Create Nike Flyweave using X Particles in Cinema 4D

hey guys so how is it every shoot commercial right now looks amazing if you're like me you want to figure out how to do these thread animation a simple way if that's you you've come to the right place so uh let's get knitting [Music] everybody is Dave from Red Skull gorilla where we give you the tools training and tutorials make yourself a better motion designer so what are we doing today what we're going to do is we're going to jump into cinema 4d we're going to use X particles to make some cool thread animations to check out the description below I'll link to a project that I had done for the Nike Air Jordan sneaker and we are going to take that example we're going to make it together today I came across this cool idea using X particles to make a kind of we slowing pattern with some trails stuff like that going to color going to light it in octane that part's going to be simple it's going to be more about the technique to get X particles they kind of move more in a thread like motions so let's do this all right no time to waste here so let's jump into X particles let's start making some of these threads first thing we got to do is determine how the particles are going to move and so when I started looking at the Nike flyweight pattern it had a cool little like swirling up-and-down kind of effect that's how they were kind of laying it out the references that they were showing me so let's start out we're going to just figure out how to make this that geometry how to make a wavy piece of geometry first so I'm going to go in here I don't know which way I'm going to scale yeah so I'm just going to keep it as is and and let's see let's see what we're going to use I think maybe if we go into our deformers let's try actually you know what I think we can do an effector let's see if we do instead of the de former can we do a formula effector and I'm going to grab this and I'm going to instead I'm going to change it on on the Y direction I believe and let's say let's say point okay let's change it let's maybe increase this a little bit more I see that we are get something it's definitely not facing the direction that we want it to so we're going to we're going to play with this a little bit there we go it looks like we want to move it in the Z naught in the Y all right so we're this is going to be starting to get this wavy effect that we want how do we control this so with the effector well I don't really know how I'll start typing in some numbers here I'm going to type in 4,000 okay so this is exactly what I want you know sort of kind of I need more segments in my geometry here so let's just okay that's fine let's keep it let's put the height segments at a hundred and let's jump back in so I want to actually dial down this number now okay so maybe like four five something like that all right maybe less maybe maybe something like two or three yeah - I like to and so this is where you guys get to play as well so I'm going to make my X particle system move along this surface and so however you want it to move maybe you want yours to kind of cork school around or something right and so you're going to build the geometry accordingly and then I'm going to show you how we can attach those X particles onto it and have it move how we want so I'm going to just resize this guy here I mean make it a little bit longer I might actually go in here now since I made it longer because you know depending on what look you want so these are going to be a little bit bigger of ways I think I want them to be a little bit tighter so I'm going to increase this number here maybe maybe make it like five thousand whatever the numbers aren't important right because you don't want to have to follow the tutorial and just type in the exact numbers it's like well what what's the look you're going for so you know you don't need to feel like you've got to do exactly this number go for the look that you want the next thing I want to do is where can I control the speed of this because I want to turn that off so what controls speed okay so if you drop down in the effector the variables I think maybe if I maybe I'm euro let's see if that yeah okay cool this is set one will it move it moves so drop the project time to zero and there we go now we're going to frozen piece of geometry and and still parametric we don't have to make it editable so I'm going to do the same thing I'm gonna because we're going to need two pieces of geometry here because I want it to look like there's two pieces of different threads and they're weaving in and out of each other so I'm going to copy and paste this and go into I'm going to start labeling stuff let's call this call this bottom and this would be the top all right cool so now I'm going to go into the formula factor on the top here and I'm just going to make this formula a negative integer here and this is what we're going to get right and so it's the same thing just flip the opposite direction so I'm going to start moving my X particles along this surface for now I'm going to hide this top layer just going to look at this bottom here just so we don't get too distracted so next thing I'm going to do go right into X particles and simply grab the emitter I'm going to move this back in space here and I'm just going to rescale it more or less here kind of get it up goes