Working with AE Shape Layers

Topics covered in this Cinema 4D tutorial:

Exporting Shape Layers to C4D, Creating Shape Layers from Illustrator Files, Creating a Fracture Animation in C4D, Randomizing Animation in C4D

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

In this exercise you’ll learn how to work with exported After Effects shape layers in Cinema 4D.

Previewing the Final Video

1. Let’s see a preview of what you’ll be making. If you’re in After Effects, keep it open but switch to your Desktop.

2. On the Desktop, navigate to Class Files > C4D in AE Class > ### > Preview Movie and double–click ###.mp4.

3. Notice the following:

   • The logo has a very reflective and glowing gold texture.
   • The logo pieces are scattered and assemble towards the end of the animation.

4. Replay the video if you need to, and close it when done.

Getting Started

1. In After Effects, if you have a project open, choose File > Save.

2. Choose File > Close All Projects.

3. Choose File > Open Project and:

   • Navigate to Desktop > Class Files > C4D in AE Class > AE Shapes to C4D
   • Double–click on Pulse Logo Animation - Started.aep to open it.

4. Choose File > Save As and:

   • Name the file Your Name - Pulse Logo Animation
   • Save it into Desktop > Class Files > C4D in AE Class > AE Shapes to C4D.

Sending Shape Layers to C4D

After Effects shape layers are also supported when exporting projects to Cinema 3D.

1. Move the playhead to the beginning of the timeline and press the spacebar on your keyboard to preview it.

   • Stop the preview at any time by pressing the spacebar again.

   You’lll notice that this project consists of a camera pulling back from the background to reveal the PULSE logo. While they look like text, the logo is composed entirely of AE shape layers. Specifically the logo is created with stroked paths, this will become important later.

2. With the Timeline still selected, choose File > Export > Maxon Cinema 4D Exporter and:

   • An alert will appear telling you that 2D layers were detected and they will not be exported.
     
   • Click OK.
3. Navigate to Desktop > Class Files > C4D in AE Class > AE Shapes to C4D > Media > C4D
   • Confirm the file name is Pulse Logo Animation.c4d
   • Click Save.

4. In the Project panel click on the 03 - C4D folder to select it and:

   • Press Cmd–I (Mac) or Ctrl–I (Windows) or choose File > Import > Import File

5. Navigate to Desktop > Class Files > C4D in AE Class > AE Shapes to C4D > Media > C4D

   • Double–click on Hard Candy Text.c4d

6. Drag Hard Candy Text.c4d into the Timeline and place it below the Camera layer.

7. Turn off the visibility of all of the Pulse Logo shape layers. Now that we have them C4D model, we don’t need them anymore.

8. Press Cmd–S (Mac) or Ctrl–S (Windows) or choose File > Save

9. With the C4D layer selected press Cmd–E (Mac) or Ctrl–E (Windows) or choose Edit > Edit Original.

   Note: You’ll have to wait for Cinema 4D to open. If this is your first time opening Cinema 4D you will be prompted to either login with a Maxon account or create one.

   If you skipped the section in Exercise 1A where you set Cinema 4D preferences do this now

Organizing the C4D Project

Sometimes the After Effects file you export to Cinema 4D is organized exactly the way you want it and you can just do a little texturing or lighting and be done with it. But more often, you will have to spend some time cleaning it up to make it more efficient to work with.

1. In Cinema 4D move the playhead to 02;00 (2seconds) so that you can see the finished position of the camera.

   NOTE: The blue background in the AE project is created by a series of AE effects and they just aren’t supported in C4D. So while the background object is converted into a plane in C4D, it just appears as a solid gray color here.

2. In the Object Manager (it’s the panel named Objects) click the plus sign next to the first item.

   This reveals the camera and all of the objects created when you export the file from AE.

3. Click off the check mark to the right of the background plane. This turns off its visibility.

   NOTE: If you save the file now and jump back to AE you will see the blue background layer is visible again.

4. Click the plus sign next to the E - Inside Bottom null object to reveal its content.

5. Double–click on the E - Inside Bottom null object and rename it PULSE Logo.

   • Press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows) on your keyboard or click on anything else in the Object Manager to finalize the name change.

6. Click the plus sign next to the E - Inside Bottom-0 extrude object to reveal its content as well.

   We’re going to combine all of the other splines into this single extrusion.

7. Double–click on the E - Inside Bottom-0 extrusion object and rename it Logo Extrusion.

8. Locate the Object tab in the Attribute Manager and click on the Hierarchical switch. This will allow the extrude object to extrude more than one spline.

