D is a must have if you

want some excellent renderings and fast results.
The price is well worth it and support, as men-
tioned above, is available 24/7. From my under-
standing there is a Demo version of VRAYforC4D
planned. So, those of you who are are not con-
vinced yet can give it a test run soon!

14
Portrait Of A Silent Man - Making Of
By Patrick Eischen

MAKING OF

16
 Portrait Of A Silent Man - Making Of
By Patrick Eischen

About The Image

There are many rendered portraits in a lot of gal-

leries. I was always impressed by the high quality
of the MentalRay FastSkin shader and how easy
it was to set it up once you understood the basic
concept of how skin works. But, as I 'only' have
CINEMA 4D, MentalRay is not an option for me.
Isn't it possible to render realistic skin in CINEMA
4D? I wanted to find out with this project.

02
The Modeling
I usually start my 3D models with a simple cube
(box modeling). I know that many prefer point-by-
point modeling (or poly-by-poly), but I like using a
cube and 'cutting' the detail in, step-by-step.

Box modeling allows me to quickly block out the The Textures

basic shape of the figure and thus to have a bet-
ter feeling for the proportions of the model.

Because I am using good references, any model-

ing technique would have worked. (Image 01 and
02)

I took the model into zBrush to add a texture to

the face. Every inch of the texture comes from
high-resolution photos that were projected onto
the model with the zBrush tools. All my reference
photos, as well as the texture references, are
from: "http://www.3d.sk"

01

With the face finished, I began laying out the UVs

(maybe the most annoying part of this job). Fortu-
nately I found UVLayout (by Headus), a free pro-
gram that flattens 3D geometry automatically.
[www.uvlayout.com]

17
 Portrait Of A Silent Man - Making Of
By Patrick Eischen

The final head texture looked like this:

I used this same texture to create the skin details.

I turned it into a black & white image and created
a mask of it in zBrush. Now I was able to use the
Inflate brush and sculpt all the little skin details. I
also included some volume for the hair with a cus-
tom brush. Finally, I created and extracted a dis-
placement map of the head.

As you can see, in the left picture, most of the

texture has been 'overwritten' by the shader. This
is because I only loaded a color map in this test
render. In the right picture I used an epidermal
map and a subdermal map, mixed together with a
weight map. All maps are modified versions of the
original color map (Image 10)

This is how the luminance channel looked after

The Skin Shader
Now comes the hardest part: setting up the skin
shader. For this image I used the Vreel Skin
Shader, a plug-in shader for CINEMA 4D that al-
lows you to set up different layers of skin and that
also includes a SSS effect. It is possible to setup
parameters for specularity, surface and translu-
cent. The shader is loaded in the Luminance
channel.
loading the different maps. The default color map
is loaded into the standard CINEMA Color chan-
nel. (Image 11).
I think the default C4D color channel is much eas-
ier to set up so, this is why I left 'Calculate Sur-
face Shading' blank. I used 'Calculate Specularity'
to create an even amount of overall brilliance in
the skin (see picture below). The standard C4D

18
 Portrait Of A Silent Man - Making Of
By Patrick Eischen

10

specularity channel
has been used to
create nice sharp
specs on the edges
(e.g. the lips and on
the nose). Both
specularity channels
have been restricted
to a map. (Image
12)

The final skin

shader is made up
of 6 different chan-
11 nels: Color, Diffu-
sion, Luminance
(with the Vreel
shader), Bump, Dis-
placement, Specular
and Specular Color.
(Image 13)

19
 Portrait Of A Silent Man - Making Of
By Patrick Eischen

14
12

15
13

The Lighting

The Scene
I quickly modeled a simple shirt, took it into
zBrush, divided it a couple of times and sculpted
some cloth wrinkles with the Inflate brush. I also
modeled the arms and shoulders and composed
16
everything together in CINEMA. There was no
need to use displacements on the shirt; I simply
exported the high-resolution mesh from zBrush. I
have a lot of memory, so I don't have to worry that
my computer might crash. There is almost no dif-
ference in render times between the low- and
high-resolution shirts (Image 14)

The texture for the shirt has been created by play-

ing around with some filters and by using the
'dodge' and 'burn' tools. (Image 15)

20
 Portrait Of A Silent Man - Making Of
By Patrick Eischen

For this image I couldn't use the Global Illumina-

tion system because Vreel Skin doesn't work with
GI, so I had to use standard CINEMA lights. I cre-
ated a 3-point-lighting with (Image 16):

1) Main Spot @ 115 %

2) Fill Area @ 95 %
3) Rim Spot @ 190 %

I also include an area light (4) with very low inten- 17

sity, placed below the model to simulate bouncing
light from the bottom. All lights use soft shadows,
and 'Falloff' is set to 'Inverse Square'.

The Hair
Now comes the fun part: the hairstyle and the
beard. I used CINEMA's Hair Module for this job. I
created two additional maps: an alpha map for the
beard and one for the hair.

Both maps were loaded into the 'Density' channel

of the hair objects. Unfortunately, the density map
will not take effect in the editor view. It will only be
visible in the final render. Because of this, I would
suggest setting 'Display' in the 'Editor' tab to 'Hair
Lines' if you have enough memory in your com-
puter (Image 17 and 18)

I created eyelashes and a wet layer for the eyes.

For the eyelashes I selected an edge loop around
the eye, created a spline from it and pressed the
'Add hair' button. (Image 19 and 20) 18

The Rendering And Post Production

The render with Vreel skin shader and displace-
ment took about 4-5 hours (1h30min without dis-
placement). I rendered the hair and beard in a
separate pass and composed both in Photoshop.

Furthermore, I rendered an Ambient Occlusion

pass and multiplied it over the picture. I wasn't
happy with the way the eyes looked, so I copied
parts of an eye photograph over the image. I fi- 19
nally did some color correction, applied Gaussian
Blur to simulate DOF and added a grain layer.
Here is the final image.

21
 Portrait Of A Silent Man - Making Of
By Patrick Eischen

Thank you for reading my 'Making Of'. For further

questions you can contact me any time at
feedback@patrickeischen.com

Keep on rendering!

