Tattered Cloth In Cinema4D: Part 2

Today Tony Rivera is back with the final part of his Tattered Cloth In Cinema4D tutorial. In Day 2, Tony continues to refine the flag's overall look by adding additional details, as well as setting up the cloth simulation, materials, lighting and render settings. Let's take a look!

Hello, Tony Rivera here. In this tutorial I'll be sharing a way to create tattered cloth using Maxon Cinema 4D. You will be learning how to create a tattered cloth effect by making a flag simulation, using the power of Cinema 4D's Spline and Boole tools. This technique was used on one of my recent collaborations/artworks for http://evokeone.com

Step 1

Now it's time to make a draw string for the flag to attach to. Begin by selecting the Front camera, and changing the camera view coordinates to X -200m, Y 245m, Z 0m, and then the Focus/Zoom to 2.865, so that we can get a clearer view of what we're working with.

Step 2

Select the Freehand Spline tool, and draw a spline close to the flagpole, as displayed. Make sure to make each end attach to the flagpole where the cylinders are.

Step 3

Lets create a Circle spline and change its radius to 1m.

Step 4

Now lets create a Sweep Nurbs. First drag the Spline into the Sweep Nurbs, then drag the Circle in. Now we have a draw string for our flag to attach to!

Step 5

Now to actually attach the flag to the string! Let's begin by creating a Torus. Change the Ring Radius to 5m, Pipe radius to 1m, change the Orientation to +Z, and change the object position coordinates to X -187m, Y 160m, Z 0m.

Step 6

Select the Torus we just created in the object list, and then Copy+Paste it. Select the new Torus and change the Y position coordinate to 340m.

Step 7

Lets Select both our Torus objects in the object menu, then right click the metallic material, and select Apply.

Step 8

We need to cut a couple more holes in our flag using the Boole technique. Create a new Cylinder. Change the Radius to 5m, Height to 20m, Orientation to +Z. Change the coordinates of the new Cylinder to X -187m, Y 160m, Z 0m.

Step 9

Now let's Copy+Paste our newly re-sized Cylinder, and then change the new Cylinder's object Y coordinate to 340m.

Step 10

Select both new Cylinder objects, and press 'C' to make the Cylinders editable. Right click one of the Cylinders in the object list, and select Connect+Delete to merge the 2 Cylinders into 1 object.

Step 11

Create a new Boole. Then lets drag the new singular Cylinder object into the Boole, and then drag the flag in. This will cut holes in the flag like seen below.

Step 12

Select the Sweep Nurbs again, click the Basic tab in the Attributes section, and then enable the X-Ray view. We are going to edit our draw string to fit properly with the flag.

Step 13

Lets select the Spline, and then go to Tools and select Points.

Step 14

Now lets go to Structure and select Add Point. Add 3 points along the spline near each hole we cut out from the flag, similar to what is shown below. We are creating these points so we may adjust the form of the draw string so that it flows properly through the holes in our flag.

Step 15

Lets change our view so that we'll be able to work with things a little easier. Change the camera mode to Right. Temporarily drag the Spline out from the Sweep Nurbs. Now lets click the check marks next to the 2 Torus objects and the flagpole to disable them temporarily, again so we can see what we're working with. Zoom in to get a better view, select the Spline, and then click the Points mode on the left so we can see and edit our newly added points to our Spline.

Step 16

Select the first point and move it slightly to the right, skip to the point after next and move it slightly to the left, continue shifting the points until the spline looks close to the last image shown below.

Step 17

Lets re-enable both Torus objects, and the flag pole by clicking the red x's. Then drag the spline back into the Sweep Nurbs (under the Circle spline.) Then select the Sweep Nurbs and disable the X-Ray.

Step 18

We are going to now apply a new material to the draw string. Create a new material, and go into edit mode. In the color channel, all we are going to do is bring the Brightness down to 20%. Now apply the material to the Sweep Nurbs.

Step 19

To finish off our flag pole, let's create a Sphere. Change the Radius of the Sphere to 10, and change the coordinates of the object to X -200m, Y 380m, Z 0m. Lastly, apply the metallic material to the Sphere.