9. Click the plus sign next to the E - Inside Top null object to reveal its content.

10. If necessary, click the plus sign next to the E - Inside Top-0 extrude object to reveal its content.

11. Drag the Spline object (E - Inside Top-0-Spline) into the Logo Extrusion.

12. Click on the E - Inside Top null object and press Delete (Mac) or Backspace (Windows) on your keyboard to delete it.

    This manual move and delete process could take forever so lets see if we can speed it up.

13. Click on the next null object S - Inside to select it.

14. Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and click on the last null object P - Outside to select all of the object in between.

15. Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on one of the highlighted object and choose Delete Without Children.

    This deletes all of the null objects but leaves their content, the extrude objects and the splines intact.

16. If the S - Inside spline is visible, click on the minus sign next to the null to hide it.

17. Click on the first extrude object left S - Inside to select it.

18. Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and click on the last extrude object P - Outside to select all of the extrude objects in between.

19. Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on one of the highlighted object and choose Delete Without Children.

20. Select the remaining splines and drag them into Logo Extrusion.

21. Press Cmd–S (Mac) or Ctrl–S (Windows) or choose File > Save Project.

Adjusting the Extruded Shapes

1. In the Object Manager, click on the Logo Extrusion object.

2. In the Attributes Manager click on the Object tab if necessary.

3. Change the Offset to 50

4. Click on the Cap tab.

5. In the Both Bevels section locate the Size property.

6. Change Size to 25. We don’t need the extrusion to be as deep as it was by default.

7. Locate the Segments property and change it to 10. This gives us a more rounded appearance to the text.

   NOTE: If instead you wanted a more boxy and angular appearance you could lower the segments or even lower the value of the Shape Depth property.

8. Press Cmd–S (Mac) or Ctrl–S (Windows) or choose File > Save Project to save your C4D project.

Editing Textures

When you export shape layers from After Effects their color was used as the basis for a texture that is then applied to the C4D models. Since we consolidated all the separate extrusions into one. That single texture is now applied to the entire object.

1. Long press on the Render View button and choose Interactive Render Region.

   

2. Adjust the render region window so it covers at least one of the letters in the Pulse logo.

   NOTE: When using the interactive Render Region you will want to adjust the quality slider (the arrow on the right) to as high as your computer hardware will allow.

3. Click on the Material Manager button or press Shift–f2.

   Notice that there are a lot of gray materials there. Each extrusion object was assigned its own material when it was converted from AE to C4D.

4. In the Object Manager hover over the Material ID tag across from the Logo Extrusion object. Its name should pop up as E - Inside Bottom-0-Material0.

   NOTE: If you used a different extrusion object as the base when you consolidated the splines you will have a different material tag at this point.

5. In the Material Manager select all the other extrusion materials (they are the ones where the names start with letters) and delete them.

   NOTE: You can do this manually by selected all of the other materials or you can Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on one of the materials and choose Delete Unused Materials.

6. Double–click on the E - Inside Bottom-0-Material0 material’s name and rename it Pulse Logo Material.

7. Double–click the Material icon to open the Material Editor. We’re going to create a golden material for the text.

8. Click on the Color Map to make sure it’s active. We’re going to add a Lumas shader to the base color since it lets us mimic metal material better.

9. Click the arrow to the right of Texture and choose Effects > Lumas.

10. Click on the word Lumas that is now listed to the right of the arrow. This opens the Lumas shader’s properties so you can edit them.

11. Click on the Shader tab if necessary.

12. Click on the Color swatch and change the color so that R = 255, G = 240, B = 0

    • Click on the Material Editor to close the Color Chooser.

13. Click on the Specular 1 tab and:

    • Click on the Color swatch and change the color so that R = 255, G = 168, B = 0
    • Click on the Material Editor to close the Color Chooser.

14. Click on the Specular 2 tab and:

    • Click on the Color swatch and change the color so that R = 255, G = 199, B = 0
    • Click on the Material Editor to close the Color Chooser.

15. Click on the Specular 3 tab and:

    • Click on the Color swatch and change the color so that R = 198, G = 145, B = 0
    • Click on the Material Editor to close the Color Chooser.

16. Click on the Anisotropy tab and:

    • Click on the Active switch.
    • Change Y Roughness to 125
    • Click on the Material Editor to close the Color Chooser.