Patrick Eischen
www.patrickeischen.com

22
 VRAYforC4D Beginner Tutorial - Getting started
By Thomas Pasieka

So, you are new to VRAYforC4D and want to get
started right away. You want to render something
straight up. Well, its not really that difficult. It only
takes a few steps and you dont have to read
through the whole manual to get a decent render-
ing. Mind you though, VRAY has a lot of features
and things to tweak, so one could easily spend a
good amount of time getting it just right.
It will take some time to get used to the differ-
ence if you have never worked with anything
other than Advanced Render. We will go into more
detail on the render settings in future tutorials.
Right now though we dont want to worry about all
those buttons and boxes you can click on.
1. Make sure you are using VRAY Materials.
Always make sure to use VRAY materials. If your
scene is not set up for that, simply use the VRAY
Material Converter. You can also do this by hand.
Create a new VRAY material and place your exist-
ing C4D Color material into VRAYs Diffuse
Color Layer. Sounds complicated? Nah, its not.
Have a look at these two screenshots for a better
understanding.

We will just create something very simple and get

some Global Illumination going in our scene. It
really doesnt take much to do this, as mentioned
earlier.

After youve successfully installed VRAYforC4D

you will notice that you have a new feature in your
plugin menu. Its called VRAY Material Con-
verter. This is useful if you want to take some of
your older scenes and render it with VRAY.

VRAY uses different shaders than CINEMA 4D

does, so this is why a conversion is necessary.
You will also find a new menu entry in your mate-
rials manager. You can create new VRAY materi-
als from within that menu and tweak your materi-
als as you wish. I suggest reading the manual
when it comes to VRAYs shader/material system,
as it is different from CINEMA 4Ds.

You also have new tags that you can apply in the
object manager. Right click on any object in the
object manager and you will see VRAY Tags.
Those tags are helpful if you want to create realis-
tic physical camera behavior or even light. Refer
to manual, for now, if you really want to dig
deeper into it.

However, lets get started on a rather simple

scene. You can open the scene I provided or just
create your own (My scene requires R10). My
scene exists of very few objects (some walls and
a chair) and a few VRAY materials. Lets have a
closer look at how to set it up.

24
 VRAYforC4D Beginner Tutorial - Getting started
By Thomas Pasieka

2. Make sure you have light sources.

You can use standard C4D lights or VRAY Lights

by using a VRAY tag. In my case I created a C4D
Infinite Light source and, after positioning the
light, I added a VRAY Light Tag. In the attribute
manager (make sure you click on the little VRAY
Light tag first) I activated Physical Sun and
Physical Sky, which will emulate both. You may
have to fiddle round with the Intensity Multiplier
and Turbidity, or your scene may look washed
out.

4. Ready to render!

Now you are finally ready to render! Wasnt all

that hard was it? Like I said earlier, you can use
your own scene or the one I provided. The steps
to create a successful rendering again:

1. Convert materials or create new materials and

apply them to your object as necessary.

2. Create Lights and Cameras with or without

VRAY tags.

3. Add VrayBridge in your render settings (Ef-

fects)and activate Indirect Illumination. Check
GI on.
3. Activate Indirect Illumination.
4. Hit the render button.
Go into your render settings Effects and add
VRAY Bridge to your effects. Now you have ac- Have a look at my scene setup and final render-
cess to ten tabs. Select Indirect Illumination and ing on the next page...
check GI on. You can also choose from one of
the presets. Low Quality is good enough for a
rather quick render process. Well, youve done it.
Have a look at the screenshot on the top right to
see what I did in the Indirect Illumination tab.

25
VRAYforC4D Beginner Tutorial - Getting started
By Thomas Pasieka

26
 Volumetric Render - Part 1
By Rui Batista

Volumetric Render is one of those things that has

a nice ring to it, doesnt it? Actually, what is volu-
metric rendering? Well, to understand what volu-
metric rendering is, we must first understand how
CINEMA 4D deals with geometry.

When you create an object, it may look solid, but

it isnt. So, when you create a Cube or a Sphere,
it doesnt have any matter inside it. It is just a
hollow shell. You can see that it only has a thin
skin when you turn your object into an editable
mesh and you delete a few points or faces.
You can also see this when you create Booleans,
or you assign a material with an alpha channel to
your objects. So, if you want to create a volumet-
ric object, you need to make something that is
interpreted as a solid using, for example, a Boo-
lean, but it is not a really solid object. It just looks
like it is because we cant see its interior.
What if we need to create an object that has very
small or very intricate details carved in it? Usually,
we resort to textures to re-create details that are
very complex and hard to create using real ge-
ometry.
Wouldnt it be nice to have a way to create solid
volumetric textures that would carve, dent or
erode an object in a realistic way? It would, in-
deed. That is exactly what I will teach in this first
part of a two part article dedicated to volumetric
rendering.
First thing we need is an object. Since CINEMA
4D (and most other 3D applications) doesnt have
real solid objects, we need to mimic one. In this
article I will explain a way to create solid Cubes
(or 3D parallelograms since there is no need to be
restricted to perfect cubes) and Spheres. All other
objects can be derived from these using Booleans
(more about that in part 2, next month).
Now, how do we simulate a solid object? Well, we
do like the onions do: layers. If we have enough
layers of thin skins, all stacked inside each other,
we can create a facsimile of a true solid object.
Translated to CINEMA 4D objects, we end up with
something similar to this (Image 01):
This image only shows a very reduced number of
layers. To achieve good results, many more would
be necessary. Of course you could do all this by
hand, painstakingly creating copies of the original
Cube or Sphere and scaling them down.
I know many of you have the patience of a Shao-
lin monk, but it would be great if the whole proc-
ess of creating and adjusting the inner layers
could be made more automatic. This is exactly
what I have prepared for all of you, in the form of
a COFFEE expression.
Create a Cube, or a Sphere, and add to it a new
COFFEE expression tag. Select the tag, and in
the Attribute Manager, choose Manage User
Data from the User Data menu.
Add a new User Data parameter of type Boolean,
named ON.
Add another User Data parameter of type Boo-
lean, named Reduce Detail.
Add another User Data parameter of type Vector,
with a Unit of Percent, named Complete.
Finally, add another User Data parameter of type
String, with an interface of Static Text named
Number of Children.
You should end up with a set of User Data pa-
rameters like this (Image 02).
Set the ON parameter to on (with a check-mark in
it).

