Cinema 4D / 3D principles

XYZ Dimensions up/down, left/

right and back/forward
RGB Arrows Red (x), Green (y),
Blue (z) blue should be forward
facing
Primitive Basic 3D object creatable from the
Cinema 4D menu :
Polygons Make a primitive editable
by pressing C on the keyboard or
selecting the button pictured right.
This turns a primitive into a Polygon.
A Polygon is a face made up of triangles, and
occasionally these go missing when exporting
to other packages, such as Unity, to fx this, you
should perform triangulation.
Triangulation Found in the functions menu, this
flls in any lost polygons, by checking the model for
areas which will develop gaps upon export.
Faces Selectable
polygons / surfaces
that you can select
with the face tool in
order to manipulate /
extrude etc
Edges otherwise known
as verteces (or a vertex,
singular) are lines between
2 points on a model. Use
the edge tool to manipulate
these.
Normals The visible
faces of a model that a
texture maps to. In the
example of a cube to
the right, the normals
would be the outer
(orange) faces, with the
inside of the cube not
being mapped to.
C4D Primary Tools
Model Tool the main tool to have
selected when using Scale, Move or
Rotate, this simply addresses the whole
model
Polygon Tool the tool to select when
manipulating properties of a face
Edge Tool to manipulate verteces of a
model
Point tool to manipulate points of
a model, to add additional points, go
to Structure >add point, then reselect
the cursor to continue manipulating the
existing points.
C4D Structure Tools
Knife Cuts a new vertex into an existing face of
a model, you should have the Edge (vertex) tool
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Essentials
selected on the left in
order to use this.
In the image to the right,
a knife has been used
to cut between 2 vertical
verteces of a cube.
Extrude Inner
Creates a new face
within a face, in order
to make a surface
for extrusion. Select
a face with the Face
Tool and then right
click and select
Extrude Inner then
drag to the left to create an inner face (see above).
Extrude
Pulls a face in or out
depending on which
direction you drag,
the example below,
the inner extrusion
from the example to
the right has been extruded inward.
Add Point
This adds a new point
onto a vertex of a model,
whilst in point mode.
Having placed one or
more new points, reselect
the cursor to continue
manipulating points.
In the example (below left) a 5x5 segmented
cube is being manipulated with the point tool,
more points could be added to this to allow fner
adjustment between the existing points.
Bridge
Create a new face between verteces that have no
interconnecting polygons. This requires the Edge
Tool to be selected.
In the example to the right, im
bridging a gap thats been cut
into the cube too far into the
top face - in the front face ive
only cut 2 x 1 segments out, but
in the top ive mistakenly cut
2 x 2 segments, so the bridge
tool is needed to create a face
between 2 verteces, which
creates what is shown in the
lower image.
C4D Other Essentials
View Controls
In the top right of each viewport
are the view controls, from left
to right Pan, Zoom, Rotate,
Switch Views (the latter of which switches
between all 4 views and maximising the selected
window).
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Materials
Materials are typically
textures to apply to
surfaces of models.
Cinema has its own
dedicated materials
window to act as a space
to create materials and browse what you have
made.
Materials utilising an image texture rather than just
a colour require the base image need to be scaled
as a power of 2 - eg. 64x64, 128x128, 256x256,
512x512 pixels.
Objects Window
The objects window
acts as a library of
everything in the scene,
allowing adjustment
of heriarchy, attached
materials and various
behaviors of objects,
based upon child /
parent relationships.
Please read on to the next page for an introduction to
the Unity3D interface.
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The Unity Interface
Unity3Ds interface looks like this ...
This is just one of Unitys potential GUI (graphical user interface) layouts, accesible by using keyboard shortcut
Command/Apple & 4, or by going to Window > Layouts > 2 Split. Other layouts are also available here, I will be
using the 2 split layout for the purpose of this exercise just as a personal preference.
Marked Areas
1) Scene View - An editor window allowing you to navigate and organize your 3D world
2) Game View - Upon hitting Play in the bottom left of the screen, youll compile and preview the
gameplay in this window. As standard this view will be taken from whatever camera is active.
3) Hierarchy Panel - This is the list of objects in the game, listed in alphabetical order. Objects can be
removed from the game by selecting them in the Hierarchy view and using Command(apple) & Backspace.