17. Click on the switch next to Luminance to activate it reveal its properties.

    • Click on the Color swatch and change the color so that R = 209, G = 153, B = 0
    • Click on the Material Editor to close the Color Chooser.
    • Change Brightness to 40

18. Click on Reflectance to reveal its properties click Remove to get rid of the default reflection map.

19. Click Add and choose Beckman from the list of shaders.

20. In the Beckman shader click the arrow next to Layer Fresnel to reveal its properties and:

    • Choose Dielectric from the Fresnel menu.
    • Change Strength to 85
    • Change IOR to 1.5

21. Click on the switch next to Glow to activate it reveal its properties.

    • Change Outer Strength to 200
    • Change Random to 20

22. Close the Material Editor and then close the Material Manager.

23. Click off the Interactive Render Region.

24. Press Cmd–R (Mac) or Ctrl–R (Windows) to render the camera view.

25. Press Cmd–S (Mac) or Ctrl–S (Windows) or choose File > Save Project to save your C4D project.

26. Return to After Effects

27. In Effect Controls change the Renderer in the Cineware effect to Current.

28. Preview the finished animation by pressing Spacebar on your keyboard.

29. Press Cmd–S (Mac) or Ctrl–S (Windows) or choose File > Save to save your AE project.

Creating and Randomizing a Fracture Object

While Cinema 4D Lite lacks many of the MoGraph effects that the full version has, it does possess both the Fracture object and the Random effector. Together they can be used to create some interesting animations.

1. Return to Cinema 4D.

2. Click on the Fracture object button to the right of the Perspective viewport.

   NOTE: You can also choose MoGraph > Fracture.

3. Drag the new Fracture object into Logo Extrusion

   

4. Select all of the splines inside of the Logo Extrusion object and drag them into the Fracture object.

   

5. Click on the Fracture object to select it.

6. Choose MoGraph > Effector > Random. This add the Random effector to the Fracture object and immediately changes the position of the Pulse splines.

7. In the Attribute Manager click on the Effector tab is necessary.

8. Scrub the Strength slider to zero and watch as the logo pieces returns to their original positions. This is how we will animate the logo assembly.

   • Return the Strength slider to 100

9. Click on the Parameters tab.

10. Change the Position values to the following:

    • P.X = 300
    • P.Y = 300
    • P.Z = 500

11. Click on the switch for Rotation and make the following changes.

    • R.H = 720
    • R.P = 720
    • R.B = 720

12. Click back onto the Effector tab.

13. Click in the current time field type 000010 and press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows) to move the Playhead to 00:00:10 (10 frames).

14. Confirm that Strength is set to 100.

    • Click the keyframe button to the left of the Strength attribute to create a new keyframe.

      

15. Click in the current time field type 0002 and press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows) to move the Playhead to 00:02:00 (2 seconds).

16. Change the Strength slider to 0.

    • Click the keyframe button to the left of the Strength attribute again to create another keyframe.

17. Click on the second keyframe to select it.

18. Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on the second keyframe and choose Spline Types > Ease In

19. Drag the playhead back and forth on the timeline to preview the animation.

20. Press Cmd–S (Mac) or Ctrl–S (Windows) or choose File > Save Project to save your C4D project.

21. Return to After Effects

22. Preview the finished animation by pressing Spacebar on your keyboard.

23. Press Cmd–S (Mac) or Ctrl–S (Windows) or choose File > Save to save your AE project.

Adjusting the Axis and Scaling

The text is a little too large and is almost running off the composition edge in After Effects. We can fix this by adjusting the extrusion objects size in C4D.

1. Return to Cinema 4D.

2. In the Perspective view, confirm that the Safe Frames preview is enabled, Cameras > Safe Frames.

3. Click the Toggle Active View button at the top right of the Perspective view.

4. In the Object Manager, click on the Logo Extrusion object to select it.

   Notice that the axis for all transformations is located to the far right of the logo. We’ll need to fix this before we can scale the extrusion.

5. Click the Enable Axis button located at the top of the application.

6. Press E on the keyboard or click on the Move tool to activate it.

7. In the Top or Front viewports, place your cursor over the Red move arrow.

8. Drag the axis to the horizontal center of the logo.

   

9. In the Front viewport, place your cursor over the green move arrow.

10. Drag the axis to the vertical center of the logo.

    

11. Click off the Enable Axis button.

12. Press T on the keyboard or click on the Scale tool to select it.

13. In the Object Manager, click on the Logo Extrusion object to to make sure it’s still selected.

14. In any viewport click away from the logo and drag towards its center to scale it down.

    Watch the Perspective view to see the results through the camera’s viewpoint.

15. Press Cmd–S (Mac) or Ctrl–S (Windows) or choose File > Save Project to save your C4D project.

16. Return to After Effects

17. Preview the finished animation by pressing Spacebar on your keyboard.

18. Press Cmd–S (Mac) or Ctrl–S (Windows) or choose File > Save to save your AE project.

    You can now close this project we are done with this part of the lesson.