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Hi folks :) Here are some important news from us. From this point onward, all trainings from C4DCafe, both existing and future ones are free. Yes, you read that right! Given that we are now fully committed to make Cafe even greater place and universal Cinema user hub, we felt that this is necessary step. Free access to knowledge will have positive effect on the community and whole C4D eco system. All training content is being uploaded to our youtube channel as this post is made. Here is a list of trainings that will be available: 1. Introduction to R18 and modelling (currently on youtube already) 2. Introduction to R19 Fracturing 3. Xpresso volume 1 and volume 2 4. Introduction to R20 MoGraph fields 5. Introduction to R20 Nodes We would like to thank all our former customers and hopefully they won't resent this move, because, after all, this benefits them too for future content we make :) We expect to finish with upload in a week since shear amount of videos will take long time. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_MRjD4IdPtvYLo2dLC-POw Additionally, we also started providing very valuable scene file repositories like this: https://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/forums/topic/91711-c4d-cafe-lost-and-new-filesfree-to-use/ https://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/forums/topic/104415-node-based-materials-repository/ https://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/forums/topic/104962-hrvojes-free-file-pit/ Last but certainly not the least, is our new community based project https://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/forums/topic/105210-c4d-cafe-steam-punk-project/ We hope that with these moves Cafe will grow to be even better, help you even more to promote your work and skills, assist you in finding gigs or full time positions, or simply be a happy place for you to hang out. As a part of the staff here I try to help as much as possible and I can see incredible effort from many members to share their time and energy to help out others, which is truly fantastic :) Cafe has grown so much that we have members from all kinds. From students, hobby users, 2d artists, VFX guys, hardcore coders, to talent scouts, managers, CEO's of large companies and various other industry professionals. Have fun and for being a member!

just finished my latest short, rendered with redshift. i hope you'll enjoy :)

just finished a new animated gif called "mind your own sh*t". i hope you'll enjoy.

Hi folks :) In this topic I decided to share many of my files for you to examine. All of these were small setups, rigs, contraptions, prototypes and fun projects that I made over the years for clients or for myself. There is a lot of them but I will post them in small groups over time in order to avoid overload :P Feel free to use techniques and whatever you learn from them to your advantage. Each file will be enumerated and with hint of what is used in the scene in parenthesis. Files will vary from simple to quite advanced setups, in no particular order Have fun! 01_Airplane_route(MG+constrains).c4d 02_Atom_array_attractor(MG+XP).c4d 03_Ballon_procedural_anim(CA+Cmotion).c4d 04_Barb_wire(MG).c4d 05_Beast_in_box(CA+Cmotion).c4d 06_Box_fill(Dyn).c4d 07_Burning_match(MG+XP).c4d 08_Butterfly(CA+Cmotion).c4d 09_Cell_tissue_penetration(MG).c4d 10_Build_up(MG).c4d

Hey guys. I was asked by 3DArtist to write them a tutorial/break down for their Magazine. The tutorial is from my Tyrion Lannister portrait, and covers quite a bit over a 16 step break down. I had made some additions to it since its been posted publicly, that being the clothes where textured using Substance Painter. The core focus of the tutorial is Cinema 4D in which was used for Modelling, base sculpting and hair, although I talk about the full process. Anyways, check it out, should be out by Tuesday 10th April. Sampler here Latest version of the image, Original rendered at 5550 x 3700 Artstation limited to 1920 x 1080 : Click here Dan

Hi folks Here are some news which may be interesting to you: I would like to announce that first incarnation of new C4D Cafe training line is done. In few days we plan to release "Introduction to R19 Fracturing". As a way of saying thank you to our former TD Master section subscribers (which is now available as standalone training in the store) we will offer a permanent discount on new training line. Fracturing training is the first in line and with R20 release you can expect massive increase in training content. New tutorials will be download only and available via Cafe store. Additionally, we will also offer an ability to purchase in cryptocurrencies but that will not be an automated process, so for that option please contact us. Prior to R20 release we will undergo a big logistics upgrade and increase bandwidth and storage capacities, so there is a possibility of downtime during August (most likely). We will ensure that you have nice and smooth Cafe experience as usual Cheers

big fan of her work, so i was extra stoked when i was asked to do the character rigging for this piece... :)

Found time to pick my creature sculpts back up: Some people asked me to do a screen-cap previously, so for this one I did. 2x 35 min videos at 20x speed for anyone with the patience. Modelling/ Painting, Render & Post:

Hello Everybody Here is my fan art version of Tyrion Lannister Game Of Thrones. Iv been working on him on and off over last two weeks mainly at night. Iv done tons of iterations, and still am tweaking stuff, but need to let it go. All feedback and questions welcome. He was totally modelled in C4D including some sculpting along with Zbrush for the very higher frequency work. Minor Photoshop Post, Rendered with Vray4C4D 3.5. Images are much larger, click one each image 3 times to view full size. Time lapse Video Sessions. Modeling: Dan

[Edit - Note: this thread should be located in the "Programming - C++" section of the forums. It ended up in the "Python" section by accident during one of the forums reorganizing sessions] A while ago the Polystein Kit for MODO (see https://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/forums/topic/98647-polystein-kit-for-cinema-4d/ ) was introduced to me. From that moment the idea kept growing in the back of my head to provide something similar for the Cinema 4D community. Once other priorities were out of the way, I started working on some scripts to test out the feasibility of my interpretation of the idea. Once a working concept was obtained using several scripts, I contacted William Vaughan, the original creator of the Polystein Kit, in order to obtain approval to take his idea and turn it into a Cinema 4D plugin. Working from the scripts made earlier, I started implementing this new plugin, which I named "PolyGnome". Explaining the choice of the name would be a story too long to tell here, so I 'll prefer to leave that for long, cold and dark winter nights ... The current state of the plugin does use it's own library implementation, instead of using the Content Browser. There is more than one reason for this, but since quite technical, I'll omit to explain these as well. As mentioned in the video demonstration, the current beta version requires a two step preparation of assets. I have some ideas to automate these steps, but more important features need to get implemented first. The plugin will be available for Windows and MacOS, R17 and above (hopefully R19 won't break anything SDK related ... fingers crossed). Possibly R16, if there is enough interest. Depending the feedback from beta testers the plugin will be available sooner or later. Release date and price to be announced. Here's already a teaser, explaining the different steps: As for my other plugin(s), which all have their dedicated threads, I'd like this specific one to be the home for discussing anything PolyGnome related.

FINALLY! Finished a new personal project! It took me quite a while to get started, was flooded with commissioned work, had lots of other stuff to do around the house, and had a bit of an artist block (lame!) Anyway, hope you like it! Also made a 'making of' so you can have a look how it was made. M

Hi Iv done a few skulls now, practice makes perfect as they say so here is another take on one. Base mesh modeled in C4D, Sculpted in C4D, details in Zbrush, rendered with Vray4C4D. Hope you like it. Dan

I'll try to be fair and balanced (tough I know :) ) Had a bit of time now to look through things. This is clearly the best and biggest update in years and there's a lot of things I like. However it's not the "Big one" as many of us were expecting. The antique UV toolset is part of the old core so with no updated UV toolset R20 is still heavily reliant on the old core. Hence no big improvements in handling lots of objects apart from multi instances. My guess is the core is done and has been done for a few years. Problem is they were late starting on the UV toolset rewrite. To take out the old UV toolset they have to put in the new core completely and they can't put that in until the UV toolset is more or less complete. I think if I was still using C4D I would be reasonably happy with the update although it largely depends on what you do and what version you are running. As a hobbyist who might only be using the Prime version I'm disappointed to see that I wouldn't be getting the new volume modelling, probably the thing that I would get most use out of. Looks like my Bodypaint tutorials are safe for another year with the toolset still the old one as mentioned. MAXON are really dragging the chain updating the UV tools. MoGraph users should be pretty happy and there's plenty for them to play with. So well done to MAXON and their team. Some excellent enhancements but I think you should say when the full new core with updated UV tools are coming. But I can't see anyone using another 3D app busting their gut to jump ship to R20. In fact Blender 2.8 looks like it could pick up a few disgruntled users from various 3D apps. So is Modo that I use any better with their upgrades. Nope. The Foundry aren't piling on the new stuff. It's more about incrementally refining and enhancing things over 3 releases per year rather than dropping everything in one hit. I'm into modelling so the last few versions have focussed a lot on modelling improvements so I'm generally happy. Stability with Modo isn't really an issue any more and it's generally very stable. Not as stable as C4D but a long way from the crash fest it used to be. This means I won't be buying myself a copy of R20 Prime. I can afford it but since there's no updated UV tools, no volume modelling and no Physical renderer I'll be hanging to my money. Plus I can't believe it, but to get Prorender I would need to buy the Studio edition (as per MAXON's product comparison page). Ludicrous!! Enjoy R20 everyone :) Nigel / 3DKiwi