27
 Volumetric Render - Part 1
By Rui Batista

if((self_tag->GetName())=="Volumetric
Expression") break;
self_tag=self_tag->GetNext();
}
02
// if none was found, return
if(!self_tag) return;
Set the Reduce Detail parameter to on (with a
check-mark in it). // if the expression is turned off, return
if(!self_tag#ID_USERDATA:1) return;
Set the Complete parameters to 100% in all fields
(as in 100%, 100%, 100%) // clear the object count field
self_tag#ID_USERDATA:4="";
Now, select the COFFEE expression tag again
and, in the Basic tab of the Attribute Manager, // initialize some variables
change its name to Volumetric Expression. change_detail=self_tag#ID_USERDATA:2;
complete=self_tag#ID_USERDATA:3;
We can now start typing the code. Double click
the COFFEE expression tag and type the code // check to see what type of object the tag is at-
that follows. tached to
type=op->GetType();
For the ones that followed the whole COFFEE
series I wrote, the code should be simple enough. // if it is not a Sphere or a Cube, return
For the ones that didnt, I comment all the code, if((type!=OSphere)&&(type!=OCube)) return;
using lines that are preceded by two slashes. Ok,
type away we will meet again at the end of the // initialize the object counter and go to the first
last line of code. child
num=0;
child=op->GetDown();
main(doc,op)
{ // count all the childs of the main object
while(child)
// all variables needed by the expression are de- {
fined num++;
var child,num,f,self_tag; child=child->GetNext();
var type,change_detail,complete; }
var fillet,fillet_radius,fl_rd,fillet_sub,fl_sb;
var sizex,sizey,sizez; // if the object has no childs, return
var redux,reduy,reduz; if(num==0) return;
var detailx,detaily,detailz;
var redetailx,redetaily,redetailz; // load the number of childs into the child count
field
self_tag#ID_USERDATA:4=tostring(num);
// get the first tag of the object
self_tag=op->GetFirstTag(); // if the object is a sphere...
if(type==OSphere)
// cycle through all the tags until one {
//with the name Volumetric Expression is found
while(self_tag) // save the radius and the detail
{ sizex=op#PRIM_SPHERE_RAD;

28
 Volumetric Render - Part 1
By Rui Batista

sizey=sizex; redetaily=float(detaily)/(num+1);
sizez=sizex; redetailz=float(detailz)/(num+1);
detailx=op#PRIM_SPHERE_SUB; fl_rd=float(fillet_radius)/(num+1);
detaily=detailx; fl_sb=float(fillet_sub)/(num+1);
detailz=detailx; }
}
// point to the first child...
else child=op->GetDown();

// if it is a cube // and go through all the childs of the first object

{ for(f=0;f<num;f++)
{
// save the size, the subdivisions and the fillet in-
formation // if the parent is a Sphere...
fillet=op#PRIM_CUBE_DOFILLET; if(type==OSphere)
fillet_radius=op#PRIM_CUBE_FRAD; {
fillet_sub=op#PRIM_CUBE_SUBF;
// and if the child is also a Sphere...
sizex=op#PRIM_CUBE_LEN:VECTOR_X; if((child->GetType())==OSphere)
{
sizey=op#PRIM_CUBE_LEN:VECTOR_Y;
// set the new radius and detail
sizez=op#PRIM_CUBE_LEN:VECTOR_Z;
detailx=op#PRIM_CUBE_SUBX; child#PRIM_SPHERE_RAD=sizex-((f+1)*redux);
detaily=op#PRIM_CUBE_SUBY;
detailz=op#PRIM_CUBE_SUBZ; child#PRIM_SPHERE_SUB=detailx-(f*redetailx);
} }
}
// calculate the size reduction factor
// this is how much each child must reduce // otherwise, the parent is a Cube
// in size, in relation to its previous sibling else
// it takes into account the percentage {
// of completion that the user sets
redux=(sizex/(num+1))*complete.x; // if the child is also a Cube
reduy=(sizey/(num+1))*complete.y; if((child->GetType())==OCube)
reduz=(sizez/(num+1))*complete.z; {

// initialize detail reduction values // set the fillet option of the child to
redetailx=0; // the same value of the fillet option of the parent
redetaily=0; child#PRIM_CUBE_D-
redetailz=0; OFILLET=fillet;
fl_rd=0; if(fillet)
fl_sb=0;

// if the detail should vary... // if the fillet option was turned on

if(change_detail) {
{
// set the adjusted fillet size
// calculate the detail reduction factor
redetailx=float(detailx)/(num+1);

29
 Volumetric Render - Part 1
By Rui Batista

You should now have something like this:

child#PRIM_CUBE_FRAD=fillet_radius-
((f+1)*fl_rd);

child#PRIM_CUBE_SUBF=fillet_sub-((f+1)*fl_sb);
}

// set the new dimensions and detail

child#PRIM_CUBE_LEN:VECTOR_X=sizex-((f+1)
*redux);

child#PRIM_CUBE_LEN:VECTOR_Y=sizey-((f+1)
*reduy);

child#PRIM_CUBE_LEN:VECTOR_Z=sizez-((f+1)
You dont need to have the Volumetric Expression
*reduz);
(as I will call it, from now on) applied to both ob-
jects. You only need it in the parent, so delete the
child#PRIM_CUBE_SUBX=detailx-(f*redetailx);
Volumetric Expression of the child cube. Now du-
plicate the child a few more times until you have
child#PRIM_CUBE_SUBY=detaily-(f*redetaily);
something like this: (Image 04).
child#PRIM_CUBE_SUBZ=detailz-(f*redetailz);
If the expression is
}
working correctly,
}
you should now
see, in the editor,
// advance to the next child
something like this
child=child->GetNext();
(assuming you are
} 04
using a cube, of
}
course); (Image 05)

Experiment adjust-
Now that you typed all the code, its a good time
ing the size of the
to save your file.
parent cube. You
can use the orange
Click the Compile button in the Expression
handles, the Size
Manager window to check for errors. If any error
parameters in the
is found, go back and correct it. Continue doing
Attribute Manager
so until you get a report of No Errors!
or the Scale tool. As
you do so, all the
Now create a duplicate of the object that contains
child cubes will ad-
the COFFEE expression tag and place it inside
just themselves.
the original object (I will assume it is a cube, from
This is a whole lot
now on, but you can use a sphere, if you prefer).
easier do adjust
now. If you delete or
add additional
cubes (or spheres, if
you started using a
sphere), the whole

30
 Volumetric Render - Part 1
By Rui Batista

Oh, you can also create cubes with fillets and the
Volumetric Expression will also reproduce that,
scaling down the fillet radius in the children and
even reducing the detail, if needed. The nice thing
05
about all this is that you only need to adjust the
parent and everything else will occur automati-
cally.