up close I don't think it has to be perfect and about the same width again I'm not measuring anything we're going to make sure that to our eye it looks good alright so now we're emitting particles here I don't want a constant stream of particles you know if it's threads building on I just want kind of like this one shot of thread so next I'm going to do is go into the emission here and I'm going to change the emission mode from rate to shot I don't really know how much the count I want it to be yet so let's just leave that default we'll come back to that so after I got the emitter I need to go into my X particles modifiers I'm going to go down to my motion and I'm going to say follow surface this is going to allow the emitter to particles to stick to the surface of this object once we have it set up so first it's asking for the object so let's go and drag the object into that and and let's play it okay well that's exactly what we hope would happen right so now we're moving X particles along this weird little bendy plane that we got so we're going to be able to replicate some movement here so I'm going to select the submitter again and I'm going to add X particle trails alright so now we're going to be sweeping or tracing rather these particles along the surface here cool I'm just going to extend my timeline a little bit let's let's break this down go to 200 here and I'm going to do 24 frames a second alright perfect that's exactly what we want alright so you know this looks cool I guess right but you know what what can we do to Plus this right that was really quick alright so there's a couple things one I don't really want the particles just to be stuck to this surface and so before we do that because I want to tweak both of these at the same time the top and the bottom right now we only did the bottom so I'm going to start labeling all this stuff in just a second what you're going to notice though is by copy and paste these even though in my follow surface I can put the top in here and I'm going to delete the bottom and in my trail it's already set to emitter 1 I can call this emitter top and I can call this emitter bottom even though that inside my follow surface I have the top and and the trail was linked to the top watch what happens even when I go to play right now let's see there you go see okay I was hoping it was going to mess up for a second I didn't think it was let me hide these planes so you can actually see a little bit better what's happening they're somehow getting in fusing I don't know the reason why that is I do know how to fix it though but these I guess the the follow the surface is interfering with each other because they just don't know what particle system goto so we have to tell them what particle system to go to since we have more than one piece of geometry so in the emitter I'm going to start with the emitter bottom and I'm going to go to groups and I'm going to say create an ad group and I'm going to call this bottom group and I'm just going to drag it down because I like to try to keep a little bit organized here then I'm going to go into the follow the surface and place this into the groups affected tab right and I'm going to go into the trail and do the same thing place that group directly in there now we're going to repeat this step and we're going to do it for the top emitter so I'm going to say go into the emitter and say create an ad group I'm just going to rename this element top group alright so now I'm going to go into that follow surface drag it into the group affected into the trail drag into the group affected and now it should work how I'm hoping and it looks like it does okay cool so just just like easily watch out look see how quick that was we now have this system kind of weaving itself for us so already we're getting a pretty cool little look I'm going to I'm going to set get my interactive my little octane render region set up here I'm gonna actually shrink down my my window here too so you guys can actually see the whole thing before we continue to go you probably didn't see when I was dragging these into the groups affected but you know where it is okay cool so let's let's get this next part going I've got there's a little something I'm working on you guys get to see a sneak peak if you're watching this tutorial the day the day is posted because I'm not going to I still got some a little bit of editing left to do on this guide but this will be a fun little animation alright let's get that off the screen okay so we're going to want to start previewing this here soon so the first thing we want to do now is I'm looking at these guys right these strands and they're just too uniform you know there's not enough playing on one I don't want just a solid edge you know I want there to be a little bit of randomness so I'm going to go into the emitter itself on the back Jack here and I'm going to go into a mission and here's the speed I'm fine with the speed but I want a little variation to it so maybe let's just let's just start out with it's just a little bit and I'm going to make the variation of these different and so maybe this one can be a fifteen I don't know doesn't really matter right this is all the taste so we don't really know what we want until after we see it that is definitely not enough randomness whatsoever in speed so let's uh let's really increase