Okay....while I am still trying to absorb exactly what R20 means to me, a quick overview of this thread shows that response shows more disappointment than excitement. Maybe we set our expectations too high with R20. It is clear that MAXON has signaled a focus on motion graphics with this release...which is fine as that is the jewel in the crown for C4D. But I think we need some response from MAXON on exactly what the future holds for those features of the program that continue to be ignored. Does MAXON still have a commitment to improving BP? To particles? To modeling? To Character animation? Where do these feature reside in MAXON's overall market strategy? What is their priority? Please be honest with us. If they are no longer part of your business model or a low priority than it is best to be upfront with that information now. That level of honesty will create more good will with you user base than to let us figure it out after years of inactivity and silence. Worse yet, is to lead us on that you are still working on it, but then not definitely address the missing features with each release. And while there are "performance" improvements with the new core, then please explain how those improvements are better than desired features in our overall workflow? I am not asking for release dates. I am not asking on a specific set of features planned for R21. I just want to know if there is a commitment within MAXON to address long standing user concerns on areas of the program that are not core to your key markets such as motion graphics. What are your priorities when it comes to BP, particles, character animation, modeling, etc. Dave

Small quick tip, but very amazing experience... Simply must love it :)

I'll chuck in a couple from my interceptor wip

Congratulations to the Cafe for continuing to be a great resource to the C4D community. This place owes its reputation to those selfless individuals who supported it in the past (3D-Kiwi, 3D-Crew..remember him?) and the present (Igor, HSrdelic, Cerbera, Vector, Rectro, ABMotion, bezo, everfresh, westbam, et. al). My hopes for 2018? 1) That Igor overcomes whatever health issues he is facing. Very sorry to hear that you are hitting a rough patch right now and I hope you come through it with flying colors. Until then, my prayers are with you and your family (especially that cute daughter of yours in your avatar. I grew up while my mother was fighting cancer, so I have some idea of what she may be going through). 2) Long lost friends return to the forum and/or C4D. Yes....Nigel...I hope you come back to C4D as your tutorials were always appreciated. Also would like to see Srek return as I always appreciated his frank and honest insights into MAXON. 3) R20 hits better than 50% of our expectations over what we feel is going to be "the big one". While you may think 50% is a bit low, I personally think our expectations are too high for a company that places stability, brilliant implementation and software quality as a top priority. Slow and steady wins the race for me at least. 4) 3D Quakers releases the next version of Forester. They had made some statements 9 months ago about the new release late in 2017, so lets hope we hear something soon. If you look at their home page gallery, they have this terrain with the hills spelling out "Merry Christmas with Forestor" so this could give you some idea of what is cooking for V2. 5) MAXON Labs gets some love. Great start but would love to see more of what MAXON plays around with in their spare time (assuming that they have some spare time). 6) I find more time to learn and grow with C4D. Unfortunately, C4D is a hobby and I have family, friends, dog, house, and a day job which always takes priority. My goal for this year is to focus back on modeling (I started with modeling but have since focused on lighting, texturing, and animation and in the interim the modeling tools kept growing past my capabilities). My hope is to get back to "stream of conscious modeling" where you think more about "what" you want to do rather than "how" to do it. In short, the polygons just flow from your mouse almost unconsciously. I wonder if I can get there with booleans and triangles? NOT! My New Years Resolutions for 2018? Write shorter posts. Happy New Year everyone! Dave

Let me introduce myself: My name is Rodrigo Bitencourt Rodrigues I have degree in Animation(Universidade Federal de Pelotas, who cares? :) ) I live in Brazil(at least for now) I'm a C4D Generalist but with focus on character rigging I work for a company called Petit Fabrik doing all the types of rigging. I love learn new things and challenges. It's that. So let's me start sharing a Viewport Filter Python script pack it allows you to use as a icon on your layout or just a shortcut. A Hug! RBR Viewport Filter Script Pack.zip

Hey Cafe I've been on some pretty epic modelling adventures recently for an upcoming film project. My producer has kindly allowed me to post some WiP shots of the base model for our close up hot air balloon. This is the first round model, enough to begin simulations on the envelope, so there are still details and additional ropework to add / refine, but we are most of the way there. *Vital Stats* Objects: 940 Polys: 80,218 (100% quads) Subdivided Polys: 6.75 million Modelling Hours so far: 32 The wicker work was certainly an interesting one, as were the tie lines, and various bits of rope style business, and the burner shrouds. All in all a very rewarding thing to model ! Here's some wires and clays... CBR

Whats up guys. haven't done any personal work in a while, so this should be fun, more to come soon :D

Hi folks :) We are proudly announcing our first R20 training - MoGraph fields. Dive into new fantastic field system from scratch and gain massive advantage in your production capability and workflows. We start from basics, explaining field parameters and usage, cover multi instances and build upwards to subfields, openVDB and advanced projects where fields are utilized in all areas of CINEMA 4D. We explore fields in MoGraph, deformers, tags, CA environment, Xpresso, particle and OpenVDB context. Every aspect of CINEMA 4D gains from fields and as such they will be vital part of the production. Lessons are faster paced, packed with tips and tricks along with advanced and unusual application of fields. Lesson outline: 01_What_how_why 02_Basics 03_Remapping 04_Field_types 05_Slope 06_MIN 07_MoGraph_context 08_Deformer_context 09_Tag_context 10_Xpresso_context 11_Particle_forces_context 12_OpenVDB_context 13_Subfields 14_Folders 15_Effector_weighting 16_Random_to_Word 17_Radar 18_Fish_school 19_Boat_wake 20_Box_rig 21_Icecream 22_Flamingo 23_Lava_Lamp Duration: 3 hours Training is download only and can be purchased directly via Cafe store here: https://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/store/product/17-r20-mograph-fields/ Here is one complete lesson for preview purpose (Right click and download to disk if you don't want to view in browser) 22_Flamingo_lesson Hope you enjoy this one, a lot of work went into it :)

Been a while since I did one of these - Modelling & sculpting a mix of Cinema 4D & ZBrush, render in Octane, plants from Forester.

Avid Star wars fans @Cerbera and i decided to create a thread where we can dump all our Star wars related artwork, (there's gonna be a lot of it) including wip's and completed pieces, ranging from the original trilogy right up through the prequels to the latest outings, ranging from Storm troopers, to Battle droids to Darth Vader :D Talking of which i'll kick this off with my Revenge of the sith version Darth Vader helmet, freshly rendered, i decided to be quite subtle with the wear and tear on this, opting for a little dirt on the eye pieces and elsewhere on the helmet to break up the surface a little, i've included a 3k version to show it off a little bigger, just click it a few times to get full size :D

half man half cat. ;)

This is Pig, he's er, well...he's a Pig, and also a not so noble steed by the looks of things! still a work in progress :)

Much appreciated. As for me, my commitment to C4D remains just because the program is so much fun to use, stable and works as intended. But I think MAXON is missing an opportunity with their non-mogrpah customers if they remain silent. I know as a MAXON employee you see the entire plan of getting from point A to point B with the new core, but we can only see Point A with each release and (to use a graphical analogy) you can draw a lot of lines though a single point. Therefore, if MAXON opens up a bit on the future of the program it will help us draw a line in the right direction. In short, you have to give us a reason to continue to be patient as you fully roll out the new core because in our minds, we were thinking that rolling out the new core was only a 3 year journey that started in with R17 and end with R20. Obviously that is not the case as you just said that more time is needed to make fallow ground fertile. I just think it is in everyone's best interests if MAXON starts to give us indications of what you are planting! Dave

Harald, Uwe and Horry started the company together as friends and they are leaving the company together as friends, knowing that they achieved something unique and worthy. Since they were heavily involved in finding a successor they were able to make sure to put someone in this position who they think can not only maintain what they achieved but push it further. Nemetschek could have sold MAXON for a long time, they didn't and the current situation is the result of a decision to work closer together instead of separating. Dave was in a well established postion at Adobe, he choose to jump into much deeper water and in the few days i have been working with him here in the office i can say that i am very much looking forward to things to come.