To make things easier for you in the future, reset

the defaults of the Volumetric Expression to the
ones I defined before. Now, make sure the Volu-
metric Expression is selected and, in the File
menu of the Attribute Manager, choose Save Tag
Preset.

From now on, when you need to add a Volumetric

Expression tag to a cube or a sphere, you just
bunch will adjust automatically. Sometimes you
need to select the object in question, right-click it
dont need to have layers all the way to the center
(or go to the File menu of the Attribute Manager)
of your initial shape. Sometimes you only need a
and choose Load Tag Preset. Now choose User-
thick solid surface.
>Tag->Volumetric Expression. Easy, isnt it? We
now have the objects we need, on to the textures.
And that is what the Complete parameters are
there for. By default it completes the inner space
This part is really quite easy. You can create any
(100%) but you can lower it to make the inner
type of texture, adjusting all the channels you feel
layers only go so far. Try it out. If you use cubes,
like adjusting. The only one that will actually cre-
you can adjust each axis independently. If you
ate the sense of volumetry is the Alpha channel.
use a sphere, you only have to adjust the first
So, try placing a Noise shader in the Alpha chan-
field.
nel. Choose one that has a good balance of black
and white. Increase the contrast until you have a
Now, what does the Reduce Detail parameter do?
noise that is almost only black and white.
Imagine you start with a cube that has 20 subdivi-
sions in the X axis, 15 subdivisions in the Z axis
Everything that is black will disappear from the
and 17 subdivisions in the Z axis.
surface. Everything that is while will be fully solid.
If you created a composite texture, using the
If you turn Reduce Detail off, all the child cubes,
Layer shader, make sure you turn off the Image
until the last one, will also have 20, 15 and 17
Alpha option in the Alpha channel.
subdivisions in their respective axis. This is, usu-
ally, not the desired behavior.
Now, drag the material to the parent and set its
Projection mode to Cubic. Try rendering.
As the cubes get smaller, they need less and less
detail. So, if you have the Reduce Detail parame-
Not very nice, is it? You need lights and ESPE-
ter turned on, as each child is adjusted, its subdi-
CIALLY, shadows! If you dont turn on shadows,
visions also get reduced until they are just 1,1,1
the volumetric effect will not be very visible. So,
on the last child. The same happens with spheres,
feel free to add, as many lights you think are nec-
of course.
essary and turn shadows on, at least in one of
them.
For your information, the last field, named Num-
ber of Children, will display a count of how many
children the initial object has.

31
 Volumetric Render - Part 1
By Rui Batista

Render again. Depending on the material you

have created, some of the holes may appear
fully black. This is because the CINEMA 4D ren-
derer gives up calculating surfaces after a few
depth levels of surfaces.

By default, the renderer rays only calculate as

many as 15 surfaces in succession, to speed up
render. But, in our case, we need much more. So,
check out how many children you have in your
main object.

Now duplicate that number, add to it a few more,

just in case (I usually add it 10) and type the re-
sulting number in the Ray Depth parameter in the
Options tab of the Render Settings. Now that you
are there, also type the same number in the
Shadow Depth parameter.

Render again. Now all should look fine. You can

even add a ground plane to check for shadows
casted by this volumetric object.

To wrap this all up, a few thingsonly some

shaders calculate their result in all three dimen-
sions. Noise shaders usually do, but some only
create 2D results. These will not create good
volumetric renders.

Most shaders also allow you to define in what

space the resulting image is calculated. You can
usually decide if you want to get a result calcu-
lated in Object, Texture or World space. Dont use
the UV (2D) option as this only creates a flat im-
age. See what suits you best.

Good sources for noises are the Noise shaders of

CINEMA 4D, and the EnhanceC4D set of shaders
that you can buy from Biomekk.com.

You mostly want to apply the material with a Cu-

bic projection, but some results are better with
UVW or Spherical. Experiment!!

Here are some examples of volumetric renders I

did (see right column):

32
 Volumetric Render - Part 1
By Rui Batista

spheres. Yes, it is possible as you can see in the

following images:

Those are special cases and use a slightly differ-

ent technique. I will explain it next month, in part 2
of this Volumetric Rendering article. Also, I will
explain how to create volumetric fly-through ani-
mations of skies without the use of the Sky mod-
ule.

Until next month Keep on Attacking and start

creating huge libraries of good-looking volumetric
You may be inquiring yourself if it is possible to materials :-)
create shapes that are not parallelograms or
-Rui

33
 Simple Shading
By Bram van Gerwen

In this short tutorial I'll be showing you how you
can add specific details by stacking different ma-
terials.
Let's start with a splotch of dirt on a wall. Open
the file "ShaderTutorial.c4d" from the goodies
folder, the file contains a wall on which we will add
the extra textures. Create a new material, name it
'Splotch', disable the specular channel and load a
noise shader into the Color tab. Click on the noise
to set its properties, set the noise to Luka and set
Color 1 and 2 to a Dark brown and light Brown
respectively. So that our splotch on the wall will be
brown.
When in the texture axis tool you can edit the se-
lected texture with the coordinates manager.
Set the H rotation to 90 and apply. You can see
the texture is projected correctly now, but is being
tiled which is not what we want. In the texture tag
properties you can disable the 'Tile' option.
When done you will see only one splotch, like in
Picture 1. This method is a quick and easy way to
add details like this. It doesn't matter what kind of
projection the other textures on the object have,
the splotch will simply be added over it as is.

Right-click on the top preview of the material and

select 'Plane', the plane preview makes it easier
to see what the alpha channel does, which we will
add next. Go to the basic properties of the mate-
rial and enable the 'Alpha' channel.

We can make the square into a irregular splotch

by using a Gradient shader in the alpha channel.
So go to the Alpha tab and load a Gradient into
the Texture field at the bottom. Click on the Gradi-
ent to edit its properties. It will always load a lin-
ear gradient by default, set the Type to '2D-
Circular' and change the left knot on the gradient
to white and the right know to black.