these let's go let's go fifty and on the other emitter I'm going to go 65 let's see if that's got got any randomness now for us not not a whole lot to be honest I'm going to hide this top one just so maybe we can focus on this bottom for a minute just so like I want to see why it's not actually changing the speed it doesn't look like there's any randomness at all actually which seems a little weird let's just let's just crank it all the way up why isn't it why is it randomizing guys speed is uniform right now there's an X off of everything bottom group okay what's the deal hmm we'll have to figure this one out hopefully yours is working I don't know why mine there's no variation in the in the particle speed when it emits we'll come back to that for sure the next thing I'm going to do though is I'm going to start adding up some turbulence in the air so let's go in and let's go to modifiers motion turbulence I'm going to drop this down just so it's all below this bottom group and in the turbulence I don't really want to affect much of the II but X&Y would be pretty nice let's see if that does anything for so and I'm going to add the group into it bottom group okay cool so we can see that is doing something that's not it's not particularly doing what I want it looks like maybe the scale is a little bit too high so let's let's drop this scale down I want to get a little bit more yeah something like that that's probably still a little bit too strong maybe maybe lighten the scale up even more maybe dial the strength down even more I just want them not to feel so uniform and kind of cross over each other a little bit here and there I might even dial this down a bit more maybe something like to it can we even can we do like point to all right let's see let's see if that's something okay cool so just that way they they aren't so uniform and straight you can kind of see that they kind of get a little bit closer to each other here and there I'm going to increase this just a little bit let's say 0.5 see that's a good enough randomness for us yeah that's that's more like what I want you know you can see right here that they actually cross over each other a little bit it's subtle right but it's just enough to have a little bit more organic feeling and not so computerized I really want to figure out why the heck to see mitr isn't working how I would think it would be mustn't mess something up I don't really know so anyway though what we're going to do next is we're going to look at this follow surface and for the follow surface I want to offset it from the surface of our our our like plane with our formula factor on there because I don't want it to just be one flat thread right again I want it to have some offset to these particles so I have no idea what it's going to be yet let's put in 10-foot in there and oh we need some variation for sure so what's up let's add some variation here okay so 10 is way too much let's go down to let's go to 2 2 is way too much like reduce this variation as well does that do anything yeah that does it down a little bit let's go to 1 now I got to go even lower here let's do the point let's go to point 2 let's drop the variation distance as well I think that's yeah contributing to it here let's go offset 1 so I'm just like tweaking stuff until I kind of get a look that I like right there's no right or wrong here it's just like okay look at it what do you think let's try it a little bit more variation in here this is Cana this is looking kind of cool now this is more of like what I was thinking right so now it's just not a solid straight line there's actually a little bit of depth to that so I'm going to do kind of more or less the same thing to this other follow the surface I'll do 1 & 2 on this turn it on offset by 1 say variation of 2 let's just turn these guys on again awesome and you can see if I select one of the trails that we're getting this is starting to look even more and more kind of like threads even even before we start rendering it and so although I'm going to do this in octane today it really does not matter you know I mean we're making splines here you know we're doing trails on particles so it's really easy to render this with hair with any render engine that you're using with this kind of technique so I wonder if I messed it up when I change the frame rate maybe I'll go back in and change this to 30 I wonder if that has anything to do is uh just the particles acting weird if there's a setting in here I don't know so I play this again now they're not doing nothing I don't think at least they all look a little bit all look like they're about started around the same point I think oh no maybe that's what it was I might have messed it up with that is look now they're all set from each other okay let's go into this emitter and let's go back into the emission and I'm going to increase the variation here all the ways to 150 let's see is that that helps us out I mean they're offset just but not by a whole heck of a lot maybe if I am you know that the turbulence I put on here maybe if I do these well that'll kind of slow some of these particles down just not not really not how I'm open for what the heck guys although throwing the chat's for sure because I actually have not experienced this not giving me this like any variation on my on my emitter right I'm used to really offset in it