Hey cafe This is part of an ongoing client project, but I am lucky enough to get to do some very interesting modelling work for it, and this bit was no exception. Many thanks to @spiralstair for letting me post a render or 2 here... It's an aging Roland Monosynth from the 80's, and it has seen better days, but the lights are still on and that filter can still buzz like 1000 angry bees :) Physical Render / Adaptive / Auto, 5%, 3, 3, 3, 0, AO, no GI. 32 minutes. 100% quads. CBR

Hey Cafe Last night @VECTOR told me what he had been up to these last few weeks, and that him and @everfresh been secretly organizing a donation fund for me and my mum while we're getting through some difficult bits. What can I say - I am absolutely blown away by the kindness and support of people here in this amazing community. There are simply no words that could convey how grateful we are to everyone that helped or left a message. Thank you so much. We will be making a donation to the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Foundation who are desperately starved of resources but still do incredible work and make a massive difference to the lives of people dealing with terminal illness and their families. Love and light, J

A bit late here, so here is my expected list for r20, and also my wish list. 1: Fully Modelling Symmetry, and Re-symmetry. Its a basic feature that all modelling applications have, and by now C4D should have it. A proper symmetry feature which is not a tag but a global switch that simply allows symmetrical modelling and tasks throughout C4D which also including Uv mapping, Painting, modelling. Along with this have a re-symmetry tool that works of the basis of both object space, world space, and vertex position. 2: Faster all round performance. Faster performance in the view port, especially for character animation with deformers, and frame rate to preview timing. Speed all over, the updated core should show this when the tool set is updated to use it. Hair to Hair, Hair to Surface are too slow for any use. The muscle system has no cache. 3: Dynamics refinement and updates. There are a few areas I see C4D struggle within the dynamics. Dynamic IK even with 100 iterations can still have errors when using collision surfaces. Hair to hair simulation would sort out the nasty intersecting hair when having multiple layers underneath each other. Self collision is a area that the muscle system has non, deformers such as jiggle needs to simulate self collision. Using a low collision radius value for hair guides causes odd behaviour at roots. Cloth is not very accurate. 4: Modelling tools. Quad fill, multiple edge selection bridge, do away with dissolve just use the back space key, and a simple cut n paste command to copy polygon selection from model to new mesh. This takes way to much time up to cut a selection from one model to a new mesh layer. Axis modeling from normal, local from selection of object, or another object, or multiple objects needs refining. A universal manipulator tool handle would save a great deal of time when using fast extrude so one could position, scale and rotate without changing tool handles. Macro recording and script saving would also make doing repetitive task over again much faster. 5: Fixes General fixes for tools that have been needing a fix for a long time as well as new tools introduced such as PSD morphs do not render, they only show in the viewport. OpenSub Div needs fixing. 6: Pro Render updates. Not as if Im interested in this as I use Vray, but I expect to see more of C4D core features work with Pro render such as hair, sss and major stability and speed improvements. I also think this is one area where a nodal system will be introduced. 7: Updated Expresso I think we will see some updates in this area. Im quite new to this area but have read many who do use it state how it needs a revamp. This is a powerfull area of C4D and would do well to work even better according to others. 8: Features I dont need. I expect there will be mostly features that I dont need as C4D is at its core a Mograph tool so expect to see most new things in this area. Thats what I expect, this is what I wish for. 1: Character rigging and animation I wish for MAXON to aim high and be a contender to Maya. Give new users a reason to purchase it for character animation. It serves me, but clearly Maya is the chosen tool for this, and Id like to see the character rigging abilities be on par with Maya in regards its vast tool set and speed. The C4D character tool needs to support Mocap while retaining its control rig, retargetting needs to work better with more rigs and to correct itself for joint alignment. Order of operation needs a more robust way of solving permissions in how we can find what is causing a complex part of the rig not to work. NLA has its flaws in that you cant mix key framed animation with a motion clip within the same motion clip layer. Even if a joint chain is added to a animation layer it still can mess up when trying to mix key frame animation with motion clips. a ease in ease out to override portions of a motion clip would be better than using a transition tool. At the moment to disable a joint such as the arm you can only turn it on or off, we need key frame blending for this. A better method for fixing feet into position is needed when blending from one motion clip to another. Although you can use the Pivot object to get it in place, ti dont stop the foot from sliding in place. A new pivot should be made as a option from the last position on to a new motion clip, at the moment you have to turn on snapping to manualy position it to the last pivot object. The pivot object should be allowed to be frozen in another position. At the moment if the rigs pivot position is at the hip and you wish for the pivot object to be at the feet, while you may move it there in no time soon it will revert back to the hips. Align to spline has no -Z axis so you have to reverse the spline, and key the position from backwards to get character to walk forwards. These are just some area that need to be worked out better. 2: Muscle system I dont see any video training on this, or hardly anyone using it. When I went through this system I could see its short falls that resulted in more time spent than predictable results. Its hard to keep on track with the 3 positions that get locked in. The segments can not be changed after setting up the anchor points as it messes their position up from either end. You cant create your own custom muscle shapes to form flat sheets of muscle. Dynamics are unpredictable with no cache available. More segments to the muscle results its bad deformation for dynamics. Muscles do not self collide, and its tricky to get the muscle skin to deform well. 3: Facial rigging Id like to see a facial rigging solution for C4D. some of the features within C4D combined can do it, these need to be brought together to new tool sets to make it easier. 4: Hair refinement Hair while is great, and the next best thing to Maya, Max its still needing some refinements. Self collision for hair or a better force detention system to keep layers of hair intersecting will result in much better renders. The hair does not grow from around the guide, but on a flat plane between one guide to another. This makes it very difficult to make advanced hair styles such as braided hair. If you could grow many hairs around a single guide this would be much better if that was added as a option. Hair farm like styling from geometry would make styling so much more easier. Make hair grow from volume of polygon objects. A Braid tool would be helpful, and the ability to save hair styles in which when applied to another character it works out the scale and adjust its settings to produce the same results. Hair material clumping needs to be made more simple, hair needs to work with ray traced shadows, not just soft maps. Hair instancing geometry has no option to collide with itself or other objects. This is a huge deal as not only will this let you have objects that collide for things like flowers, trees, reeds, bushes, but they will be groomable, and work with hair dynamics. The other major advantage for this is to remove the huge long task of making hair cards. Hair cards that are dynamic, can be goomed, yet collide with each other. 5: Deformers to work with dynamics. Deformers such as jiggle simulate softbody but has no self collision. If the collision deform was much better at solving outside, and inside volume and work with the same object to collide with itself that would help. The collision deformer is so powerful, yet it fails to get me the ideal results So there you have it much expected and wish list. Dan

This was just a Python exercise, but it might amuse someone. Basically, it's a hidden sphere bouncing around inside a circle and triggering notes. The notes and timing are random, so if you watch it long enough, it should play Coltrane's Giant Steps a la monkeys and typewriters. Possibly . . .

due to ongoing requests i bit the bullet and recorded a tutorial on toon shading yesterday. sorry for the bad audio, while the speakers of my macbook are awesome, the microphone apparently kinda sucks. i need to get an audio interface. and a couple of adapters probably ;)

Oh is it my turn already ? OK, here's my half way stage on full-body DV. No arms yet ! :) CBR

Weh hey :) OK then - I'll start off with some embarrassingly lo-res renders of my Tie Fighter from the original trilogy. Not a patch on @VECTOR's impending Tie Interceptor, but we all had to start somewhere :) Here's bit of wing detail on those.. CBR

I think this is known as an 'Easter Egg'.

This one is the Kirin - 'Japanese Unicorn'. As usual, modelling & sculpting in Cinema 4D, plants with Forester plugin, texture painting in Mudbox, render in Octane, a little post-work in Photoshop.

Inspired by that masterful Eric Smit landscaping lecture I re-posted the other day I have been playing around with mountains and terrain masking to see if I can get a vaguely convincing result in the terrain department. I'm going to do a few images in this series, but here's the first. Physical sky (fog, atmosphere, sky, sun channels, no GI) is doing the lighting, but sky later swapped out for photo. 20 minute render. You can tell me if I'm winning or not - happy to hear all suggestions for improvements in the next round... CBR

Started a fat character a while back, never finished it as it wasn't going in the direction i wanted so i shelved it. today i decided to scrap all of it apart from the head and start over, starting with modifying the head. The model is Combination of poly by poly modelling and sculpting tools. pretty pleased so far C&C welcome.