You can access more properties of the gradient

by clicking the black triangle behind it. Click on
the white knot, and set the Pos value to 35. Click
the black knot and set the Pos value to 62. This
will bring the two knots closer together on the
gradient and making the fade out less soft. Now
set the Turbulence value of the gradient to 20
percent to make the edges of the splotch seem
more random. The texture is ready to be applied
to the wall now.
Drag the splotch material to the wall in the object
manager. It will be applied with default UVW
mapping, click on the texture tag that appears for
the splotch and set its Projection to 'Flat'. We
need to rotate the flat projection 90 degrees to
make it project correctly on the wall first. Go to
Tools menu and select the Texture Axis tool. Make
sure the object and the texture tag you want to
edit is selected else you can't see the projection.
If you want, for instance, more splotches you can
simply CTRL-drag the texture tag to the right of
itself to make a duplicate. All you have to do is
drag the texture to another place with the texture
axis tool, resize and rotate it a bit to get other
splotches. Note, however, that if you stack a huge
amount of textures like this, the render will slow
down, especially if every texture consist of multi-
ple noise layers.
Make an extra splotch to the left of the bug one
and resize it smaller, add a third smaller splotch
somewhere on top of the wall. A you can see the
smaller you make the splotches the smaller the

34
 Simple Shading
By Bram van Gerwen

noise scale becomes as it is scaled along with the

texture. Now that we the basic technique we can
easily add more details with perhaps different
gradients and other noise in the color channel.
For instance, let's add a line of chalk across the
wall.

I have provided the chalk material as it is basically

the same as creating the splotch material with a
different type of noise and colors and instead of a
circular gradient we used the 2D-V type to get a
horizontal line. The knots are setup as one white
knot in the middle with two black ones close to it
on each side to get the single line effect in the
alpha channel.

Drag the Chalk material to the Wall object in the

object manager. The default uvw mapping serves
us well here, as the wall is just a plane we don't
have to make any projection changes. The line
will appear on top of the splotches.

The texture tags behind the object are basically That's it or this month. Next month we will be
stacked from left to right. left being at the bottom. handling a bit more complex stacking of materials
So, if you want the splotches to overlap the chalk and shaders.
line you can simply drag the chalk texture tag to
the left and drop it between the wall tag and the If you have any questions about this tutorial,
leftmost splotch tag. Do this and you will see the please ask them on the 3D Attack forums, thank
chalk line will be covered by the splotches when you.
you render.
Bram van Gerwen
You may want the line to cover the left splotch on
the wall. Grab the middle splotch tag and drag it
left of the chalk tag, so that the chalk covers this
splotch. If you render, now you can see the line
go under the big splotch but over the small
splotch like in Picture 2.

Basically it's all about the alpha channel for this

technique, you can load in anything you want. The
gradients are an easy quick way to get stuff like
circles, lines and splotches done on your sur-
faces, but you can of course load in your own al-
pha maps done in photoshop or other, this way
you can create some really unique shapes on
your materials.

If you try not to forget to use high quality photos in

the color channel of those materials, you can
make good looking details with little effort.

35
 Frequently Asked CINEMA 4D Questions
October 2007

Q: I'm trying to just make a simple animation of
the Earth rotating, a loop of 30 frames. However,
by default C4D eases my 2 keyframes, how do I
disable keyframe easing so that the animation
doesn't appear to continually speed up and slow
down through the loop?
A: Select the keyframe and change interopera-
tion to linear from spline.
Q: What's the best file type to export from Max to
use in BP? Possibly one that retains the texture
links etc. I have been using both .3ds and .obj but
its a bit wonky, and thats probably from me not
knowing enough about the product.
A: Well OBJ or FBX should work just fine. I usu-
ally use FBX (it has some problems here and
there) but it works "OK".

Q: How do I render it in wireframe mode?
A: You can get nice wireframe rendering by turn-
ing on the cel render in the render-settings acti-
vating the edges box. Good luck, hope this
helped!
Q: I know I've done it before, but I cannot, for the
life of me, remember where I changed the color of
the points. Can someone help me?
A: Preferences > Viewport > Colors > Active
Points & Inactive Points.
Q: So I've been learning Dynamics, but I've been
having some problems where I'm unable to cancel
a dynamic after I start playing it when it's a rather
intense dynamic. In fact, I get the eternal spinning
beachball and am being forced to force quit C4D.
Is there an easy way of canceling out of a preview
animation when it's really slow without having to
force quit?
A: Hold Down the Esc Key... If that doesn't work,
then 'Force Quit' is your only hope. You could
leave it alone for the time it needs, but that's usu-
ally hours if you get the beach ball while playing
with Dynamics.

Q: I've noticed in one of the magazines the

screenshots the interface of C4D is a dark
scheme, is there a way to get a darker interface
without changing each individual color?

A: In the, Preferences/Common/Scheme. There

are some different schemes in there.

Q: In version 9.5 I used the FIZZ plugin to avoid

collision for multiple objects. However, FIZZ
plugin does not work in version 10 anymore. So
the question is, how can I use particles and dy-
namics together. I use an emitter to drop objects
on a floor. These objects then should not drop
through the floor and not bump (collide) in each
other. What is the best way to do this?

A: There are presets in the TP Library such as

TP Object Collision, TP Particle Collision which
cover the Fizz functionality.

