3D Logo

This process and production session used Cinema 4D but from a designer's point of view. We looked at how a designer would approach the software to produce their work and ideas in 3D. Using Illustrator we were tasked with creating a simple logo using the pen tool and then import that file into Cinema 4D to make it a 3D object.

A important note before starting the project is to create a folder and naming it the name of the project and then create another 3 folders inside naming them "Illustrator", "Cinema 4D" and "Output". This prevents confusion with file types as the Illustrator logo will be saved in the Illustrator folder and the Cinema 4D logo saved in the Cinema 4D folder then the output folder will be used for saving the final movie or image file of the project.

Starting with opening Illustrator I used the pen tool to experiment drawing shapes until I was happy with one I wanted to use as a logo. The logo could be separate objects which will be seen as one group in Cinema 4D but the drawings couldn't over lap each other. I had one shape for my logo but I did make the mistake of drawing another shape inside my original shape thinking that it will be apart of the logo in Cinema 4D and I soon realised that it wasn't there when it becomes a 3D shape because it fills the original shape hiding the additional shape inside.

Now I have my logo so I start up Cinema 4D and go to "file" and then "merge" which imports my Illustrator file of the logo into Cinema 4D. Next I set up the render settings so it saves my project as a image and not a movie by setting the rendering output to current frame and not all frames to save the first frame that my logo will be on. My next task is to make my flat 2D logo in to 3D, to do this I select the extrudes nurb bringing it in to my object manager where I drag my 2D logo (in the object manager) in to the extrude nurb. This applies the extrude feature to the logo now making it a 3D object.

Next I needed to set up the environment for the project. I started by adding a background and floor to my scene then creating a material that I applied to both objects so they are the same colour. At this moment in time even though the floor and the background have the same material they are both different colours and that is because the floor is not apart of the background and cinema 4D is showing this by purposely making the floor a different colour so I don't get confused with which is which. To change this I needed to add a compositing tag to the floor object and then in the attributes manager of the tag I ticked the "comp background" box to allow the floor to be apart of the background.

Next I could add colour to my project. I went in to the material that I already had for the background and floor and changed the colour to a light blue. I created another material and changed the colour to an orange and applied it to my logo. The next part was to add text to our logo giving the brand a name. On the tool bar at the top it says "MoGraph" then I went down to "MoText" to add the MoText object to my object manager. In the attributes manager I typed "Curse" because I decided that is what my pretend my brand was going to be named and the text in y scene became "Curse". Next I created a new material making it a lime colour and applied it to my text, then choosing a font for my text.

Now I needed to set up the environment for my scene so my logo casts a shadow with correct amounts of lighting. I start by bringing in a standard camera to my scene and position it in the centre facing my logo. Next I bring in two standard lights in to my scene and I name one "key" and the other "fill". The key light is placed to the right of the camera at the same height and then the fill light goes to the left of the camera but the height of this one is between the camera and the floor.

After rendering the logo as a finished image we continued to animate it for animators and motion graphics. The plan was to have the logo rotating at its position. In the object manager I selected all the objects that makes up the logo including the text and grouped them so Cinema 4D recognises them as one object to animate. On the timeline at 0 frames I select the grouped object of my logo and set the rotation on the y-axis to 0 degrees and then I go to the end of the timeline (the last frame) and change the rotation on the y-axis again to 360 degrees. This now rotates my the logo.






What Have I learnt?

During this session I learnt how to import Photoshop and Illustrator files in to Cinema 4D and I also learnt the benefits of using Illustrator to prepare a project for Cinema 4D. If I want to render out 1 frame as an image I now have more of an insight on how to to do that and not make the mistake of rendering hundreds of frames as high detailed images. Another technique I learnt and was starting to wonder how I would do this is creating a all in one background it is one colour without the floor and background interfering with each other.