That was the original intent of the first post on this thread. Can anyone point out where the core is in action on past releases up to and including R18. I was hoping Fritz would be able to elaborate more on that because you are right: the tendency is to talk up new capabilities and tools rather than performance improvements to existing tools (other than rendering), so we hear very little. You would have to read them to be bothered by them....which I don't as I know where they are going. Kind of like watching Fox News or CNN....you know where their biases are and therefore you have a tendency not to watch them unless you tend to agree with those biases. Same with reading Cutman's posts. His bias is very evident. Personally, I don't know what made him hold a grudge for so long against MAXON (its been like 3 years since he last upgraded), but I think it is time to move on. Even Nigel has nice things to say about MAXON from time to time. One thing which we fail to recognize is that some companies can implode when they start to work on a new core. Here is the worst case scenario: There is a drop in new sales once the word gets out that a new core is coming...why buy the old core...wait for the new core. Of course, nothing goes according to schedule and things take longer than expected. As the delays mount, no updates are being released because all the focus is on the new core - so again, the revenue stream tightens further. The market continues to move forward and users are leaving the platform because their patience has run out. To compensate, there is a constant feature creep to what goes into the new core...which in-turn delays the release of the new core. What should have taken 2 years now takes 5. With a hit to revenue, the company is subsisting longer than expected on current cash reserves. They take out a loan which on paper looks good if they release the new core per the latest revision to the timeline. Of course that doesn't happen so now cash is really tight as they have to pay off the loan. No pay raises, no perks. Developers get tired of working for a company that is living on a tight budget and seek greater fortunes elsewhere. With a loss of developers, the new core takes longer than anyone every anticipated. Everything just spirals out of control. If you look at Lightwave and a number of smaller players that have since closed shop you may realize that there is some truth to this worst case scenario.. This is what can happen if you don't manage the shift to a new core effectively. But MAXON has actually navigated these waters quite well (if anything, they are awesome business managers). Yes, we were all unhappy with R17, but the "Takes" system really does not get the credit it deserves. Are things going as fast as we would like....well....they never do. But the company has not imploded. You are still getting regular updates every year without fail and MAXON is still generating cash and using that cash to grow their software development team. This is a good sign folks. I have put a ton on money into C4D and its eco-system of tutorial developers, scripts and plugin developers, texture/shader developers and modelers. I want them around for the long haul and I am pretty confident that they will be there well into R100...which as Cerbera has accurately predicted will involve a fiber to the brain interface and the realization of the "do what I am thinking" button next to the "make great art" button! Dave

I've been having a bit of fun today doing the math to fly a Lego helicopter I got from Google's Sketchup 3D Warehouse, so I thought I'd share the file. The file's 11MB because there's some tex for the background mountains. I made a short video to show how it works scene https://www.dropbox.com/s/tcnzx19uqtyucg9/helicopter.zip?dl=1 there's a bit of info in the XPresso remarks.

Hey guys, working on a commercial project at the moment creating a variety of cool models and assets and thought i'd share a few shots of a vehicle i've been working on, i figure it's a generic model of an existing vehicle as opposed to the other stuff designed just for the project so i should be okay to share these, after delivery of the model i was free to add the extra bits of detailing that weren't needed for the project version. C&C are welcome :D click full size for 3k renders.

Oh dear ! My weeklies kind of crashed & burned ! Working away from home during the week on a new job & having to work off my crappy cheap laptop. I'll try & pick the pace back up again, might have to stick to poly-modelling during the week, then sculpt & render at the weekend. Anyway, here is: Week 3: Stirge. 4 Short Evenings, 2 Long evenings, Cinema 4D, Octane, Photoshop

People have already years invested in Cinema 4D. I don't see myself learning another program just to animate and rig characters. Its takes time and money to learn another program unless that the only area that someone wants to focus on. It would be great if MAXON and improve the features which are neglected for some time now. But I'm also into characters and I love cinema's ease of use to rig characters. I would love to see them make the character toolset better.

This is one of my on-going projects - a unicycle on some landscape. You can manually steer the unicycle in the viewport, but in this video it's switched to random. Uses the Base80 wheel. A breakdown (of sorts) with info about the Base80 wheel here (video). scene omscenes.zip if the scene plays too slow (eg on a laptop), disable any shadows or reduce landscape segments.

If there's one video I can make which will save you more time working than it takes to watch, it's a video about takes. So here's a video about takes.

I had quite a few people telling me they used one of my old videos where I showed some of the best settings to change in C4D, so I figured I would do an update for R19. In this one I cover what preferences you can change to prevent c4d from locking up your machine whilst rendering, project settings which make working on smaller scenes easier (yay, no more 2 metre wide cubes!) and how to clean some of the fluff out of the tool bars.

Hi Cafe folks :) I have noticed that quite a few questions which require more complex solutions and deeper knowledge are sometimes unanswered on Cafe. Also, I receive daily requests for help via pm for complex problems where I unfortunately mostly can't help due to lack of time. This also shows that real high quality stuff is not really shown anywhere, apart from bits and pieces scattered all over. Most tutorials that are available are revolving around localized, specific effect or with issues of medium complexity. Given this I am pondering with the idea of creating a "master TD" section where I would show some really advanced rigging, setups, TD stuff. For example, are you interested to know how to create interactive rubik cube? polymer rig? custom python effector? L system rigs? pond drops? slinky? gravitational waves? or any effect that pops to your mind? Let me know then and we can think about how to set this up if there is interest. Since this would require a lot of work we are thinking about creating a small section in forum which would be accessible for small fee to members. Recording this tutorials would take a lot of time so some compensation is expected. The final result would be video training per project, scene files with documentation and comments throughout the scene (Annotations, Xpresso comments, code comments) to help user dissect and understand the logic and principles used. If you have questions simply fire away! Cheers

started to work on something different for a change a couple of weeks ago, no cel rendered stuff this time... had a lot of fun building the materials. was a bit tricky to get the post DOF right in conjunction with hair, but fortunately i found a solution that works perfectly. all physical renderer, no GI. car model by vector.

This might amuse someone. I've been chatting to member Tans who wanted to make a dynamic car drift. Must be hard IRL because I found it impossible in Cinema. However, I came up with one idea - to ditch the motors and drag the dynamic car with a spring on a spline. Then you just got to keyframe the rear wheel friction on the corners. The front wheels point at an object a bit ahead on the spline, so it looks like it's steering. I had trouble posting this earlier, so apologies if it appears twice

