3d Big Bird Model in Cinema 4d // The Practice 172

hello happy Tuesday welcome back to another episode of the practice this show is an unrehearsed look into my creative process I'm Stewart I'm a 3d artist illustrator designer and your pal and I'm excited and grateful to have you all back again this week week episode 172 the project for today and the question of the week sort of relate to one another the question of the week is a simple one can you name any favorite childhood characters you'll see that I've got some reference imagery pulled up here for Big Bird who I could say was one of my favorite childhood characters I loved Sesame Street Jim Henson was a huge influence on me not only in Sesame Street but with you know the Muppets and then as I got a little bit older labyrinth and the Dark Crystal is huge I really enjoyed actually the new Dark Crystal series on Netflix and you know I think subliminally or maybe overtly the stuff we really gravitate towards as a kid I think shows up later in our creative work so episode 172 question of the week can you name any favorite childhood characters we'd love to hear about those and maybe I can draw some inspiration from them too and maybe it will show a few in future episodes who knows so in any case I think this will have some elements that are fairly straightforward and some that maybe a little bit tricky a much for exactly I'm gonna handle the feathers and the tail just yet but let's let's get in and start modeling first before we worry about feathers and Tails and things like that I really think we should search like blocking basic shapes out and I think part of the reason is character design is so successful zit is a lot of is based on sort of basic shapes so take a cone and a sphere we're gonna you know most of the body here it's a good start round out the bottom a little bit wider you again I'm not going to do a photo real version which is actually why I grabbed some of this cartoon Big Bird reference to inform someone's simplification we do here you you you we can use another con the start getting this beacon shape you you you you you you you you you and I'm done just kidding you you you you you you you you you you you you you right it's a start come back and modify this fit you you you you you you all right it's a nice little beak you you you some quick eyes in there you you you you you what's up Marcus oh you know what I did that project was completed and if you go back to that website go back to that that video page the description area has been updated with a link to that good question and thanks for asking you you you you you you you so James thanks for tuning in you're welcome you you you I think Big Bird is a little bit cross-eyed isn't he I think his body needs to be bigger big body bird let's get some legs going thanks Marcus let me know if it loads and works okay on your on your computer I'm assuming you're using the Chrome browser you you you you you you you you you you you you you you sup Evelyn I'm not sure your question is but the live video will remain on my page as a video you can watch again if you want to come back to it I think that's what your question is so see here let's continue with these legs I guess you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you all right that's it's about a big big urge foot you you is Ain thanks for tuning in yeah I suppose I could be better about like describing every little thing I'm doing and in some episodes I chat more than others but to be honest I don't view these as tutorials necessarily you can follow along and learn what you can I really do these videos for myself to just be accountable to a routine schedule and keep creating lots and lots of work and just kind of sharing the process as I go so hopefully can get some new something from but if you have specific questions I'd be glad to help you you you you you right you you all right coming together you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you hey Evelyn no unfortunately I probably won't rig this character properly I'll pop I'll pose them I think just using the splines in his arm but I don't think I'm going to get into full rigging today so I'm not planning on animating the character it's a lot of work to rig you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you so I want to move the axis on this group too close to the shoulder which will make it a bit easier to position what we're going to do is use this really great tool well this right arm whoops right arm and then I'm going to go to character and mirror tool with the right arm selected I'm going to press mirror didn't work so I'm going to do C direction origin you gotta mess with some of these you you you know what I'm gonna keep it simple I'm just going to make a copy see if I can traverse so the coordinates just kind of reversing okay so that should be even all right I can use that that is very down and dirty not not best practices really what that's all right so let's see here thing we're really missing now some kind of feathers and I don't think I want to do that with actual like hair I think that's gonna get really intense or you could get a cool effect but I want to see if I can't take simple shape and kind of client get you know a solid sculpted sort of look I'm going to make a low poly capsule get along z-axis this sort of flattened pill shape and I want to clone that across the character here see what we get so loner and we'll change this to object mode you you mm what Evelyn what would command is that I'm not sure what f9 does maybe I know that key command you Kord active objects like this f9 so just press this red button right here you you you you you you you you you you you you that's one that was acting a little weird I had the squishing of the capsule sort of in the wrong spot I wanted that in the transform