right now unless I'm just blanking and I'm skipping something but I just don't think so motion parents know it would definitely be the speed and then the variation of that maybe I'm just not give it enough time could that be yet I mean it just still look and just super super congested here I mean it is offsetting I just thought it would be a little bit more extreme I don't know maybe it's a time situation whatever okay so I'm going to go to this emitter and I'm going to do the same thing I'm just going to crank that puppy up there and and let's see so we got following surface we did all those settings right we're all setting it now we just want to give it something that feels more organic and not so computer-generated and and let me throw in we threw in a camera and I want to get you know some sort of like cool little epic view going here so we can get some nice little depth of field and some other stuff I'm going to throw in an HDR eye environment and and I'm going to also throw in a texture environment so what I'm going to do now is let's set this guy up right so this HDRI environment I'm going to throw the HDR I link on their course got to use that I'm going to just set this up I have no idea what texture I'm going to use yet since this popped up let's just use one of these right now sure we'll try it actually let's get something with a little bit more directional sign going in it cemetery noon let's see what that looks like the next thing is this sky I'm going to change this from primary to visible and and I have no idea let's make it some sort of gray all right and in my camera setting I'm just going to keep the camera focal length at the default like I said it's not about that it's more about getting this the red appearance and aesthetic right so let's jump over into I'm going to turn auto focus off let's just see what this is looking like even before we're texturing it yep I'm going to go through this texturing process pretty quickly here I hope where are you threads Oh probably can't see it because I don't have anything on man oh man I need to get some sleep okay so let's uh set that up let's go to octane here and let's throw on an octane object tag and then we need to go to hair and check on render as hair and we need to do this to both trails now we should see some hair even though I didn't put a material on it yet there we go okay so with these I want to change the tip technics tip thickness to maybe let's say 0.5 I have no idea yet might want to go even smaller than that 0.3 cool you know and this is just a taste right it's a really what you guys want to do however you want to do it now let's make some material so we can use just some standard materials so I can make let's get some glossy materials Oh imma throw some roughness on there say 0.5 I don't know maybe 0.1 and we can we can do a simple texture right like we could make a simple texture in here well what color should we do I don't know let's do like some sort of like turquoise color greeny turquoise try to think of some cool little Nike shoes there is doing these vibrant colors now so we could simply throw this on to our objects and and this is totally fine totally acceptable but you're going to see it's going to start looking really uniform and really not all that nice I'm going to just crank this stuff to fill it up here see ya cool sweet okay get a little shallow depth-of-field going right it's getting there I mean this could look like threads eventually but it's not not really there yet so let's get let's get two different tones of materials in here and let's just make this one like a make this one like a dark dark grey black diamond color let's throw that on the the other particle system okay so already this is starting to feel more like a woven pattern right so I can kind of scale down and go back right you can see that each time we're getting more and more you know of like what we would think is this kind of woven pattern up close macro shot of this fly weave you can see there's some faceting and stuff like that obviously you guys all know how to fix that now if you go into those splines you can change that here by changing this type and and then changing the intermediate points and stuff like that and really get them smooth but it will definitely increase your simulation time when you're actually uh when you're sending it and playing through in the timeline so I'm just going to keep mine down for this tutorial purpose but do know that if you're just like faceting or not as smooth as you want just change these things here and and you'll get more points in there so but you don't see any sharp edges okay cool so I'm digging this right but I'm like I kind of want even more variation in there so I started playing with one of the actually built in cinema 4d effects which was what did I do checkerboard I think it was checkerboard yeah and I took the checkerboard and I turned the frequency of one of these yet completely also is like this and then let's change these colors let's do this let's do this like lime minty green for this one and then let's let's do it another variation to that to that lime green let's just do something a little bit darker and that's going to break up this repetitive pattern like you can see right here that these strands are a little bit darker right and again it's just giving it more of that organic natural