One of the most impressive features of Cinema 4D is its rendering capability.
The 'Advanced Rendering' module creates images and movies with objects you can reach out and touch.
Global Illumination is a companion to this remarkable rendering process with a stage viewing plane that is...
well..
illuminating.
For a little taste of just how much difference a little dose of Global Illumination can make, create a room for us.
Begin with a cube, enlarge to a comfortable viewing size for your PC and screen.
We are going to cut out a window so create an odd number of segments so we can delete one to make a window.
Make it editable entering the 'C' key or using the 'Make it Editable' menu icon on the upper left of the tools menu section.
Now, using the polygon tool, delete a wall by selecting, then deleting all the segments on one face.
Use the polygon tool and 'live selection' tool for this and be sure you have 'Only Select Visible Elements' checked for live selection.
You will use this check box a lot.
If you want to cut all the way through an object to completely divide, you will uncheck this option.
You want to cut the visible face and cut all the way through to the side you can't see.
However in this case we want to delete only the visible selections, removing only one face, one wall.
We will use these segments to create a simple window, a window for our light to shine through.
Using the viewport options, the second from the end, to rotate our new house 180 degrees revealing the back of the house where we will open a window and create a light shining in it.
In polygon mode, delete a segment creating a window on the top row of our house.
We want a light shining in our window, a streetlight perhaps.
Create a target light outside our house using your different perspective views and the viewport tools in the upper right hand of your stage to place a new area light shining in the window.
Let's render the work we have done at this point to provide a contrast to the global illumination we will add next.
Rotate your house back so we are looking from the front into the inside with our new window on the back wall.
You see a typically nice Cinema render but what you don't see is the back wall lit.
To add global illumination to your render, go into your render settings which can be found just to the left of your primitives menu with the cube icon.
The render 'family' of settings are shown on the top menu with a movie director's clapboard as an icon.
When you open your render settings the basic categories are displayed but underneath you will see an 'effect' option which presents more rendering options.
Open this 'effects' set and choose 'Global Illumination'.
For this exercise we can go with the defaults; this is a still image, the 'IR" (irradiance map) default.
Try your render now.
In this very simple exercise what you should see is the difference of partial lighting to see the back wall lit also.
It is so easy to turn off and on, you might want to render once, then turn off global, then render again.
To see an even better illustration with only one step, apply a material to our simple house.
Perhaps choose a brick or even better, a wood material which can be found with your content browser (far right, top icon menu), under the 'Prime->Materials-Basic' menu.
While this is a very basic introduction to the global illumination effect, it is easy to see how it immediately adds life and realism to your scene.
There are many ways to enhance this and use with other effects producing the kind of 'real life' appearance we associate with Cinema 4D creations.
The 'Advanced Rendering' module creates images and movies with objects you can reach out and touch.
Global Illumination is a companion to this remarkable rendering process with a stage viewing plane that is...
well..
illuminating.
For a little taste of just how much difference a little dose of Global Illumination can make, create a room for us.
Begin with a cube, enlarge to a comfortable viewing size for your PC and screen.
We are going to cut out a window so create an odd number of segments so we can delete one to make a window.
Make it editable entering the 'C' key or using the 'Make it Editable' menu icon on the upper left of the tools menu section.
Now, using the polygon tool, delete a wall by selecting, then deleting all the segments on one face.
Use the polygon tool and 'live selection' tool for this and be sure you have 'Only Select Visible Elements' checked for live selection.
You will use this check box a lot.
If you want to cut all the way through an object to completely divide, you will uncheck this option.
You want to cut the visible face and cut all the way through to the side you can't see.
However in this case we want to delete only the visible selections, removing only one face, one wall.
We will use these segments to create a simple window, a window for our light to shine through.
Using the viewport options, the second from the end, to rotate our new house 180 degrees revealing the back of the house where we will open a window and create a light shining in it.
In polygon mode, delete a segment creating a window on the top row of our house.
We want a light shining in our window, a streetlight perhaps.
Create a target light outside our house using your different perspective views and the viewport tools in the upper right hand of your stage to place a new area light shining in the window.
Let's render the work we have done at this point to provide a contrast to the global illumination we will add next.
Rotate your house back so we are looking from the front into the inside with our new window on the back wall.
You see a typically nice Cinema render but what you don't see is the back wall lit.
To add global illumination to your render, go into your render settings which can be found just to the left of your primitives menu with the cube icon.
The render 'family' of settings are shown on the top menu with a movie director's clapboard as an icon.
When you open your render settings the basic categories are displayed but underneath you will see an 'effect' option which presents more rendering options.
Open this 'effects' set and choose 'Global Illumination'.
For this exercise we can go with the defaults; this is a still image, the 'IR" (irradiance map) default.
Try your render now.
In this very simple exercise what you should see is the difference of partial lighting to see the back wall lit also.
It is so easy to turn off and on, you might want to render once, then turn off global, then render again.
To see an even better illustration with only one step, apply a material to our simple house.
Perhaps choose a brick or even better, a wood material which can be found with your content browser (far right, top icon menu), under the 'Prime->Materials-Basic' menu.
While this is a very basic introduction to the global illumination effect, it is easy to see how it immediately adds life and realism to your scene.
There are many ways to enhance this and use with other effects producing the kind of 'real life' appearance we associate with Cinema 4D creations.
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