Tunnel Pattern
The first technique involves creating a really long tunnel in 3D and then applying materials to the tunnel to create patterned illusions. To begin I brought in a rectangle and then a extrude object and in the object manager I put the rectangle in the extrude object so the rectangle became a cuboid. Next I adjusted the size of the cuboid making it really long and I made sure there was a lot of space inside. I then brought in a twist modifier and applied it to my really long tunnel so the pattern inside the tunnel will spiral. The next task was to create a material to apply to my tunnel, in the material manager I turned off colour and transparency and left luminance on. I continued to add the checker board texture to the luminance tab which resulted with black and white stripes for a material. After applying the material to my tunnel I brought in a camera and positioned it inside the tunnel so the pattern was visible in the view port. Next I brought in a sphere and duplicated my striped material but changed the colour to white and green and applied it to the sphere. I moved the sphere so it was at the end of the tunnel to add and finish the pattern.
At this point the pattern looks really interesting and cool but it is still just flat colours that isn't displaying any 3D depth. I went into the render settings and switched on ambient occlusion which adds shadows and depths to the edges of the model which gives it more realism in a 3D space.
I created a animation using the pattern with the idea of bouncing a collection of balls through the tunnel. I brought in a emitter object which fires objects in the direction it is facing and in the object manager I move the sphere in to the emitter object so the emitter fires multiple spheres. Next I moved the emitter behind the camera so it shoots the balls in the direction where the camera is looking but the problem then was the balls were falling through the tunnel so I had to let Cinema 4D know that the tunnel is a object and a collision should happen. I went to the sphere in the emitter object in the object manager and applied a rigid body tag which tells cinema 4D that this object should react when it hits another object, and then I went to my tunnel in the object manager and applied a collider tag to it which tells Cinema 4D that it should react when another object collides with it. The result now is when the balls are fired out of the emitter they bounce off the walls of the tunnel and roll down to the bottom of the tunnel.
Generated Pattern
The second technique I learnt how to do was creating a quick 3D pattern that generates never ending possibilities of different patterns and colours by slightly changing attributes in the material and object manager. I started with a plane object bringing it in to my viewport followed by a displacer modifier which appeared in my object manager next to my plane object. I dragged the displacer modifier in to the plane object and in it's shading tab I add a noise effect so the displacer modifier takes effect on the plane object turning it from a flat object into a crumpled object almost like a creased rug. The plane at this point didn't look real enough because the edges were too sharp and pointed so I brought in a sub division surface object and dragged the plane in to it so these edges were smoothed out and were more rounded. The next step was to add colour to my plane so I created a material and again turned off colour, reflectance and turned on luminance. In the luminance tab I added a gradient texture and inside the gradient tab I changed the type to "2D - V" which means that when the material is applied or wrapped around the object it goes horizontal instead of vertical, while "2D - U" is the term for wrapping a material vertical around an object. I then created four colours within the gradient tab: Cyan, purple, green and pink with cyan taking up half of the material followed by purple taking up a quarter and then green and pink sharing the last quarter. Now in the gradient tab of the material I can change a number of attributes (e.g. frequency, scale and octaves) to make different patterns really quickly.
Patterns Using Particles
The last technique I learnt was how to create a pattern using the emitter object. I started by creating eight materials all using just the luminance effect consisting of two shades of grey, a yellow, a orange, a light blue, a dark blue, white and finally black. Next I brought nine planes in to the scene making seven of them squares and two of them thin long cuboids. Then I applied the two cuboids the black material and then the other six planes each a different colour from the remaining materials. Next I brought in a emitter object placing all my planes inside it in the object manager and then placed the emitter on floor in my viewpoint facing up. In the emitter's settings I turned on "show objects" and "render instances" so I can see the emitter firing the planes in to the air in the render. Next I changed the speed, variation and angle so the emitter spits out the planes at a nice pace while they fly out at an angle so they all split up. After finishing setting up the emitter I brought in a background object and applied my luminance white material to it so in the render behind my pattern it is white. Finally I brought in a MoText object making it say "Post Modernism" as that is the style of pattern I have made and positioned it right above the emitter so the planes fly past it towards the camera.
What Did I learn?
Before this process and production session I had a slight idea how I would approach creating patterns in Cinema 4D but I didn't realise there were some many options and additionally an unlimited different patterns to make. The techniques I learnt have improved my approach to making patterns and textures in Cinema 4D and have prepared me to experiment with my own patterns if I need to. A feature in Cinema 4D I didn't know about before this session was the ambient occlusion option which is really helpful especially when you need to emphasise the depths of making an object 3D.
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