type of feel that you wouldn't necessarily get if you had just one solid shader but that doesn't really reflect that the materials of the shoe you know the dye picks up differently in different parts of the fabric and stuff like that it's close but there's a little bit of variation in contrast all within there especially within the fly the Nike fly weave which was the project that I worked on for the Air Jordans and so I had to take that shoe texture and really figure out and really dissect it each one of those threads and what they looked like and how they how they responded and how they would look with you know a macro photography shot or micro photography shot so we're going to do the same thing for the diffuse on the black I'm going to go in say surfaces checkerboard and I'm going to make this one the same way I'm going to do a couple different shades of black here right like a black in a dark gray let's make this one a little bit darker so we can see a little bit more difference in it maybe make this one you get lighter it's not even darker okay cool so you know you're seeing we're getting a little bit of variation in here now as well on this guy I might make this guy a little bit or two though make this one full pure black okay and this is just going to break this up and you can see maybe maybe one of these frequencies is better to use than the other to help with the variation I don't know I think it might have a little bit to do with the orientation in which you're what you're going maybe maybe checkerboard might look cool it doesn't seem like that's really doing anything to me this one does so I see a handful of nice little hints here I'm actually going to swap these I'm going to make this one the dark one and this bottom one lighter gray I think I like that variation a little bit better cool yeah I like that variation more okay cool so now we're mixing these textures and all starting to get a little bit more realistic I want to change though this the way the hair is looking I kind of wanted to be feel a little bit more thread like I'm going to make this number a little bit smaller so that the tips of them don't feel so flat right okay so this is getting to be more reddish to me I like this I like this a lot alright so what else can we do well let's just take a look at our lighting well first I want to make this background be a little bit darker here cool that's that that's that's that's kind of right all right we're getting that that kind of red look and the awesome thing is is this setup for animation this is all ready to go animation style which is fantastic so you've got a rig already set up ready to go I this is this is pretty much it guys but I want to keep reiterating you know keep refining this make this yours keep pushing the style of it you know wrap around different objects whatever it is that you want to do try different colors you know try rotating one the opposite direction right like let's just try it real quick before we end this guy I'm going to pause this let me take this plane I'm going to take this whole thing this whole this whole one group here and and I'm going to get out of this camera and I'm going to rotate this guy 90 degrees this way and let's just see what this looks like I have no idea this is what I'm saying just play around with stuff you never know what the heck it's going to look like I might have to resit man I don't know if this splines will come over no they do right so already you know and I mean I feel like I'd want to put more particles into this so let's do that too let me let me increase some of this so in my emitter on the top and on the bottom I'm going to say let's emit 3000 particles each and let's just wait till this kind of catches up here all right so you can do a different type of weave you can have multiples of these particle systems kind of colliding like we're doing right now and just see what the heck it looks like there's no uh there's no rules here all right let's see what this looks like so now we're getting like a different kind of fabric pattern you know you're starting to weave them so you guys come up with a lot of different ways and nothing says that our surface has to be patched like it is or wavy like it is you know you guys can come up with a lot of different weave ways on on particle geometry sometimes it's a little harder to control particles at least for me just because I don't I'm not a you know smart with them more or less than a lot of people who do particles so you kind of come up with other ways I'm like well I know how to manipulate geometry really easily and I know how to stick particles on the geometry surface so how could I you know take that to the next step so there you go guys all right guys thanks for watching if you like what you see make sure to subscribe and and make sure to share what you guys are making play with ex-partners don't just make what I made don't just make with tutorials make figure out the techniques play with it explore on that and keep on creating see you guys soon

Channel: Greyscalegorilla

Views: 93,377

Keywords: cinema 4d, c4d, tuts, tutorials, motion graphics, greyscalegorilla, Cinema 4D, octane, octane render, x particles, particles, nike, flyweave, animation, otoy, fabric, locked and loading

Id: e3zWSdx_JIg

Length: 30min 39sec (1839 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2017