Step 20

Let's create some lighting for our scene. Make a Light, change the Shadow to Shadow Maps (Soft), and change the position coordinates of the Light to X -200m, Y 600m, Z -150m.

Step 21

Let's create one more Light for some ambiance. Create a Light, lower the Intensity to 30%, and change the coordinates to X 0m, Y 300m, Z 300m. Change Visible Light to Visible and click No Illumination. Then switch to the Visibility tab, and change the Outer Distance to 1500m. Next click the Noise tab, change the Noise to Visibility, and the Octaves to 8.

Step 22

For more ambiance, we are going to create some fog. Go to the Materials section, and create a PyroCluster VolumeTracer. Once you've created the VolumeTracer, change the Render Mode to Hazy.

Step 23

Create an Environment, and then apply the VolumeTracer to the environment.

Step 24

Now let's create an Emitter. Change the Birthrate Editor/Render values to 500, Speed to 350m, and enable Render Instances. Now let's click the Emitter tab in the Attributes area, and change the Angle Horizontal to 360 degrees.

Step 25

Now it's time to create our PyroCluster material for our ambience fog. Create a PyroCluster material, and double click it to go into edit mode. Let's start with Globals. Change the Density to 0.5. Next we deal with the Color gradient. Double click the left arrow, and change the V value to 20%. Now click the Right arrow and lower the V value to 70%.

Step 26

Let's go to the Shape channel next, and change the shape Radius to 200m. Next to the Shadow channel, enable Cast Shadows and Self Shadows.

Step 27

Lastly, let's go to the Noise channel. Change the Noise Type to Fractal, Grow Radius to 30%, Scale to 300%, Peak Blend to 80%, Detail to 5, Phase to 590%, Gain to 60%, and Low Threshold to 20%. We now have our fog material. Apply the PyroCluster material to the Emitter.

Step 28

Click the Character list from the Toolbar at the top, then select and create Cloth Nurbs. In the Attributes area, change the Subdivisions of the Cloth Nurbs to 0, and change the Thickness to 1. Once you've changed the Attributes, drag the Cloth Nurbs into the active Boole, and then drag the flag into the Cloth Nurbs. This will increase the thickness of our flag, and give it depth, instead of making it look like paper.

Step 29

Right click the flag, and go to Clothilde Tags > Cloth, and select it to create a Cloth tag for our flag. In the Attributes area, change the Stiffness to 70%, Flexion to 15%, and Friction to 30%. Next lets click the Forces tab, and change the Gravity to -1, Global Drag to 5%, Wind Direction X to 1m, Wind Direction Y to 0.4m, Wind Strength to 10, and Air Resistance to 2.

Step 30

Let's temporarly select the Cloth Nurbs that contains our flag, and move it outside of the active boole for now so that we don't have any freeze-up issues. Change the Camera mode to Front and zoom in so we can see a bit easier. Select the flag object, select the Selection tool, and go to Tools, then select Points.

Step 31

Hold Shift, and select the points around where the 2 holes are supposed to be in the flag. Click the Cloth tag on the Flag in the object list, and then click the Dresser tab in the Attributes area, and in the Dresser attributes, click the Set button in the Fix Points section. This should make the points you select highlight with a pink-ish color.

Step 32

Now we press 'Play' and let the animation run until it hits frame 90, you'll want to pause it when it hits 87, then drag the slider slowly to 90.

Step 33

Let's select a cool camera angle next. Change the camera mode back to Perspective. From the toolbar menu, be sure to select Tools > Camera. In the Coordinates area, change the Position to X 285m, Y 120m, Z -320m. Change the Focus/Zoom to 18, and change the Rotation to H 35, P 1.5, B 10.

Step 34

Drag the Cloth Nurbs containing the flag back into the active Boole.

Step 35

Lastly, let's edit our render settings. In the Output channel, I've set render size to 1280 width by 720 height. In the Save channel, I've selected JPEG format. When selecting JPEG format, you might want to click the Options button next to it and put the quality up to 100%. Finally, in the Anti-Aliasing channel, we'll change it from Geometry, to Best. For an additional bit of quality, you might also want to change Min Level to 2x2. Exit the render settings and then hit Render To Picture Viewer to see our torn cloth flag!

Final Result

Here is the final result. Hope this tutorial has helped to enlighten you!