tab so it's actually not so bad I do think I want to randomize it a little bit more so I'm gonna at randomizer random effector don't want the position to change that much do you want the scale to change a bit you you and maybe we can mess with a rotation a little bit's you nothing much just to give it a little bit more randomness I'm also going to throw in a push apart which is gonna help us not overlap so much let's turn the radius down on that but we've part of the reason we got so many patches and holes in me the feathers here is because everything's sort of overlapping but now let me use this push apart and just set the radius to something like 12 but get more even coverage and I think it's also going to allow us to come down a little bit in our count which I think for a slightly more efficient model yeah that is better so let's say body feathers and then I'll probably make new ones again for the head so let's actually just copy this call it heads others you you the same thing I'm just gonna drag the head object in there I love that look now the reason I made these separate is that way now I can I can shrink down I think I want the feathers on the head to be just a little bit smaller certainly want fewer of them you you I'm gonna take a screenshot of this I like I like this face so much right now you you can come down in size just to compensate for these feathers you're making a head much larger and we'll try want to take each pull that forward you same with the eyes you you I think what I want to do actually here is because he does have sort of a smooth spot like a bald spot of the feathers what I should probably do is take the head make a copy put it in this group alter that and then I can delete these pixels polygons you're either gonna need a few more now the feathers won't be generated there you you you you you you you it's getting kind of big birdy just think you now we just need the feathers on the arms should be a similar process you you you you all right let's see what's going on here you you you what's up Sandra is it a question I'm not you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you neither probably smarter ways to do this but since I'm not planning I'm moving these legs around I'm just gonna I'm just gonna make these rings that he has on his legs manually just kind of put the Taurus is there which I'm sure is not the most efficient way to do it sure I could just grab these splines and clone them along or something like that but I'm going to keep it simple for this go-round you against for two three four five of these rings three you you you should've been a little more careful you pretty good it's just the angle of the leg you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you oh okay I see what you're saying so that's not for self selection this S is actually magic solo it's a plugin that I've installed which allows me to isolate objects in the viewport and object manager what you can do though is you can go to window customization and you can do the customers palettes and then it brings up this dialog and you can search through all of the different buttons and shortcuts and every little every little action that photo photo shows me that cinema 4d can take you can grab it example grow grass juggler joint and you could just drag them up into the menus you can customize these menus in any way that you want then when you're done just close this down and it locks it in place and then you want to go window customization you want to save your layout so save layout as as you can see I have a start up user so I say that is my start up layer palette layout yes sir user is my is my start up layout so that every time I open up cinema this will be sort of the default that I'm shown the other thing I added is I added some spline conversion commands over here because I find that I'm constantly taking splines and and wanting to make them have hard or soft interpolation so there's another set of things here you know this is how it differs actually from your standard layout rights standard and started user this is mine the other thing I've done is I've taken a picture viewer and made a little tab here so that I can view renderings and not have another window sort of floating out in space which can be a little bit annoying so customize away and the tools that you find are using frequently make little shortcuts for yourself learn the key commands and/or make you know make buttons for yourself that you'll use powerful cinema all right so going to go for about an hour now I think we're we're getting there we're gonna do some little setup here I want to do is except for the eyes I want to take a lot of specularity out of these you you we should also start adding some lighting and I might just try and let's see maybe I'll just try to use an HDR I too like this so to me window content browser I'm just gonna grab one of these default cinema ones because they usually work out pretty well let's try sunny Park that's right and I'm with a compositing tag on there real quick and turn off seen by camera no longer see that guy oh and of course we'll have to turn on global illumination actually see the lighting effects from that HDRI you got it Sandra yeah that's powerful stuff use it where you can a little darker than I thought it might be so let's add another light in actually let's make it a spotlight you you big bird I'm gonna try this I you know I'm not blown away actually by how this came out so it does I'm gonna throw this in a layer I'm gonna choose just like a flat color not an image shader color this kids like an orange yellow here you just turn that down a little bit so we're still getting some of the detail we're also waiting you we're also getting yeah we're getting this this color and we're modifying the mat yeah sure I meant but we're we're