Position, Locations First we need to understand basic positions and locations on the human body. Anatomically we refer to these positions as Anterior, Posterior, Medial and Lateral. Anterior is the front, and Posterior is the back. Medial refers to the location closer to the centre vertical line of the body, where as Lateral is further away from the centre line, more towards the outside. These terms can be used for the position and locations of the whole body, muscles, or bones. There are more but these are the basics. We can also locate particular positions on a bone or muscle. (Image below) On the left image bellow we can see the Upper arm bone (Humerus) it has a beginning position (Proximal) end position (Distal) Inner position (Medial) and a outer position (Lateral), Higher position (Superior), Lower position (Inferior) By this we can be quite specific so instead of saying "At the top of my upper arm bone" we can say "The Proximal Humerus" but we dont want to get bogged down with names too much, this gives you a idea only and demystifies what may seem overly complex naming. Rib cage Anterior View: The Rib Cage consist of Bone, and Costal Cartilage, in which the a part of Costal Cartilage forms what looks like a upside down V shape, this is referred to as the Thoracic Arch. There are 12 ribs each side of the Rib Cage, 24 in total, which connect to the 12 Thoracic spines of the back. Each 12 Ribs are are put into three groups called True, False, and Floating ribs. The first 5 ribs are called True Ribs, and are so named as they have their own individual origin and insertions points, that being from the spine around to the Sternum. Part of the Sternum is the Manubrium. The shape of the Manubrium and Sternum together can be likened as a tie that you would ware with a suit. The False rubs are a set of 5 ribs which are so named because they share part of the same cartilage which joins to the Sternum. The Costal Cartilage is somewhat like the tough glue that joins bone to bone, and is rather flexible, and very strong. The floating ribs only consist of 2 ribs each side from the total 12, and are named due to the fact that they float freely from their origin of the spine. They only travel Anterialy about half way under the False ribs, lateral (Side) view. The main surface forms we see from the Anterior Thoracic region are 6th, 7th, and 8th ribs, this being the first, second and third false ribs. Particularly on leaner people we see most if not all the Thoracic Arch which is made from Costal Cartilage at the medial border edge of the False ribs. The True ribs are normally hidden beneath the breast or pectorals muscles with the 5th in line with the bottom of the pectoral muscles. The 7th Rib stands out that has the furthest peek point of the ribs when viewed laterally (from side of body) Other than the 2nd of the True ribs across the medial border of the upper chest, no other true ribs are seen anteriorly unless in extremely lean people. The angle of 60 degrees for the Thoracic arch is found on Females, while for the Male its closer to 90 degrees. Artist application: The 5th rib sits in line, or just bellow the Pectoralis muscle (Pecs/chest muscles) The 6th, 7th,8th ribs are mainly seen with the 7th furthest out from a Anterior profile view. Only a small percentage of the Thoracic arch is seen on the average person. Often your see Striations or grooves between muscles but are normally randomly placed by artist that dont understand why they are there, however there is a Striation between the Manubrium and Sternum as these where once two bones that fused together. Ribs starts tapper off at a angle the further you go down. Women have a narrower Thoracic arch than men. There is a slight plane change between the Manubrium and the sternum. Plane changes are essencial to understand as this is what creates shadows, and shadows create contrast, contrast makes art pop, and look interesting. Shoulder Girdle: The Clavicle is a very visible bone, and forms a handle bar like shape when viewed from above. It articulates with a bone at the end of the shoulder blade,( Scapular) called the Acromion Process, Ligaments are what connects two bones together, where as Tendons are used to connect bone to muscle. The Acromion process meets at the end of the Clavicle, and becomes a major land mark for the location of the origin for the lateral Deltoid, and origin point for the Spine of the scapular.more on that later. Both the clavicle and Spine of the Scapular are what's made up to be called the Shoulder Girdle, and moves together. (When we raise are upper arm (Humerus) laterally at about 30 degrees the Shoulder Girdle starts to move with it For every 15 degrees of Humerus rotation only 10 degrees of movement goes to the Shoulder Girdle) If you want to keep it simple make sure you start moving the Shoulder girdle from at least 90 degrees onward with the lateral movement of the Humerus, but raising the Shoulder Girdle earlier is recommended for a more realistic movement in animation. Artistic Application: Front the front (Anterior) view the Clavicle can appear rather straight, and from above its like a set of handle bars. Its important to know where the clavicle ends on your sculpt otherwise you cant place the Acromium process. Note also that at the distal end of the clavicle there can be seen a slight bump under the skin. From now on such forms under the skin will be referred to as Subcutaneous, or Superficial. The Acromuim process is like a flat piece of bone that comes off the Scapular (Shoulder blade) No matter how fat or muscular a person is, the Acromium Process never gets covered other than by flesh. When you lift your arms up your see how this bony land mark becomes a indentation between the three heads of the shoulder muscles (Deltoids) You must get the Clavicle right as the chest muscles connects to this bone thus if the clavicle is wrong then the placement of the chest muscles will be wrong too. Right above the Manubrium between the Sternocleidomastoid muscle insertion (Neck muscles), there should be a notch, this is called the Sternal Notch. (More on the muscles later on) Scapula: As we have seen the Scapular also know as the Shoulder Blade comes off the posterior corner of the Acromion process, and continues along the Spine of the Scapula with a slight angle down to its distal end meeting the start of the medial border. Its at this distal end where the medial border starts there is tendon that is never covered either by muscle or fat, and thus leaves a slight depression ring like shape, this is more visible on more muscular people (image below). From the Spine of the Scapula there is a sudden vertical plain change which now becomes the Medial border of the Scapula, this continues vertically down the back, not far past the arm pit, more in line with the nipple or lower chest.. The form of the Scapula is triangle like and rotates around the curvature of the rig cage. The distal end of the Medial border is hardly ever seen other than in extreme positions, such as when the shoulders are pushed back, or on very lean people, other wise is covered with muscle called the (Teres Major) and fat layers, more on that later on . The Spine: Posteriorly we now look at the spine and how its processed anatomically into three sections. In the picture below iv highlighted these areas in Green, Blue, and Red. Green is the Cervical section which consist of 7 Cervical vertebrae , and forms the neck region. Take note that on the 7th this vertebrae protrudes much further than the other 6 (red highlight in image), which gives us a district land mark. The Blue area is the Thoracic region which is what we regard as the torso and is associated to the rib cage region. This Thoracic Vertebrae consist of 12 Vertebrae which equals the number for the ribs each side of the rib cage. The Red area is the Lumbar Vertebrae and consist of 5 Vertebrae. These are bigger, stronger than the other two regions of the spine as the most weight is enforced on this area. ( it is a common area in which has problems in later life such as Degenerative Disk Disease, as is prone to Disk bulges, and whats commonly called a slipped disk/Herniated Disk at he L4/L5.) (To abbreviate the naming, instead of saying Thoracic, we simply use the first letter (T) followed by the specific spine for instance T1-T12. We use the same naming convention for the Cervical, Thoracic, and Lumbar spines.) Pelvis: The pelvis is so important to understand as this is the link between how the torso and legs connect in which there are so many anchor points from the pelvis that aid the artist. I want to keep this simple, so lets cover some core basics. Looking at the pelvis from the Anterior view (Front) it resembles the face of Micky mouse. With what looks to be the ears are two bones called the Ilium. At the border edge of the Ilium is the Pelvic crest, and Anteriorly at the end of the crest is a Bony landmark called the Anterior Superior Iliac Spine., In text books this is often named ASIS for short. This is a point in which certain muscle originate from which your see later on, this is also a land mark which can be superficially seen on the surface of the skin. Here is a good point to stop and look at the naming of this land mark, as this will enable you to appreciate that the anatomical naming is not some random technical nonsense, but has meaning by combining the bones name with the position and location to formulate the name. (Anterior) as we know is towards the front, and in this case this land mark is located on the front of the pelvis. (Superior) means higher up, or higher position, like your boss. This means that this land make is found higher up, and normally means there is a lower version of itself. (Iliac) is so named because this land mark is on the Ilium, and (Spine) is a protruding piece of bone. There you have it, its quite simple, Anterior Superior Iliac Spine. Now we know this and look at the image below your also see there is a land mark similar to the ASIS, called the AIIS, that being its the Inferior version of the superior one above it. and this has a muscle connected to this to also. Below this is the Pubic bone, and is is alignment with another bone that is of great interest to us when working out our proportions.. (Note: When we start to see the muscles attach to all these land marks, you start to really understand why we needed to know them) It can seem a little overwhelming at first, but there is good reason to know this stuff. Lower down at the bottom of the pelvis we see what looks like two eyes, these are called the Ishium, and are basically your sitting bone. The only time your see this is if naked and on your knees bending forward. Iv seen it so many times where artist sculpt or draw the back side perfectly round in contour, where in fact the Ischium creates a peak point. I now draw your attention to the Sacrum. From the Anterior view we dont need to know much about it, but from the posterior view we certainly do. Just as there is a bony landmark located at the front of the pelvis the ASIS, there is also one located at the back, I will name it later, for now see if you can work out what its name is called from this abbreviation"PSIS". The PSIS land mark is located posteriorly off the Iliac crest, and rather than protruding like the ASIS does, it acts as a dimple in the lower back, have a look you have two. No matter how lean or fat you are, your always see this. As in the picture below on the female model your see I have marked the Sacrum in Yellow, but made it into a Triangle shape, but why? For artist we call this the Sacrum Triangle as we can draw a simplified shape as a Triangle, We can draw or sculpt a Triangle between the two land marks, the PSIS dimples. The commonly used term bum crack is called the Gluteal cleft, but you hardly hear