Top tips for cycles 4d
Rob Redman shares his expert advice on making the most of the unbiased render engine, which can now be used in Cinema 4D
Rob Redman shares his expert advice on making the most of the unbiased render engine, which can now be used in Cinema 4D
insydium has CREATED a bridge FOR Cinema 4D USERS To get The most From Cycles 4D, and it works Rob Redman, creative director, Pariah Studios
C ycles is a much loved render engine for Blender by the Blender Foundation and, although it’s an open source piece of software, it hasn’t been seen elsewhere. Until now. Insydium – developer of the hugely popular X-particles for Cinema 4D – has created a bridge for Cinema 4D users to get the most from Cycles within Cinema 4D, and it works incredibly well. It contains all of the original features, plus a few extras, and now supports elements of Cinema 4D such as X-particles and Turbulencefd, amongst others.
There are a few major differences between Cycles 4D and the standard Cinema 4D renderers, including the node-based material editor and the interactive preview render, which, with the help of my tips, you’ll have no trouble getting to grips with at all.
Cycles 4D is a very comprehensive render engine. Not only does it cover setting up cameras and environments and has a fantastic node-based material editor, but it also supports Cinema 4D’s hair system and, more importantly to a lot of users, fully
one of The most useful and Fun elements of Cycles 4D is The Real-time Preview, but The Default Settings might not work Rob Redman, creative director, Pariah Studios
supports X-particles. This means that it’s easier than ever to produce the most beautiful simulation, FX and motion graphics work. It’s more than can be covered here, but check out the Particle Info node. It grants access to every aspect of a particle system, so you can use things like velocity and age to drive any other aspect of your node tree. Very powerful indeed.
01 Integrator samples
The Integrator samples are what make your render clean and attractive. The final figure you need here will depend on your scene, but the default sample rate of 4 will never get the results you want, so try something like 30-40 and work from there. Remember that the higher the number, the longer the render will take, so when testing make increases of tens and then refine accordingly. Transparent materials will require using higher numbers.
02 mix shader Is king
The Mix Shader is your friend. It allows you to combine the outputs of any two nodes and control how and where they are mixed with a factor input. A good example is a stone material with some shine added. You can control the amount of shine or add a Fresnel falloff using the factor input – this is much easier than trying to use a Glossy Shader alone.
It’s also really good for mixing materials, as it can be used to mix shader chains at any point, so you could build a stone material, then a copper material, adding them both to a mix node and then using a third node as the mask. A gradient with a harsh white line (with
turbulence for organic movement) would work to create a seam of ore in a rock, for example.
03 Better previews
One of the most useful (and fun) elements of Cycles 4D is the real-time preview, but the defaults might not be best for you or your system. Use the Device drop-down menu to choose your fastest GPU, and then increase the sample count. Something around 20 looks good and doesn’t take too long to render, allowing you to see changes in near real time.
Not only can you pick a device, but multiples will show in the list, so if you have a pair of GTX cards, for example, you can choose one or both, making the preview extremely versatile and balancing between speed and any other priorities you might have.
04 Cycles environment
If you want to get a head start on lighting your scene, add a cycles environment to your scene. This adds the object and creates a material, which you can easily add an HDRI to, using an image texture node plugged into the input of the background node. This saves a few clicks on adding the pieces manually.
Of course, you can take this a whole lot further, as you aren’t restricted to using just HDRIS. You can plug any node chain into it, so why not encapsulate your scene in a custom-made, shader-based background? You can use math nodes to balance various nodes and create nebulas or star clusters, for night sky or sci-fi projects, or simple gradients if you can’t find a sky image that suits your needs.
05 displacement
If you have displacement materials that don’t appear to work, it’s probably down to a missing tag. Right click the object in the hierarchy and add a Cycles 4D/cyobject tag. In the tags attributes, head to the Displacement tab and you will find the Type is set to None. Catmull Clark usually works best, so