36
 Pamela Kleibrink Thompson - Resumes, Portfolios
and Demo Reels
By Tavy Pasieka
Pamela Kleibrink Thompson
Having held almost every job in the entertainment
industry, Pamela Kleibrink Thompson is uniquely
qualified as a career coach, independent recruiter,
and management consultant.
Her monthly column "The Career Coach" is on
Animation World Network http://mag.awn.com.
She also writes a regular column for Working
World Magazine. She has written and produced
training films for AT&T and IBM, and her articles
on careers and management have appeared in
over 40 publications.
Thompson has spoken on careers at numerous
conferences, seminars and colleges. She has
lectured on Women in Animation as a noontime
lecturer at Disney and recently presented her
course Resumes and Demo ReelsIf Yours Dont
Work Neither Do You at SIGGRAPH in San Di-
ego. Upcoming speaking engagements include
the FMX08 in Stuttgart, Germany (www.fmx.de).
A career coach since 1999, Thompson helps cli-
ents achieve their goals by developing strategic
career plans and effective marketing materials.
Thompson is an expert on career transitions,
demo reels and portfolios, resumes, cover letters
and interviewing techniques. She guides her ca-
reer coaching clients through the complete job
search process.
37
Her recruiting clients include LAIKA, Blue Sky
Studios, Walt Disney Feature Animation, Para-
mount, Twentieth Century Fox, the Los Angeles
Times, Macromedia, Toybox, Framestore, Digital
Domain, Simex Digital Studios, Click 3X, Lucas
Learning, and Hollywood On Line. She was offi-
cially recognized as a top recruiter by Animation
Magazine and was featured in a US News and
World Report jobs issue.
In 1998, Thompson created, organized and mod-
erated LA/SIGGRAPH'S Career Boot Camp, the
world-famous seminar to prepare artists for ca-
reers in computer animation. With over 40 execu-
tive panelists from top studios and over 800 at-
tendees, the program was a tremendous success.
Thompson co-produced the event in 1999.
Thompson has worked in television and feature
films as well as commercials and video games.
Her production credits include The Simpsons,
Family Dog and Bebes Kids. She teaches
courses on animation, new media and the Inter-
net, and advises colleges and universities on pre-
paring students for the working world.
She taught Career Realities at Gnomon School of
Visual Effects in Hollywood. Thompson is an ac-
tive and contributing member of the Visual Effects
Society, L.A. SIGGRAPH, and Women in Anima-
tion. For a speaking engagement, personal
coaching, or recruiting services you can contact
her at PamRecruit@q.com.
Tavy: Hello Pamela and thank you for taking time
from you schedule to speak with me today. Con-
sidering you are a Career Coach by profession, I
thought you would be a "perfect" interview subject
for our readers. Our readers, most of whom are
3D Artists using CINEMA 4D by MAXON, are al-
ways looking for advice when it comes to their
demo reels, portfolios, resumes and so on. Let's
jump right in with the first question, resumes.
While I believe a demo reel and portfolio are more
important than a resume, resumes are still a
must. Should the resume for a 3D Graphic Artist
be lengthy, or kept simple, clean and right to the
point?
 Pamela Kleibrink Thompson - Resumes, Portfolios
and Demo Reels
By Tavy Pasieka
Pamela: A resume should always be simple,
clean and right to the point. One purpose of the
resume is to give the employer a way to contact
you. Dont make the employer hunt for your con-
tact information. Your name and contact informa-
tion including your email address and web site
address and phone number with area code
should be at the top of the resume on the first
page. If you have a multiple page resume this
information should be on every page.
If its unclear what you do, you should also state
an objective and it should be specific and clear
such as: Shader Writer or Lighting Technical
Director. If you are a 3D generalist you can use
that as your objective.
The next category I like to see are skills. Again,
be specific and clear about what software you
use. Dont say a variety of 3D software. List the
software you use such as: Cinema 4D, Pho-
toshop, After Effects.
You should highlight your accomplishments and
achievements. If you came in under
budget, helped train new artists, or
created a new plug in,
38
mention it in an Accomplishments or Achieve-
ments or Career Highlights section.
Employers want to know where youve worked,
what you worked on and what you did. List your
experience so that it is easy to read, with the most
recent position first.
Special awards or honors comes next, then
memberships in professional organizations, and
educational highlights at the bottom.
A resume should be easy to read and have plenty
of white space. Use a type font that is easy to
read. Do not include graphics as resumes are
often scanned into a computer and this confuses
the optical readers.
Tavy: What information should be shared in a
typical resume?
Pamela: The information that should be shared is
contact info, skills, experience, education and ac-
complishments. Resumes do not need to have a
photograph, marital status, family status, health
status or religious affiliation.
You may want to mention you are a U.S.
Citizen if there is any doubt because of
your name. Dont waste space mention-
ing that references are available. Men-
tion that you are open to relocation if you
are. But the most important information is
your name and how to reach you.
I once got a resume at SIGGRAPH that was over
6 pages longa highly technical, academic re-
sume. The problem with this resume, besides its
length, was that there was no phone number or
email address on it. Have a friend look at your
resume and check your phone number to be
sure it is accurate and includes the current
area code. Check your email address as,
well as many recruiters prefer contacting you
via email.
Tavy: Having been in the business for many
years, I've seen tons of portfolios and demo
reels. One thing that annoys me the most is "fluff"
(low quality filler material just to absorb space).
 Pamela Kleibrink Thompson - Resumes, Portfolios
and Demo Reels
By Tavy Pasieka
Here I am looking through all of this wonderful
work then, all of a sudden, up pops something of
below average work. Should the 3D Graphic Artist
include work that is sub par?
Pamela: 3D Graphic Artists should never include
anything on their reels that is not the absolute
best they can do. It is better to have a short, fan-
tastic reel than a longer one with mediocre work.
Numerous people have been hired based on only
one shot. One guy who now has his own visual
effects company created a demo reel when he
first started out that showed a photorealistic whale
swimming through water. It looked like footage
shot at Sea World. He was hired on the spot.
One fantastic shot is all you need. Two or three
fantastic shots are even better. Often artists work
on something that is too complex and doesnt
emphasize their strengths. Show what you are
good at and what you enjoy doing. If its anima-
tion, focus on that.
Always include a reel breakdown with the reel.
The reel breakdown tells the viewer what the art-
ists contributions were on each shot on the reel.
The reel breakdown can be a piece of paper or
you can burn subtitles over the shots. You should
always include your name and contact info on
every item you send including the reel and reel
breakdown. Its a good idea to slate the head and
tail of your reel with your name and contact info.
A recruiter I know has about 3 dozen reels with
brilliant work in his office. He cant contact any of
the people who created those reels because none
of the reels have contact information on them.
Include contact information on every thing you
send an employer.
Tavy: As with resumes, what information should
be shared in the portfolio?
Pamela: Your portfolio should include life draw-
ings, (rough sketches of animals and humans in
