Greetings!
I've been using Cinema 4D R12 for about 7-8 years now, but as a result of learning the software on my own I've developed a comfort zone of bad modeling habits and not exploring features out of frustration from trying to understand them.
I'm getting better at modeling, but very very slowly.
Because of my endless struggles with the software, I wanted to reach out for help here, since I've used the forum occasionally and got plenty of feedback in the past.
I want to use C4D for work, but I can't do that with lack of understanding and time-wasting methods
(My focus for work would be interior design / prop modeling, not character modeling / animation. What I show below is what I work on as a hobby)
I'll use the screenshot below as an example for my issue :
I'm unable to plan my topology ahead so what I do is start building a model from one section, polygon by polygon (in this case - the chest) and then work on another piece (the hand) so that I can connect the mesh in a location with less deformation. That way if I have any topology errors, I'd have triangular polys in a safe location where they wouldn't interfere with deformation.
I was never able to learn how to build model by cube method because of my lack of understanding for topology.
Once a model is complete, I struggle to UV it properly and end up having an inefficient spread over a huge canvas.
I also have yet to understand how the texturing tools work. I have tried fiddling with different kinds of maps and see what they do, but I don't know how to make a proper diffuse / specular / normal map for something.
I've been reworking this model 20-30 times over the past 4 years and I'm finally getting somewhere with its topology, but it's too much time wasted.
I couldn't find any tutors in Bulgaria for C4D and my attempts to find helpful tutorials have lead me nowhere.
If any of you have any resources on the following, be it paid courses or free tutorials anywhere on the Internet, please post them below:
1. Anything on how to understand topology for characters and props, fundamentals of poly order and where 5-way poly crossroads should be located (I need these for characters and static objects / props)
2.Anything on how to do UV mapping and UV adjusting, texturing in Cinema 4D, what the texturing tools do , how to understand maps (I've watched tutorials on these in other softwares, but can't apply what I see there in C4D because of the different rendering engines)
3. Anything on using modifiers as hypernurbs tools, cloners, splines etc (My experience ends with making pipes through splines + hypernurbs and subdividing models)
4. Anything on how to streamline modeling / texturing work in C4D
Any and all help will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you for your time!