still getting some of the variation in the image based lighting that we get with the sky and the darker ground and details elsewhere so that's cool and I like you know using some of that yellow and orange and the lighting gives us some great color here it's a little too orange you you I'm going to make a quick sake for this thing so the technique I use a lot when I'm trying to make just a simple flat color background a lot of people will use like compositing tools which is a great way to do it depending on the look you're after that that could be the way to go I like to do is just make a really simple spline it's a right angle here then it's chamfer so we can get a nice smooth transition between the two let me just throw that in a loft nerve kind of copy it out over here you copy it the other one over here you you now we got big drop back drop and this isn't this type of shape is the backdrop that you know studio photographers will frequently use to get a nice seamless background we call it a psyche or a cyclorama let's take another material and I'll modify the color just a little bit just a little bit of a more orangey color it could be nice to have Big Bird on a bright yellow orange background just go full in on the saturation of these colors here you the shape of the beaks isn't quite right you you I'm gonna make some cuts in this long flat plane underneath there to make beak more modifiable you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you listen a few little things he's got these kind of flyaway wispy feathers on his head I think I should make ish I could make it go with modeling keeping them simple but I think just gonna make him with a sweet so exoti you you all right check this out we got our three splines let's try and get them in the right spot you you nice thanks sabe well I make a new video like this every Tuesday pretty much every Tuesday which actually I forgot to mention this in the beginning of the episode unfortunately next Tuesday being that it's Christmas Eve and I will not be making an episode I'll be with my family taking the rare day off so thanks for your patience there sure you understand at this time of year people need to take a little break I will be back the following week which i think is New Year's Day you you you since they're just simple little details they're not going to be very big on the rendering plan is to just kind of make these feathers just using a simple spline you actually not so bad right there just sort of the shape that have you you you nice you mmm I wonder if I can yeah very cool horizontal yes useful never done that command before it seemed logical that it would be there you you you you you you realistic renders without add-ons I would say pay attention to gamma I would say use image based lighting like HDR eyes and use photographic textures you can actually there's a lot of really great if you go in to create load material you go through here there's all these material presets a lot of which are very very realistic and also go to window content browser and go in through these three set presets you'll find all these folders named materials you can go in there and grab fairly realistic materials which is sweet built right in okay check out these little head feathers you so I'm not totally sold on this lighting to be honest I'm just gonna rotate the sky a little bit just to see if it's slightly different you know portion of the image that's driving the globe light might alter the look at this just a little bit and actually that's shifting the camera angle about the bunch I think the one the one last thing we're missing is is kind of big fluffy tail we should do that in a similar way to what we've done the body I don't think I want to go out you know go about modeling individual feathers but it's gonna be organized a little bit doing here okay tail so I'm gonna grab in his body the body right here okay I'm just gonna duplicate this by holding command on a Mac as I rotate it coppy you you you you you you so I'm just copying that cloner group again inside the cloner under the object tag I'm going to drop the tail in let's make some modifications first of all I think we've got way too many get away with far fewer on the tail just because it's a smaller piece we also want to change it to minus y so they're kind of oriented in that direction the clones are all oriented in the direction we belong I also want to take this capsule to make it much bigger the tail is kind of fluffy another thing is I think we can bump up the Brandon is a size I think there was a lot more variation in that in the tail at another place is kids still had each many since the channel was bigger and fluffier it's good to sort of exaggerate it that fewer you you now I'm just gonna fake it and kind of rotate the position so we can get a little bit of it on you know sort of in in the shot here you see what that does for us a bit too much tail you I kind of like that all right we're getting pretty close one other thing beaver it has a couple of sort of white feathers near his eyes so those I think I'll just go in and placed manually its head feathers nope not those ones you you you you you so I'm just using that same capsule shape just made a copy out of the corners I'm just going to put a few round you I think a lot of times it's good to mix cloners with details just sort of placed by hand because I think loners can be great for coverage but if you really trying to make something look great you'll probably want to control the position and size of your elements sometimes you can use the cloner to sort of fill out a space and then improve it or supplement it or fine-tune it by putting your own putting your own individual elements in there by hand and if not by hand in that by using some other method you just constraint tags and sort of place