anyone call this the correct name . Artistic Application: At the moment we have only been looking at the skeletal land marks, but I can tell you that the Pelvis has some major landmarks that not only aid in the Origin for muscles, but aids as a measuring guide to get the length of the legs correct, and the length of the Torso. The Pelvis for the female tilts forward more than the males, this create a deeper arch in the lower back, and thus positions the PSIS higher than the ASIS, which for males are more or less opposite each other. The Scacral Traingle takes a different form for females and instead forms more of a Triangle due the the lower back muscles (Erector Spinae) showing less thickness over the Sacrum than males. The upper arm bone is called the Humerus, and articulates with a Ball and socket type joint for its vast mobility. It fits into the socket of the Scapula underneath the Acronium process. The Humerus has 3 main points that I want to bring to your attention as these are points in which muscles attach to. One point is the insertion point for the Deltoid (shoulder muscles) There is a slight rough bump found at the middle lateral side of the Humerus in which the Deltoid muscles inserts to. This is called the Deltoid Tuberocity. (Tuberocities are raised areas of the bone that are specifically for muscle attachment and there are quite a few of these as your see). The second, and third points of interest are found at the distal end of the Humerus. At the distal end of the humerus is the articulation point for the forearm joint, and at either side both medially and laterally are whats called Condyles. (These are polished bones which are articulation points but also in this case are Origin points for the forearm muscles, we called these Epicondyles of the humerus). The the medial one is what we commonly call the Funny bone and is subcutaneous in form, we can see feel this under the skin. Lower arm: The lower arm consists of two bones the Ulna, and Radius. With the palm of the hand facing up (Supinated) the Ulna is the forearm bone towards the pinky side, the medial position. The Radius is toward the thumb lateral side. There are a few things id like to point out here. First the Ulna at its Proximal end is actually what forms the elbow, and rotates around the Epicondyle of the Humerus. The proper name for the Elbow is the Olecranon, and at this end is larger than the distal end in which connects to the hand. The Radius is the opposite in that at the Olecranon (Elbow) end its smaller, and at the distal hand end its larger. When we turn our hand downwards our forearm has to rotate and it does this by allowing the Radius is cross over the Ulna bone, this is called Pronation. Because this happens, it changes the way the forearm appears between Supinated, and Pronated regarding the muscles as we will see later on. At the distal end of the Ulna we often see a bump at the wrist, this anatomical bump is called the Styloid Process of the Ulna, and is something that we would want to have in our artwork. Artistic application: Understanding where the socket of the Humerus is located aids us in drawing or sculpting the arm from the correct location. Understanding that the Deltoid muscle inserts into the centre later side of the Humerus gets the placement of the Deltoids (shoulder muscles) in the correct location so they dont look either too short, or too long. That little bump found on the wrist is called the Styloid process of the Ulna, and takes the smooth looking transition from the forearm of the wrist away producing a distinctive silhouette. Hands: Because this is only a introduction im not going to get too much into depth. The hands for a artist are one of the most gestural forms of the human other than the face. The hands can convey allot about the feelings of a individual such as anger, sadness and a multitude of other emotions. There are many bones in the hand, and the ones we are more familiar with are the Knuckles and fingers plus the thumb. The bones of the hand are broken down into sets called Carpals, Metacarpals,Phalanges, Phalanx. Looking first at the Radius, we can see that it is the primary forearm bone that sit to the first set of hand bones called the Carpals. The Carpals are formed by seven bones, and these sit onto the Metacarpals. These Metacarpals are long bones of the back of the hand and form at their distal end the knuckles for each finger. The first is the thumb and the last is the pinky finger. The Phalanges are a group of bones which are what most would refer to as the fingers. Each individual finger alone is called a Phalanx. The thumb has two Phalanx bones, while 2nd through to 5th Phalanges have three phalanx bones. Upper leg: The upper leg is the longest bone in the body and like the arm has a ball socket type joint. The anatomical name for the upper leg is the Femur. The Femur inserts into the socket of the Pelvis in which the ball is attached to a intended piece of bone. Due to this extension the Femur jets out further than the Ilium of of the pelvis. This point is often refered to as the hip bone, but we called this point the Greater Trochanter. The Grater Trochanter is a very important land mark for us as Artist as it helps us with the location of various muscles. Because the Femur jets out from the socket its length come down at a angle towards the knee and lower leg and thus forms the hour glass silhouette we refer to on Women. Because women has a wider pelvis to bare children the Greater Trochanter is also at a wider point than a male. Lower legs: Like the arms, the lower leg has two bones. The bone that makes up the shin and bares full weight is called the Tibia, and the smaller thinner bone on the lateral side is the Fibular which is much thinner in comparison to the Tibia. The knee cap is called the Patella and sits directly over the distal end of the Femur as a free floating bone held in place by Ligament and tendon. The Tibia has a sharp ridge at the front which we call the shin, and is wider Posterialy forming a triangle like shape if looking at it on a cross dissection view from above, the Femur has the opposite profile. The Tibia sits on top of the Calcanius bone of the foot. There is a Tuberocity of the Tibia found anterialy below the triangle like shape at its proximal end and is where the ligament is attached to the Patella. (we will look at that later) The Fibular at its Proximal, lateral end also has a Tuberocity called he Fibular Tuberocity and is a form we see Subcutaneously, often called the head of the Fibular. The the distal end of the Tibia medially is what we called the ankle bone, the Malleolus, and laterally at the distal end of the Fibular is the outer Malleolus. The Medial Malleolus is more larger box like shaped where as the lateral Malleolus is more diamond like shaped. Artistic Application: Artistically we look for the location of the Greater Trochanter in which we can find to be in line with the Pubic bone. We know the Greater Trochanter stands out further on females, and is a pivotal point in which other muscles surround, that comes later. The Femurs length slants inwards at a angle, and forms the ankle bone for the side of the lower leg bones. The Fibula has a bony point which is at the head, and becomes a point which some lower leg muscles attach to, as well as being seen beneath the surface of the skin. At the bottom end of the Fibular is the outer ankle bone. The outer ankle bone is positioned lower than the inner ankle bone (Malleolus). Feet: The feet are complex to say the least, but are an area that often gets overlooked which is a shame as the feet actually have a great deal of artistic expression in them if done well. This is a rather complex one to cover as parts of the forms of the foot are mainly bone and Tendon and as such Im going to cover the Bones and Tendons now. I look at the muscles of the lower leg later, and I will refer you back to the feet as the lower leg muscles lend their tendons into the feet. I will try to keep it as basic as I can leaving out only things I feel a beginner does not need to know. Bones of the foot: Calcaneus: The calcaneus is the Heel bone. Navicula: The Navicula is located on the medial side of the upper foot and shows its form there. Tarsals: The Tarsals Consist of 7 bones, the ones of most importance to us is the Talus the bone in which wedges between the Tibia and Fibular and holds the weight of the foot. Metatarsals: Meta means Beyond, and in this case these bones are beyond the Tarsals so are named Metatarsals. We count these 5 bones from 1 being the big toe to the 5th being the small toe. One area of significance is the Tuberocity of the 5th Metatarsal. At its proximal (beginning) head it protrudes out, and shapes the form of the lateral foot. (Remember a Tuberocity is a lump on a bone that is a anchor point for a Tendon) Also at the distal end of the 5th metatarsal is the joint for the little toe which also shows its form. Phalanges: Phalanges are all the bones that make up the toes. all toes apart from the big toe has 3 bones Proximal, Medial, and Distal just as the hand does. As a group, or individually per toe they are called Phalanx. Head of the 1st Metatarsal: This is the ball of the foot, back from the big toe. This is a large form. Artistic Application: The Navicula is a bone that protrudes subcutaneously on the Medial (inside) of the foot, and the 5th metatarsal forms the shape of the lateral foot at its mid point. A easy way to find the 5th metatarsal is to visualise it between the back of the heel and the end of the little toe, this will get you close to the 5th metatarsal location. Each toe in the classical Italian form is like a Chinese fan as it spreads out because the big toe is straight, pointing slightly up at the toe nail and as we go to each toe there after it curls in until we get to the little toe which is tightly curled. When we see a foot print it indicates the areas which has the most weight on, of which the least weight is on the arch of the foot medialy. The Foot is around 1 head unit long which would mean if you took the length of your foot as 1 unit and measure twice up your lower leg from the foot, it should arrive around the Patella (knee cap). This is a average of course, and when we learn Anatomy we learn from the Average in which we can then deviate from when needed. Once we have found the Tuberocity of the 5th Metatarsal we can use this landmark to create a arc to the high point of the foot which is the Navicula. This arc creates a separation between the Tarsals and Metatarsals. This in turn gives us a nice plane change, especially when then foot is either in high heels or Plantar flexed This imaginary arc however goes at a angle to the medial side of the foot which is half way of the overall length of the foot from heel to big toe. (To recap) To find the 5th metatarsal we measure from the end of the little toe to the heel, but to find the arc angle on the medial side,and separation between the Tarsals and Metatasals, we measure from the medial side of the foot the whole length of the foot which places the Navicula just above half the length of the whole foot, Heel to big toe. The lateral Malleolus (Ankle) can also be used to create a arc from this point which also separates the Tarsals from the Talus. Its at this point if your drawing or sculpting the foot in a Plantar flexed position that your see the head of the Tibia. The Calcaneus forms a bump at the back of the upper heel, and another bump shows at the base of the foot where the pad fattens under weight. (show lateral heel) There is a Tendon called the Achilles tendon which connects to the Calcaneus bone, this forms a fossa between the Malleolus (Ankle bone) and the heel because there is no muscle between only tendons Main tendons of the foot: Extensor Hallucis Longus: This is the Tendon to your big toe that is visibly seen to come from the middle of the Tibia, dont be too concerned of its origin as we cant see it. Because this is a Extensor it lifts the big toe up. This also gives us a side plane change from this border created by this Tendon. Extensor Digitorum Longus: A digitorum is a set of tendons that insert into the digits of the toes or fingers. There are 4 of these non of which goes to the big toe as it has its own tendon. This tendon can be seen coming in from the left centre of the lower leg and comes from one single muscle then splits into 4 tendons which is why all 4 toes move together and the big toe moves separate. Tibialis Anterior: This muscle originates as the name implies, the Anterior (front) portion of the Tiba (lower leg bone), and overlaps the Ext Digitorum Longus, we will look at the muscles later but at the feet this tendon crosses over from the lateral part of the foot to the medial side toward about half way into the arch, and under the foot. This is a large strong tendon that lifts the foot up and inverted as if you going to look at the bottom of your foot arch when you lift your leg up. From the lateral side of the foot this tenon provides a plane change between where the lower leg ends, and the foot starts. (show image) This Tendon and the previous one are the two most dominant tendons and can leave a depression (Fossa) at the ankle between the two. 4: The Peronius Brevis is seen from the lateral side of the foot and originates from about half way up the Fibular, so shows it self much lower down the leg. This tendon wraps around the lateral Malleolus (Ankle) like a pulley system and inserts into the Tuberocity of the 5th Metatarsal. Its the Tendon that we are concentrating on as this is visible. Without going into too much depth Around the wrist and ankle there is a sheet like tape called fasciae , and it holds down the tendons, this is why you hardly see the tendons popping out on the back of the wrist, and at the point of articulation of the foot. The Skull: Basics The skull is a big subject in of itself, and as such needs its own study and attention. My aim here is to get the beginner up and running of what they really need, but far from complete what is required to produce good heads. What I want to get across here is Planes. Planes dictate how light either highlights a surface, or puts a surface into shadow. In the image below you see iv added Planes that show these angle changes, and have put darker colours which are put into shadow assuming the light is coming from the front and slightly above. If the Artist is not sure what planes are up, down, side, front, then they will tend to never get these planes fully into place and thus loose contrast leaving the image looking flat. By looking at the image, you should be able to find many more planes such as the upper lip is a down plane, the philtrum between the nose and upper lip has two planes which create the indentation and thus shadows. The lower lip is a up plane, and so on. By knowing this and paying attention to this your planes will be directed by you so you can enhance the contrast where you choose. Skeletal system conclusion: This concludes the Skeletal system at its basic essential level for the artist. You dont have to remember all the names, but in trying to do so you create a link in your mind, an association in which eventually will become internalised for its application to art. Every muscle has a origin, and insertion and its the skeleton that provides this. Once you remember this it helps avoiding placing muscles in the totally wrong locations. Some Bony landmarks show through the skin Subcutaneous forms below the skin, this aids in bridging the gap between the smoother forms of the muscles and fat, and more harder forms. Below is a diagram of the bones I have talked about for reference. Proportions: Introduction. There are quite a few proportions that the artist needs to know regarding the human body, and many of these require that you at least have a foundation on the skeletal system as some of these refer to bony land marks, hence why I have covered the skeletal system first. Im going to break down the proportions into parts otherwise the illustrations can get cluttered with too much information on them. once we cover the proportions, then we get into the essential muscles, then we will cover some things on morphology. Head Proportions: Your find many references to how tall a average human is, and many will say 8 heads tall. The head is a good way to get the average height by using a head as a unit in which to measure the rest of the body. A unit is taken from the highest point of the skull, to the lowest point at the chin. Because a head unit is going to be as our measuring aid, we need to know at least know something about the head and its proportions. Head Height/Depth The average height of a male head is 23.9cm. If the Height is split into 8ths, the depth of the head is about 7/8th, so its 1/8th shorter in depth than height, this is if measure from the furthest point out from the skull at the Nasal bone to the back of the Skull. If you include the nose which can vary a huge amount the whole head can fit into a square, but is not always the case. (These guides are only ideals, or averages and help get you a nice base to start from.) Widest point of face is the cheek bones (Zygomatic bone) Features: Eyes Take a Horizontal line between the height of the head to the chin, at the middle is about where the centre of the eye can be found. The gap between the eyes are 1 eye wide, from the tear duct down will align to the wing of the nose. Features: Ears The eye brow bone is a good line to find the top of the Ear, and below the Nose the bottom of the ear. The ears can be anywhere between these two land marks. Male ears are generally larger than females. Split the depth of the head in half and the Ear should be behind this line. Features: Mouth From the corner of the mouth upward aligns with the edge of the Eris, however this varies. Features: Jaw (Mandible) The Jaw starts in front of the ear and its angle change is normally in line with the lower lips. Skull Peaks: From the side profile with the horizontal and vertical lines through the middle of this imaginary box, at the top right we can spit the box is half again and aids in getting us the peek points of the back and top of skull. Facial Features: From the chin to the bottom of nose, taking this as a measuring unit, then from the bottom of nose upward should align to the brow bone, and from brow bone should get you to the Hair line. Body Proportions: As mentioned in the outline of this proportions section, the head is used as a unit to measure the body proportions. Using this method im going to show you two canons. One uses the 8 head tall system which is more suited to Men, or super models Women. It fits the height of around 6ft tall and is above the average Female. For Females I use another canon which is the 7.5 head tall system, Iv found from my measurements this fits more to the average person between 5.5 to 5.8ft tall. The chart below show make this clear. Iv found its quite common to find that the first 4 heads down are consistent in most people, but where the extra height comes from is mainly from the Upper legs (Femur). The pelvis can add to this also the lower legs, but the Femur is the main difference that changes the height of a person. There can be up to half a heads height between the chin and Pit of neck. I found this is be quite consistent in my findings despite this seeming way to long for the neck. I tend to keep it a bit shorter, especially for men. The first head is the main Unit, the second is inline with the nipple, close to the 5th rib. The third to the Navel which should be tween the floating ribs and the Pelvic crest. The forth head down is at the line of the genitalia of the female, and in the middle of the male genitalia. When using the 8 head canon we continue down as there is no real exact point to highlight. The 7.5 head system is different and more average. For this we count 3+ 3/4 heads down which lands on the centre of the body at the Pubic bone, or Greater Trochanter. We then count from the feet upward noting how the second head up is at the articulation point of the Knee. The third is at the upper thigh, and the last 3/4 of the head should land right at the same place when measure down, at the Pubic bone, or Greater Trochanter. # This is a sculpt I did 2 or so years ago which is using the 7/5 head canon, as you can see this really suits the female quite well. Muscles Introduction: The Muscles are the first thing we tend to think of when referring to Anatomy, and more often than not we think of muscular figures. Anatomy to the artist goes way beyond this, we need to think of anatomy in reference to art, not medical science. Now that we have looked at the Skeletal system we should now have a good understanding of the basic structure and proportion of a human body. Now we are going to look at the muscles and how they attached to that Skeletal structure, and more important what forms these muscles make not just by them self, but with each other. When ever I refer to Origin, I mean its starting point of attachment from a Bone. The Origin is the attachment point in which the muscle has the least movement, and acts more of a anchor point. The Insertion is the opposite end of the muscle in which attaches to another bone which provides the most movement to the muscle. Muscles can contract, stretch, and twist, some are very visible subcutaneously, while others provide volume, or mass to the body. There are Striations at certain points, these are fossa like grooves that are subcutaneous in some cases, and are not there by random. Im going to try and keep this as simple as possible by grouping together muscles rather than dealing with them individually, this is because many muscle forms are from groups rather than individual muscles, although to the advanced Artist they are very important individually as well. Thoracic Region: Pectoralis Major The Muscle: The Pectoralis Major is commonly known as the Chest muscles. Origin: from from 3 locations 1:Clavicle, 2:Sternum 3: Abdominal section from the Costal Cartilage of the 6th rib. Insertion: Upper front of the Humerus (Upper Arm bone) Artistic Application: Understanding that the entire length of the Pectoralis Major originates from the Sternum from 3 sections, but inserts into close proximity at the top of the Humerus give us the pin point areas in which fill the chest. If we where to view these layers in the order in which they overlap we would start from the bottom up at the 6ths rib showing very little of its mass compared to the other 2 sections. This section inserts at the highest point of the 3 heads following on with the Largest area the Sternal section, then the Clavicular section. This means that the Clavicluar section overlaps all other sections but inserts into the lowest position. If we where sculpting this we could start with the lower part to get the correct overlap, but when the skin is on, this does not matter too much, what does matter is how the mass builds up from these three sections that overlap near the arm pit. (More images to follow) Thoracic Region: Serratus Anterior The Muscle: The Serratus Anterior shows its form as digit like shark teeth that wrap around from the back to about half way around the rib cage on each rib 1-9. Only few are visible, mainly the 6th,7th,8th ribs. Only a small portion of these muscles can been seen both laterally and Anteriorly as the Latissimus Dorsi covers most of these muscles. Origin: Anterior ribs from 1 to 9. Insertion: Medial Border of the Scapula Artistic Application: The Serratus Anterior is a beautiful muscle that shows its finger like digits around the