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4) Project Panel - The project panel lists all
assets (usable objects) that are located in your
projects Assets folder. Similar to the Library in
Flash that you may be familiar with.
5) Inspector - The Inspector, much like the
property inspector in Applications such as Flash
and Dreamweaver contains settings for the object
currently selected.
View Controls
The 4 View control buttons are accessible (left to
right) via the Q,W,E and R keys on the keyboard,
and perform the following -
Q - Pan View
Q with Alt key held - Rotate View
Q with Command(apple) key held - Zoom
W - Move Object
E - Rotate Object
R - Scale Object
Remember, you neednt hold Q,W,E, or R, they
simply switch view modes, the alt/command keys
youll need to hold.
Also, to zoom in to a currently selected item, press
F on the keyboard.
Essential Unity Concepts
Projects
A project is a folder containing your entire game
and all its assets
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Assets
Assets are items used to make up your game
- models, images, sound fles, scripts are all
examples of these.
Levels
Levels are the individual game scenes that make
up your game, these get linked together when you
create a build of your game.
Build
An exported version of your game containing all of
its levels, which can either be an application, or an
html page and web package.
Game Objects
A game object can be defned as any active object
in your game, they do not technically add any
functionality to the game but are simply holders for
components.
For example, a Light in the game is simply an
empty game object with a light component. In the
same way, empty game objects can be added and
given components such as scripts, rigidbodies,
particle systems, you name it.
The way most developers work with game objects
is to create them in the scene and then drag
them to a new Prefab so that they are infnitely
duplicatable.
Prefab
A prefab is a ready made object with various
components attached. These are set up in such a way
that they can be Instantiated (created) in the game
environment, retaining their components / scripts,
without having to be present when the level begins.
Colliders
Colliders are invisible surroundings of a model in your
game that are present to check for collisions with other
models (and therefore their colliders). So when for
example, you fre a bullet at an enemy in a frst person
shooter, the physics engine of the game engine (in this
case, Unitys Ageia engine) is constantly checking to see
if the collider for the bullet overlaps that of something
else, and if it overlaps the collider of an enemy, it will call
a function in a script to destroy the enemy.
There are several types of colliders, and ideally you
should select a type of collider that is of a similar shape
to the model it is being applied to - eg. for crates, you
should select a Box Collider, and for something like
a car wheel, a Sphere collider(or the custom wheel
collider) is appropriate. For complex shapes, there is
the Mesh Collider, which is usually the one applied to
imported maps.
Note: Mesh colliders will not collide with other mesh
colliders, so do not attempt to place any weighted
(rigidbody) objects into the Scene with a mesh collider,
as they will fall through the map.
Rigidbodies
a Rigidbody is a physical presence to a gameObject.
Without this, gameObject will foat statically wherever
you place it, uneffected by gravity or other physics, and
unable to be assigned with a velocity.
Scripts
Scripts are written in order to perform the many
functions of your game, without them, your game simply
would not do much! Scripts contain many functions,
which either run constantly or only under certain
conditions (eg. upon collision of objects).
GUI Text
A GUItext element in your game is a text element that
is overlayed on the Main Camera. You can then write
scripts to control what that GUItext element displays (eg.
running score total, health, lives left etc).
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GUI Texture
A GUI Texture element in your game is a graphical
element that is also superimposed on the Main
Cameras view.
These can be used for a number of purposes such as
menus, and displaying items on a First Person HUD
(heads up display).
Materials
Much the same as their Cinema 4D counterparts, these
materials contain textures to wrap on models, which can
also be done in Unity as well as in Cinema beforehand.
Physic Materials
Physic Materials which govern the way a surface of a
Game Object behaves - eg. bouncy, slippery etc.
SkyBoxes
A Sky box is a cubic set of 6 images (front, back, left,
right, top, bottom) which make up the view of the world
in the distance in order to fake real surroundings.
Video Tutorials
The Unity team have released a set of video tutorials on
Unity Basics with Unity version 1.6. To watch them, or
download to watch on your iPod, visit -
http://unity3d.com/Tutorials/Video/
My Video tutorials for the 6 week 3D games unit, are
available online at -
http://www.willgoldstone.com/vidtutes
If you have any questions about this subject, or any
interactive media enquiries, feel free to email me -
wgoldstone@bournemouth.ac.uk