among us the skin of an object there's lots of ways to do things but I think it's it's bad to rely solely on cloners and and you know cinema doing compositional decisions for you you really I think you want to control least some elements tightly that's just my mo you you you all right sincere that works you you you you I think the ladies a little bit blown out here the edge so I just made that slightly darker warmer color and I brought the intensity down 10% I also think I want to go to the shadows turn the density down there a little bit maybe add some warmth to him make him a little lighter I think there is too much sort of definition between all of these individual feathers but I like that I like the white feathers in the head that it's a nice touch you you you you it's been try two different camera angle quickly see where that gets us you you you yeah I think you know backing off that lighting just a little bit helped us a bunch I like this new clothes better - it's more of a three-quarter view and there's a little bit of interest from turning the head you get a little bit more of the tail in there and glad I tried that new angle and also what I like is you get a slightly darker portion of the background which allows you to have a bit of contrast between the background color and this highlight on the yellow beak that's that's working for me yeah I'm taking this I think this is really fun and not bad for just you know kind of a couple hours worth of work now the one thing is actually that's a little bit strange let's adjust that elbow just a bit so it doesn't look so thin and weird from the side you such that silhouette wasn't quite working for me actually dragging it in the wrong direction there we go you let's look better now you got a thicker arm the feathers look a lot better let's get that hand back in position I know this is kind of janky this is not the proper Lea clothes and set up a character but I'm just making this one static illustration I'm not gonna be you know closing and animating this guy so it's fine you all right let's do one more test rendering see what we get I think he's slightly off-center so it's just that just a hair you you also just dawning on me that gets you some feathers through this mouth so I'm gonna scoop that out alter the position a little bit it's not seen as many feathers you we have a good open mouth picture of them old Big Bird yeah arms much better alright I think I'm gonna kick out whoops I didn't make it larger I'm gonna kick out a final rendering let's go see 20 square awesome you you you you Oh you what a great character design Big Bird is great silhouette very fun and fluffy and awesome for kids and the amazing thing is not only is that a really fun character design they had to work within the constraints of getting it to work with the puppeteer inside of it it's actually kind of cool this reference image I found shows you sort of a cutaway of how big burn sort of worked like that crazy pans the guy was wearing man how exhausting it must be to hold your arm up like this and control the mouth and it's funny that he that the puppeteer would use one arm with a string in between them to kind of control both arms of the puppets it's really pretty interesting it also explains why Big Bird hat is one hand on his stomach so much and that's the sort of sort of adds like you know when I think about Big Bird that's the pose that I think of his him with his one hand on his on his belly and the other hand sort of waving in the air so that's sort of what drove the decision to use that pose here almost done rendering obviously it's a stylized interpretation of a big burden not super realistic but that's alright so I'm gonna throw it into Photoshop and a little bit of quick color correction and retouching and call it a day you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you all right she is there's still a little bit of weirdness going on and some of the feathers there's some overlapping that's not ideal I could retouch out some of these shapes for a you know an hour and a half two hour long exercise in paying homage to the late great Jim Henson and all his fun character designs I think this is pretty successful really fun exercise love Big Bird brings me back so appreciate everyone tuning in and commenting and hanging out for another episode if you like this if you thought it was useful if you think there's a buddy of yours that might get some value out of it please don't hesitate to share if you have any questions or further comments don't hesitate to drop one in the comments below hit that thumbs up button and subscribe and be really really useful appreciate that if you want to keep up with me and the work that I'm doing you can find my website at diligence studio and you find me on social media at dlg nce most active on instagram but you could find me elsewhere and like I said no episode next week spending some time over Christmas with the fan but I'll be back on New Year's Day on New Year's Eve with a hot new episode the week after so until then have an awesome holiday I hope you and yours are well stay up stay inspired and I'll see you in a bit thanks a lot later

Channel: Diligence Studio // Digital Art + Illustration

Views: 2,485

Keywords: cinema 4d, c4d, modeling, sculpting, cg, 3d, art, illustration, 3d illustration, tut, tutorial, cinema 4d tutorial, 3d art, live stream, art livestream, creative vlog, illustration livestream, illustration tutorial, how to, digital art, live art, diligence studio, stuart wade, big bird, bigbird, sesame street, jim henson, big bird 3d, character design, big bird character, henson character, character model, big bird model, muppet model, 3d muppet, c4d big bird, cinema 4d muppet

Id: aDmu1_pkLAQ

Length: 91min 37sec (5497 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019