Objects as Data

Documentation of 3D Modeling with Cinema 4D

Hannah Sancho

Project 1

Activities and Workshops

Module 1

This entire module was all about formstorming, and exploring C4D's features. I got as many objects as I could and tried to model them to the best of my ability. There was a lot of initial confusion since this was my first time in a program to the likes of C4D, but once I got the hang of it making multiple simple-shaped objects became easier. Once I moved on the second activity, I fet more comfortable using more tools to create some detailed models, and would later refine this for the published versions.

Activity 1

Mini plush of the character Chiikawa I decided to model

This plush (and the character) is made up of a lot of rounded shapes. I thought this would be an interesting thing to model since it's not too basic and not too complicated either.

This is the front of my model of the plush, I made sure to measure all parts of the object to make the size accurate

I created most of the shapes using edited cubes with the bevel deformer to get a rounded shape without using spheres

Each leg, ear, and arm were made separately, then copied, pasted, and flipped where they needed to be. If I could make this again, I would've probably just used the Cloner

I chose to model this usb since it looked like it could be created with just a couple cubes and a deformer or two, which it was, mostly

The metal coat around the usb acts as a cover for the usb when not in use, and has a slot that allows it to be hung on a keyring

Making the main shape of the usb was not hard, all I did was take two cubes, adjust their height, and gave the case a bevel, adjusting the setting to be more jagged. I also added a simple lime materal to match the case's colour

At this stage, I didn't know how to go about creating the metal coat or cutting out the holes on the metal part of usb. If I had to recreate this, I wound use the boolean feature to create the holes, and add then adjust a plane for the coat.

I believed that his watch, if you broke it down, could've been straightforward to model in theory. The clock could be made with a couple cylinders, and the band part could have been made of one model and cloned in a circle.

This is a tape measurer that has a cylindrical cover. It's a very simply shaped object that has a couple of details around it.

Its made out of a glossy blue plastic and while overall the shape is pretty primary there are details like the striped band around it, the button on top, and the tab to pull the tape

I created this model using mostly primitive cylinders, whith a couple small cubes for the the tab.

I wasn't able to figure out an easy way to get the grooves from the original object so its only represented by another cylinder. If I had to recreate this model I would also try to make it look hollow on the inside.

This watch's surface is mostly metal, and that could have had created some interesting renders due to the material's reflectiveness

This is a simple box cutter thats quite flat and rectangular. There isn't a lot of small details on this object so it was straightforward to model.

The sides of this cutter aren't exact corners, so I used the bevel deformer for each cube I used. I missed minor details, like the holes in the base of the cutter and the raised text, but after learning more about C4D I believe I could model these.

I also tried to model the blade, since it was more of a triangle than a square. I also tested using a metal material as most of the other materials I've used hae been more matte

This is a rabbit carved from quartz I got as a gift. It's not an intricate carving, so the overall shape is quite geometric, which could be straightforward to model

The texture this rabbit gets from being carved also gives the surface of this and interesting texture that inspired me to consider various material settings to achieve a similar look

This is a small notebook that I chose to model since it has a unique design for its cover. The purple cover wrapers around the bottom and ends where a pen can be hung to hold it in place, and theres a clear cover behind it to protect the paper

The rings of this notebook gave some material contrast with the rest of book, which is why I chose this over a book with a spine.

I created the covers using planes since it was faster for me than making thin cubes. There is actually some dimension to the covers so using cubes could had made the model more realistic. This was also when I didn't know how to use the boolean generator so I didn't model the hole or the band for the pen

This is another plush keychain, this one being of a penguin. Overall it's very round and most of the extra parts its made of seemed like they could be edited from primitive objects

This plush also has a variety of colors (purple, white, black, yellow) which could have been more interesting to explore with in regards to texture

Activity 2

For this activity, I went forward with modeling the quartz rabbit. From the side a lot of the parts of it are easy to see, such as the ears, paws, and its tail.

The design of this rabbit is symmetrical, with there only be slight imperfections from when it was carved. This also made it a bit easier to model since I could use the symmetry tool and generator to get the proportions right

I chose this object not only for its shape, but also beacuse the knowledge of knowing this is carved makes using box modeling for it more plausible

Overall the model came out pretty close. I feel like I got the overall shape down, and while some minor details are off the idea of the object is there

Since this was one of my first times trying to edit a poly object it took some getting used to, but because the rabbit was geometric it made editing straightforward

I struggled with and am still having some trouble determining how many subdivisions I should give mt primitive objects before making them into poly objects. I oftern end up with uncessary planes which make editing a headache

The tail was pretty diffuclt to model for me since it was one of the parts farthest from a primitive shape. I got the slit part down but because of my subdivision issues I couldn't edit it close to how I wanted to

Another pain point was the width of the rabbit. I measured most of lengths to be accurate to the real object, but after I finished the model came out a bit thinner and flatter than the original rabbit. Also the arms and legs don't extend as much as I'd like them too

I liked expiriementing with the material for this rabbit since I got to test out using bump maps. I tested a bunch of different styles and ended up using a brush-like bump map since it captured the streaky look of the original carving

I also played around rendering my object and seeing how differnt backgrounds effected the lighting. I used a textured backdrop on the previous image, and this one was a more reflective material.