movement), samples of color and design sense
and a sketchbook. Every piece in the portfolio
and the portfolio should be labeled with your
name and contact information. The other work to
be included in a portfolio depends on the position
the person is applying for. For example, if a per-
son is interested in modeling, a portfolio showing
39
traditional sculpture is
a plus. A portfolio
for a lighter or
compositor
might include
p h o t o g r a-
phy.
Tavy:
How long
should a typical
demo reel be?
Should your demo reel show-
case all of your skills, or should you have
different reels for different skills?
Pamela: Most reels are too long. The artist
should put his/her very best work first. Employers
are pressed for time. They also can recognize
great work when they see it.
They know whether you are ready to work at their
company when they view your reel and generally
know within the first minute. You dont need more
than 2 minutes. The important thing is that you
will be judged on your weakest piece so make
sure all of it shows the very best you can do.
You might want to create reels that emphasize
different skill sets. Of course, if you do everything
and are a generalist you can do one shot that will
show off all your strengths. Its your choice. You
might want to make different reels for different
companies. For example, you wouldnt send a
photorealistic reel to Pixar. A company that does
only photorealistic effects shots wouldnt be inter-
ested in cartoony stylized character animation.
The content of your reel is dependent on the job
you are seeking and the skill set you want to
showcase. For example, modelers should include
wire frames and turnarounds; riggers should dis-
play tool sets; animators should include a variety
of physical movements and actions, and include
facial animation; look development should include
texture paints, maps and the final look.
 Pamela Kleibrink Thompson - Resumes, Portfolios
and Demo Reels
By Tavy Pasieka
Tavy: What format should the 3D Artist's portfolio
and demo reel be in? Should they have different
formats available?
Pamela: The preferred format now is DVD. But
make sure that it is playable in any computer. I
have received DVDs that wouldnt play. Also dont
make a complicated menu. It should be self-
loading. You can have chapters that come up
after the reel plays out.
For companies in the United States all DVDs
must be NTSC with a Region Code 1 (USA, Can-
ada) or Region Code 0 (Region Free). You
should check the companys website or ask their
recruiting department what formats they prefer.
For example, LAIKA, (for whom I am currently
recruiting shader writing technical directors, com-
positing technical directors, lighting technical di-
rectors, riggers, FX technical directors and pipe-
line technical directors) prefers video submissions
be DVD.
The DVD should be clearly labeled with your con-
tact information. LAIKAs web site states that all
images must be JPEGS and video clips must be
QuickTime. Some company websites indicate
that they are willing to look at web sites while oth-
ers mention they accept VHS reels in NTSC for-
mat. Look up the companys requirements and
follow them.
Tavy: Since the advent of the Internet, more and
more employers are hiring freelance artists that
work remotely. Is it a good idea to have portfolio
website?
Pamela: Yes, some employers view the work on
artists websites. Build a website and make sure
employers can contact you from it if they like what
they see. The more ways you can expose others
to your work, the better. Enter film festivals, es-
pecially ones associated with large conferences
such as SIGGRAPH.
I know of one company who hired an intern based
on the work on that artists website. If you apply
at a company and they ask for a DVD do not re-
spond by referring them to a website. The first
test is how well you follow directions.
40
Tavy: Do different companies have different
portfolio requirements? If so, how do you deter-
mine what they require?
Pamela: Research each company you apply to.
This includes finding out what companies want to
see in a demo reel and portfolio. One thing to
note, portfolios and demo reels will not be re-
turned. Never show work that is not already
available to the public. You might be tempted to
show the latest and greatest stuff youve been
doing because this will showcase your capabili-
ties, but dont give in to temptation. No company
wants their stuff seen by others prematurely so
dont think that an employer will appreciate you
showing off the top-secret work you are doing at a
competitor.
Tavy: Let's say you've got an interview date. How
do you prepare for the interview? What will your
possible future employer be looking for that he or
she didn't discover in your portfolio?
Pamela: The purpose of the interview is to find
out if you are a good fit for the company. This is
where your homework (the research you did on
the company) pays off. Do research before the
interview and find out facts about the company
and the people you will be meeting.
During the interview, you must convince the em-
ployer that you are skilled (able to do the job),
enthusiastic (willing to do the job) but also and
often most importantly, that you will fit in.
You should know what projects the company has
worked on, what projects they have upcoming,
and also what their needs are. You want to show
the employer that you are a match for what they
need.
Emphasize your skills and achievements that re-
late to the job you are interviewing for and explain
why you want to work for them in particular. Eve-
ryone likes to hear praise for their work so if you
tell someone at the video game company that one
of your favorite games of all time is one they
worked on; you will be viewed in a favorable light.
If you have been referred by someone who al-
ready works for the company, and is well thought
 Pamela Kleibrink Thompson - Resumes, Portfolios
and Demo Reels
By Tavy Pasieka
of, be sure to mention it. Be sure to ask enough
questions to determine if you want to work for that
company. An interview is a two-way conversation
to get to know each other.
I had a friend who went on an interview and when
the interviewer said, Tell me about yourself he
replied, pointing to his resume, Well its all right
there. You might think that since the employer
has seen your resume and your work that he
really has everything he needs to make a deci-
sion. But the most important thing he is trying to
find out in the interview is how easy youll be to
work with. The employer has seen your reel and
knows your aptitude. Now he wants to assess
your attitude. He wants to know that you will fit in
on the team.
Tavy: After the interview should you follow up
with a letter? If so, how long should you wait?
Pamela: You should follow up every interview
with a letter immediately after the interview. Fol-
low up with an email letter as well as a hand-
written thank you note.
Tavy: Thanks again Pamela! Do you have any
last words of advice for our readers?
Pamela: Looking for work is hard work. Be sys-
tematic about it and stick to it. Often persistence
makes all the difference and often its a matter of
timing. Network so you hear about jobs that are
not advertised. Keep track of whom you apply to
and when, and follow up.
Do the very best on every job and build your repu-
tation as someone who is reliable, hard-working
and a problem solver and develop your communi-
cation skills. Maintain a positive, professional
attitude and learn as much as you can on every
job. Treat every job as if its important because it
is. Stay in touch with colleagues and help them
when you can. Its likely that you will have many
jobs in your lifetime. Treat everyone with respect.
That production intern might be the producer in a
few years. Most importantly, love what you do
and follow your dream. Set goals and pursue
them and dont give up.
Thank you for the interview.
Thomas Pasieka - Chesaning, Michigan USA