ribs, We normally only see between 3 to 4 of these, the 6th.7th. and 8th ribs. They interdigitate with the next muscle we are going to look at, the Thoracic region of the External Obluques. From the front view (Anterior) we only see a small part of these muscles and the way to know how much is by drawing a arch from the pit of neck through the nipple towards the outside of the rib cage. This line creates a border in which the Serratus Anterior muscle be contained in (See image below) When viewing the Serratus Anterior with no other muscle covering it, it can look like a fan opened, keeping this in mind tells us that there is a arc as they disappear under the Latissimus Dorsi. We will look at the Latissimus Dorsi later on. Thoracic Region: External Obliques The Muscle: The External Obliques covers a large area and fills the gap between the Serratus Anterior, Abdominals, and between the lower ribs to the Pelvis. The word Oblique means its direction is at a slanted angle, in which this is the case with this muscle. Each digitation inserts at the bottom (Inferior) of each rib in which interdigitates with the Serratus Anterior. The Abdominal portion sits right on top of the pelvic crest and is known for its attractive forms in the body building arena, and is often used by males to show off along with his Abbs. The overall form at the abdominal area is partly made up along with a ligament that creates a border line called the Inguinal Ligament. We will see how this combined gives it its form from the images below. Origin: Ribs 5 through 12, Interdigitate between the Serratus Anterior. Insertion: Anterior half of the Iliac Crest of the Pelvis Artistic Application: A large cap filler and beautiful muscle which create a nice departure from the Serratus Anterior slanting down towards the Pelvic Crest. To the novice it may appear that these are ribs, but in fact these are muscles. The average person wont show these muscles, but knowing they are there is no reason why we cant hint at them in our art work. If you want to keep it looking natutal try not to make these muscles to neat and perfect, more so when the torso is twisted. Remember that this muscle will have fat on top. Thoracic Region: Abdominus Rectus The Muscle: The abdominal muscles are very well understood as being the 6 pack abs, and are often on show case to show how fit we are. Dependant on fat levels is to how much if any of the abs we see, and even then genetics will not give us the same formation from one person to another. There is a large sheet like tendon that holds all the abdominal together called the Aponeurosis. The direction of the abdominal fibers run vertical. Only 4 abs are normally all we see at best because the first two are right underneath the Penctoralis Major. After the upper 6 abs we have one larger mass of muscle which goes all the way down to the Pubic bone, and its between the upper 6 pack, and this larger mass is where the belly button is. This is also about where the bottom of the rib cage is, and where are elbows are. Origin: The abdominals originate from the Pelvic crest, and for the sake of keeping things simple Insertion: The 5th,6th, and 7th ribs are the insertion points for this muscle. Artistic Application: Make sure you never add abs perfectly symmetrical, and dont make them too small. The first top two are smaller and have a slanted angle to them, the seconds row has slight slant, and the last row are more or less Horizontal. Often hinting at the Abs is enough to look realistic. This concludes the Thoracic region with the Pectoralis Major (chest muscles) Serratus Anterior, (Saw like shaped) muscles around the ribs, External Obliques, and Abdoninals that cover the front part of the upper body. Next we will look around the back, then the shoulders. (Updated 29/09/16/) The Back: Now we have covered the front of the torso, lets look at the back. The back can be quite complex, but knowing our skeletal land marks makes the job much easier. Muscle: Trapezius This large muscle covers the back of neck, across the upper back and all the way down to the 12 thoracic vertebrae Origin: Base of skull (Occipital bone), down the spine to the 12th thoracic vertebrae Insertion: From the spine of the Scapula (not including the medial end that forms a ring like depression ) Medial border of Acromium process, and lateral third of the Clavicle. Artistic application: This is a big mass filler of the upper back and can be split into 3 main plane changes as shown in image 1A. the medial border of the spine of the scapula is triangle like shaped, and remains without muscle. Another muscle for the shoulder which we will look at later connect to the scapula on the other side of this triangle bony/tendon area and this form a ring like depression. The more muscular the person, the more of a depression you will see. For very muscular people the Tranpezius leaves a depression between the muscles on the scapula and Trapezius at the spine of the scapula, where as for very lean people the spine of the scapula stands out as the prominent point emphasising the plane change as shown in Image 1A. Muscle: Scapula group Teres Major, Minor, Infraspinatus. Im grouping these together collectively as they form the mass associated to the Scapula,(Shoulder Blade) although technically these are regarded as shoulder muscles, not back muscles. The scapula is covered by 3 muscles the largest of which is very thin called the Infraspinatus. The Infraspinatus. Originates from most of the whole posterior area of the Scapula and Inserts into the upper lateral head of the Humerus (upper arm bone) Teres Minor is rather small originates from a raised ridge located at the lateral upper two thirds of the Scapula (See Image 1B) and Inserts into the upper lateral head of the Humerus (upper arm bone) below that of the Infraspinatus, we can only see a very small part of this on very muscular people, but the average person we cant and thus becomes part of the whole overall mass. Teres Major Originates from the posterior tip of the scapula, and Inserts from the direction of under the humerus, which wraps under and into the Anterior border below the head of the humerus. Artistic Application: Primarily both the Infraspinatus and Teres Minor have little individual form for the average person, but the Teres Major provides a major form. This form would appear to be coming from the bottom of the scapula to under the arm pit, and can be seen very well when the scapula is pushed back, and viewed from the side profile of the torso. When sculpting this rather complex area we should remember that the Infraspinatus, and Teres Minor insert into the outer head of the Upper arm bone, while the Teres Major wraps inside under the arm pit. Its between where the short head of the Tricep comes out from which is attatched to the Scapula, but I will bring this up again later on when we get to the arm muscles. Understanding the order of layers should help you decide in which order you sculpt the muscles so the correct muscle if layering in the correct order so that its border edge is either not seen, or is visible. Muscle: Latissimus Dorsi The Latissimus Dorsi commonly known as the Lats, is a huge muscle which wraps under the arm pit, goes all the way around the side of the torso to the back. This muscle covers over the bottom of the Trapezius, and the bottom tip of the scapula, and the Serratus Anterior, in which still shows it form under the lats due to its very thin like sheet of muscle. Origin: The Latissimus Dorsi Originates from the lower 6 Thoracic vertebrae, all 5 Lumbar Vertebrae, and the length of the Sacrum. Its continues to the Posterior third of the Iliac crest, and the first lower 3 ribs as it heads up to its insertion point. Although this muscle covers this large area, not all of this is made up from muscle fibre, but from Tendon, which thus leaves a curved muscle border that points to the highest peek of the Posterior Ilium. This then important to know how to find the peak of the Iliac crest which will be covered at another time. Insertion: The insertion point is from the direction of under the humerus, which wraps under and into the Anterior border below the head of the humerus but above the insertion point of the Teres Major. Artistic application: This is a big muscle, more so for body builders. It gives us that V shape torso, and creates the back fan like mass when the arms are lifted laterally. Artistically we then see from the front of the torso the Pectoralis major heading into the front of the upper arm, and see the arm pit depression made up from 3 arms muscles, then the at the back we see the Lats. Images to follow. Muscle: Erector Spinae The Erector Spinae is a group of two main muscles that help hold the spine in an erect position. It has two main forms 1: Lower back over the Lumbar Spine which has a tubular form 2: Mid back over the thoracic region which is larger and wider. Origin: The origin for the Lumbar region has many attachments in which can be simplified that this portion of the muscle attaches up the spine all the way to the neck. Insertion: Artistic Application: The Lumbar region transforms the curved lumbar spine into a flat plane in which we can see from the lateral view of the torso. Think of this muscle as a bridge between the Thorcic region, the Chest area, and the Pelvis. The Thoracic portion shows its mass under the Lattisimus Dorsi and somewhat provides the boundary of what some would thing was part of the Lattisumus Dorsi inferior border. The Thoracic region forms like a semi flat balloon, and completely obscures the ribs for being seen therefore the artist that is aware of this will not try to put in rib forms past this point. This muscle group will not be seen past the bottom of the Scapula, or upper border of the Lattisimus Dorsi. This muscle group unlike the upper back muscles are always seen regardless of how muscular a person is, so even more important that these muscles are seen for female backs over any other back muscle. Muscle: Rhomboids The Romboids get their name from the shape of a Rhomboid. This is a deeper muscle that is more of a mass filler than anything else, however we do see the very bottom part that comes off the bottom of the Scapula because in this little triangle void it has no other muscle covering it. On some people we can see the upper and lower border can be seen when we push back the Scapula off the Rib cage. This muscle pulls the Scapula together and in such a pose is where your see more of this muscle unlike the Agnotistic muscle the Serratus Anterior which pulls in the opposite direction. Origin: T2 to T5 (Thoracic Spine) Insertion: Medial border of the Scapula. Unlike the Serratus Aterior where it inserts to the underside of the Medial Border of the Scapula, this muscle insertion the outside of the Medial border of the Scapula. Artistic application: As mentioned there is very little of this muscle seen, but simply ignoring its absence would be shame as it does fill the mass of the upper back under the Trapezius, and we can see its upper border as it inclines from T2 of the Thoracic Spine. Also this muscle creates a facet plane change from the Medial Border of the Scapula to the Spine. It also shows small section visible under the layers between the Trapezius, and Lattisimus Dorsi in a triangle like opening. I we where to include this in our sculpting, I would add this muscle first then add the other muscles over the top, this naturally shows whats left of this muscle. Images and Video to follow. Update: I dont have access to my main PC that has all my assets on it, I had to send my motherboard back, and am awaiting for it to be check and a new one sent out. When I get back up and running again I can start to get some images up. For now im going to write up a laymans summery of what iv covered so far.