I also went forward with modeling this plush keychain. I figured it cold be made by editing a bunch of cylinders for most the body, wings, and ears, then use spheres for the eyes, and finally use the polygon pen for the feet

Also like the rabbit, this plush is not perfectly symmetrical but was clearly designed to be. I created this model before knowing how to use the symmetry tool though, so I made it harder for my self but having to flip many parts of the model

I honestly had a really hard time modeling this since it felt like I couldn't get the overall shape of anything right The wings are pretty dubious since I wasn't editing the cylinder I used as the base well and kind of just tried things untill I got something close enough.

trying to replicate the look of layered cloth was challenging as well. I tried to move polygons manually and bevel areas to get that overlapped look but it ended up being too smooth looking. Duplicating the shape and moving it forward also didn't work

From the side I think my model actually looks okay since the body of the penguin is pretty proportional, unlike in the front where it looks very cylindrical

This object is a lamp souvenir thats filled with oil to make the objects inside float around. I thought it would be interesting to model a clear object, as I hadn't tried using transparent materials beforehand.

It's shaped like a guitar but doesn't have as much detail which I felt was a good level for me to model it. It can be split into a parts like the main body, the neck, the head of the guitar and the base

If i knew how to simulate liquids on C4D, I might have tried to create the insde of the guitar, but that was quite complex and out of the scope of my knowledge at the time.

The guitar is another symmetrical object, so I used the various symmetry tools to create most of the parts. For this activity I used the polygon pen for the body of the guitar and extruded it to make it 3D

I tried to keep the amount of planes and polygons I used to a minimum for this model as opposed to the rabbit model

The faces of the front and back of the guitar are slightly raised and have border around them, So I recreated this by using the bevel tool to extrude and expand the body's planes

The original object is at a slight angle, guitar and all, so I had to rotate the the polygon on the back of the guitar to look balanced on the slanted base

The neck of the guitar was made by extruding a cube multiple times and slowly rotating the planes and edges of each new segment. The head is made of a couple cylinder stacked on each other and the tuners are also made of cylinders, with cubes to connect them to the head

Sometimes rendering can show issues that I can't see while editing, such as here where theres a wall in the middle of the guitar on the inside. This was made since I went of the symmetry tool's area to cover a gap, but that meant both polygon halves would overlap too. Extruding them then created that weird wall

The background I chose for the render was a chrome purple paint from the Maxon library, and while at some angles it can look nice, it clased with the model since there wasn't a lot of light at the angle I made this render at

Material Workshop 1

Quilts made from natural materials. I had another object I planned on modeling, a bag, that was made out of some sort of cloth, but decided against it. However, I still wanted to study and understand look of this material and how it was used in other applications

I had another object, a small wooden chest, that I also ended up not modeling. This choice didn’t come until later however, so still asked what context the wood here was used for to gain a better understanding of it.

Various parts of objects are clear, and even if they aren’t made of glass I knew I wanted look into clear materials and ask about the process of making objects with glass like these glasses.

Material Workshop 2

One of my objects is made out of quartz, so I wanted to be able to understand how the texture of stone materials felt like. They’re slightly shiny, opaque, and smooth, with some color and texture on the surface

Multiple parts for two of my objects are clear/transparent, so I wanted to make sure I understood how the form of my models’ lighting would be affected in potential renders.

None of my objects were made out of a metal like this bird is made out of, but I thought it could be useful too study what it felt like in the case that I experimented with different materials if they looked more interesting.

Digitally Published Models

Rabbit Carving

I refined the rabbit model from Activity 2 since there was a lot going on with the process behind that I wanted to continue exploring for the final published model. As a souvenir, it fits the theme of my project, and the fact that it was carved from stone made me think more about looking at models from the perspective of a modeler, as its literally possible to see how it was carved just from looking its structure. It's easy to simplify into various forms that could be created with primitive shapes. This model is also where I experimented with texture and bump maps the most, and made me really understand how to represent an object as a model rather than going for realism, since the bump map I did use wasn’t the same material as the original object was made out of. Overall, the rabbit was an interesting model to reverse engineer and was the stepping stone that allowed me to get comfortable refining my modeling strategies.

Guitar Lamp

I’m quite proud of this model since it came out looking detailed but was quite straightforward to make. This lamp is shaped like a guitar, but simplified in order to allow light to pass through and so the viewer can see a little sculpture on inside, although due to time constraints I left modeling this detail out. As the overall form was already simplified, it made tracing and modeling it easier. At this stage I was comfortable with C4D, so with a combination of the spline pen tool, extrude generator, and use of the symmetry tool I was able to create the body of the guitar. The neck was made by extruding a cube a couple times and the tuners and head were made with primitives. It wasn’t all smooth though, as I had to recreate the entire model from scratch for the published version and for rendering as there was a lot of weird geometry and more complications with baking when I got to that point. But in the end, this model did end up being one of the cleaner ones in this set, and I feel accomplished with the current version.

Mini Shark Model

Out of all the models I made within this project, I’m proud of the shark model the most since it almost represents the culmination of everything I learned. It is fairly detailed, and made up of three main parts: the base, wave, and the shark it self. the original object has pegs which can slot into coressponding holes to make the shark look like its suspended in air. The shark and base are made from an opaque plastic, while the wave is made from a clear aqua material.

This model really challenged me as the main parts, the wave and the shark, are not close to any particular primitive object, so it took a lot of time to adjust all the polygons and points from a cube to make it look remotely close to the original object. I had to restart my first attempt at making this, but after reflecting and studying other modelers’ techniques I came out with a model that looked like a decent representation of the original shark. Making something as complicated as this was not something I thought I could do when I first started working on C4D but learning and practicing eventually got me to this point, which I am personally satisfied with.