Experience: 12 years of professional experience in Advertising, 3D Graphic Design, Architectural Design, Product and Package Design,
Pre Visualization and Game Content and Assets Design.
Software: CINEMA 4D R10, BodyPaint, Silo, zBrush, Photoshop, Freehand, Vue, VRayforC4D.
Areas of Expertise: Modeling, lighting, texturing and animation.
Clients: Nike, Crocs, Maybach, Walmart, GE Energy Products Germany, HenryGill Advertising and the Geppetto Group and more...
Website: http://www.ifreelance.com/pro/21863
E-mail: tom3d@mac.com

Mark Gmehling Dortmund, Germany

Experience: 7 years Advertising / 4 years 3d Animation

Software: CINEMA 4D R10.111 StudioBundle, zBrush, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash
Areas of Expertise: Modeling, lighting, texturing and animation
Clients: LeschFrei, Siemens, TBWA, Lufthansa, Carlsberg, Ebeling Group, Goldmann Group and more
Website: www.braincorps.de/dev
E-mail: markgmehling@braincops.de

Joe Yan - Shanghai, China

Experience: 2 years product design, 1 year game developing, 1 year broadcasting

Software: CINEMA 4D (MoGraph), Mudbox, Photoshop, After Effect
Areas of Expertise: Modeling, texture, lighting and animation
Clients: GDI Shanghai, SIM design group, JCL game
Website: www.ghost-joe.com
E-mail: dr_heyjoe@hotmail.com

Hamid Mosahebi - NRW Germany

Experience: 6 years in Web-Programming , Flash 2D&3D. CINEMA 4D since 2003 - 3D Shockwave Games with 3DMAX and Havok
Software: CINEMA 4D , Photoshop, Flash , Director , Vegas Movie Studio,
Areas of Expertise: Environment Modeling, Texturing , Lighting and Animation
Clients: Mousepower GmbH H2K Communications Gmbh HeinGericke GmbH
Website: www.nhstudio.de
E-mail: mosahebi@nhstudio.de

Jeff Gutterud Covington, WA USA

Experience: 14 years graphic design, web design, 3D

Software: CINEMA 4D, Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop, CorelDraw, (Macromedia) Contribute, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash
Areas of Expertise: Modeling, animation, web and graphic design
Clients: see our website for examples
Website: www.jgpublish.com
E-mail: info@jgpublish.com

Solid Static Portland, OR USA

Experience: 6 years, BA in graphic design

Software: CINEMA 4D, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Director,
Areas of Expertise: Modeling, lighting and rendering
Clients: Nike, Intel, Logitech, Lexmark, Motorola and more
Website: www.solidstatic.com <http://www.blahduforkmowkituel.snk>
E-mail: info@solidstatic.com
Valerio Landa Mexico City - Mexico / Milano - Italy

Experience: 9 years industrial design / advertising

Software: CINEMA 4D, Modo, Photoshop, After Effects,
Areas of Expertise: Modeling, lighting, Image manipulation
Website: valerio.clansiete.com
E-mail: valerio@clansiete.com

This could be your ad!

Experience: Lots of experience

Software: CINEMA 4D R10.111
Areas of Expertise: Modeling, lighting, texturing and animation
Clients: A lot
Website: mywebsite
E-mail: my-email

If you would like to have your ad placed (free of charge) in 3D Attack - The CINEMA 4D Magazine, please e-mail it
to tavy@3dattack.net. Your ad will be placed in the next issue of 3D Attack. If you would like it to be placed in fu-
ture issues, please e-mail new ad's before the 20th of each month. All ads should follow the same format as those
above.
 Artist Name: Raymond O'Doul
Image Name: Joyride
Best of Cinema 4D Country: Gallery USA
A monthly selection of inspiring
Date images
Created: July 27, 2007
Software: CINEMA 4D
Website: www.3dexplorer.net

Image Name: A Comfortable Infinity

Artist Name: Adam Benton
Country: UK
Date Created: 25 Sept 2007
Software: CINEMA 4D R10 / Vray for C4D
Website: www.kromekat.com
 Best of Cinema 4D Gallery
A monthly selection of inspiring images

This

Image Name: bsc (BigSpaceCarrier)

Artist Name: Norbert Gaeckel a.k.a pixelmeister
Country : Germany
Date Created: Image 09-25-07 | Model 2004
Software: Modeling CINEMA 4D, Art 7 and for the artwork photopaint
Website : http://www.3d-model-shop.de
 Best of Cinema 4D Gallery
A monthly selection of inspiring images

This

Image Name: Disney's Herbie

Artist Name: Mirko Marchese
Country: Italy
Date Created: 24 sep 2007
Software Used: CINEMA 4D R10
Website: http://thetruster.spaces.livecom/
 Best of Cinema 4D Gallery
A monthly selection of inspiring images

This

Image Name: Fender American Telecaster

Artist Name: Joe Yan
Country: China
Date Created: September, 2007
Software: MAXON CINEMA 4D R10
Website: www.ghost-joe.com
 Best of Cinema 4D Gallery
A monthly selection of inspiring images

This

Image Name: The Wind Of Change

Artist Name: Marius Sucan
Country: Romania
Date Created: 09-01-07
Software: CINEMA 4D, Silo and Photoshop
Website: http://www.robodesign.ro
 Contact Information
October 2007

The 3D ATTACK Team 3D Attack the CINEMA 4D Magazine and all ma-
Need to contact us? Got questions? terial contained therein are copyright protected.
You may not disassemble or distribute any part of
this publication without prior written consent from
3D Attack directly. any attempts to do so will be
Thomas Pasieka, CEO prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law as it
3dattack@3dattack.net applies in Michigan, USA. This applies for both 3D
Attack material as well as any named artists ma-
Tavy Ann, VEO terial contained in 3D Attack publications. Al-
tavy@3dattack.net though we read through all the tutorials and proof-
read them for errors, we cannot guarantee that
Chris Montesano, Site Admin/Developer they are 100% error free and therefore cannot
chris@3dattack.net issue refunds based on those errors. Copyright by
3D ATTACK 2004-2007 3D ATTACK is a regis-
tered trademark.
Rui Batista, Moderator/Writer
Rui_mac@ruimac.com
3D Attack
Mark Gmehling, Moderator/Writer 158 S. Saginaw St.
macling@braincorps.de Chesaning, Michigan - USA
48616
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