Customer Reviews

CINEMA 4D 10 Workshop

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Arndt von Koenigsmarck has long been known within the Cinema4D world, and for good reason. This fact has never been more evident than now, within each page of his new book, Cinema 4D 10 Workshop. It is based on his years of experience as a trainer and beta tester for Cinema4D along with being the CEO of his own company, Vreel 3D Entertainment. You can feel his enthusiasm in the development and use of his limited edition "PhotoMatch" plug-in--a C4D plug-in for integrating 3D with images--included for free in the CD-Rom which accompanies the book. This is a development that is in use in many studios already.

The content in the book follows the concept that it is not a replacement for the manual, but more a book to understand the importance of modeling skills and the use of different tools to achieve certain targets in C4D, in terms of lightning, texturing and modeling techniques. He describes a clear way through the main elements of 3D, with a huge amount of animation that finally fulfills the term "4D" (3D + time). It also gives a view to getting started with the new Joint tools in Release 10.

If one wanted to create a 3D car, for fun or to put in a portfolio, Arndt von Koenigsmarck guides you through the master challenge of creating a complete car.

This book is not only for starters or intermediate users. 3D is an area where you never stop learning. Each book can contain the solution to a problem, close a little gap in knowledge and save time. This book can contribute to closing those gaps-- and to using the full potential of Cinema4D. Even the short introduction of BodyPaint 3D gives a respectable start in one of the main applications that, for example, Sony-Pictures has used in their production pipeline for some time (Open Season, Monster House, etc).

Release 10 is a greatly improved version and the use of this book will come in handy, more than often. Over the years I have had many books in my hand from Arndt von Koenigsmarck (mostly the German releases), this book is a result of a long relationship with Cinema4D and it shows. My opinion, as a 3D Instructor of Cineversity, the PXC and, finally, also as a user of C4D for over a decade: don't miss this content.

Dr. V. "Sassi" Sassmannshausen
Los Angeles, California.

I've used Cinema4D for a little more than two years, long enough to know some of the basics, not long enough to be expert.

This book made me apprehensive, because I knew the original manuscript was written in German, and foreign language translations to English are sometimes awkward. In this case, my apprehensions were not well-founded.

The translation in this book is superb, English is clear, and difficult concepts are explained lucidly and without extra verbiage. The author's skills with his subject matter are well-known, so the combination of Arndt's deep understanding and the clear explanation makes a formidable result.

I wish I had this book when I started. I'm fortunate to have it now.

Right now this is the only book I can find on vs 10 and it's valuable. However, I have to say the language is awkward and the descriptions of the steps in the tutorials must be read a few times because the information sometimes does not flow from one paragraph to another. For example, a paragraph titled "Rounding Edges" discusses "this tool" which is not identified as the Bevel tool until 3 paragraphs later. The mode necessary for this tool is not identified, but sometimes it's fun to sleuth these things out.

The screenshots are very difficult to see. Some of this is due to the thin blue or red lines being hard to see on the gray viewport - too bad there isn't a fix for this. The screenshots of the menus are often inexcusably small - a magnifying glass helps.
Compared to Tony Alley's crisp tutorials in "3D Modeling with Cinema 4D R9" these are difficult, but Konigsmarck's book contains more than 5 times the information and is about the current version. Alley's screenshots are excellent and appear to have been modified so they can be seen, but he only has a fraction of the screenshots Konigsmarck does. Konigsmarck does have a nice way of explaining why he's using various tools and is obviously an expert.

When I first downloaded a demo version of C4D, I felt pretty confused...until I also downloaded a sample of this book.

It's clearly written, logically organized, and seems to anticipate all my questions before I ask them. This is one of the best books on anything computer-related that I've ever seen.

..i'm giving up on this book, somewhere around page 50. I have been, and still am, thrilled to learn 3D, but this book is ruining the fun. Translation is a mess, screenshots are too small and the (only) tutorial i've done so far left me frustrated a lot of times.

Sentences like "There are not enough points only at the lower end" are confusing, and if you add to that unreadable screenshots and non-foolproof tutorials, then, well, it sort of ends for me. I actually got pretty far with modelling the G5 Mac, but considering the pace i will be old and gray by the time i'll finish the darn book.

Moving on.

cheers, ronald

Im a motion graphics designer and decided to upgrade my knowledge using 3D and found out that Cinema 4D is easy to use. I tried and downloaded several tutorials in the internet and most of them are very helpful and I learned the basics in Cinema 4D. However, there are some aspects of this tool that is quite hard to find in the web (advance topics)and so I decided to purchase a book.

I found this book and I was quite disappointed in several of its projects/tutorials. The steps are not well-written. Usually, most of them are shortcuts, it doesn't give you the step-by-step procedure on how to accomplish a task. Perhaps, if you're an advanced user of Cinema 4D you would understand it, but if you're a beginnner, then you would have a hard time accomplishing the projects.

Now Im planning to buy another cinema 4d book the one written by anne powers.I hope that this one would be really helpful and easy to understand.

I bought this book based on my experience with other books I already own from the same author and was again pleasantly surprised. The lessons are easy to follow and the book gives a comprehensive overview of the new features in Cinema 4D 10.
Especially cool is the included PhotoMatch plugin which lets you combine photos with a 3D scene by transferring the camera settings used in the photo to the 3D camera in the scene. Awesome!!!!

Although the tutorials are very good, they are very hard to follow, there are no numbered tutorials, they are made in paragraphs, so you find yourself reading an entire paragraph which at the end you already know.
Some important little details are sometimes forgotten so you spend a long time going back and experimenting until your result looks like the result in the book.

Being 3D such a complex subject, many authors prefer not to go very deep to avoid scaring readers. If you just want to use 3d software to produce simple mock-ups, plain logos and rustic prototypes, probably books like Tony Alley's 3D Modeling with Cinema 4d are a better choice.

But if your expectation is to produce realistic, photo quality stuff, then, C4D Workshop is the way to go. In a very Germanic manner, the author goes through every parameter found in the Cinema 4D menus. He shows tons of screen captures and presents projects that are real world oriented. You can have a good grasp of how this 3D thing works.

That said, it is lamentable that a respectful publish house like Focal Press can print such a badly edited volume. There are missing paragraphs, wrong numbers, bad syntax and every flaw that can result from lazy editing. The good news is that struggling to overcome the difficulties of the text, the reader learns a lot about the topic. If he or she doesn't get some severe brain damage in the process.

The next edition desperately will need a revision. And those of us, who had spent a fair amount of bucks purchasing Cinema 4 D Workshop, would be very pleased with an errata.

Even though the book is chock-o-full of images and screen captures, it fails at accomplishing its most basic mission: clearly explain how to improve your skills in C4D. Not because it doesn't provide explanations, it does... the issue is that "decoding" what the german author wanted to say in english is so cumbersome and frustrating, I can guarantee you that you won't be able to finish one single exercise without having to go online and finding more resources to expand on something or to try to actually understand that one line of text that happens to be critical to finish the exercise you might be working on.