The Cinema 4D XL Handbook with CDROM (Graphic Series) [Paperback]

Adam Watkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2001 | ISBN-10: 1584500395 | ISBN-13: 978-1584500391 | Edition: Bk&CD-Rom

Cinema 4D XL v.6 (Windows and Macintosh) is a "Jack-Of-All-Trades" 3D graphics program that provides excellent image quality, fast workflow and rendering, and it's completely customizable. Users can create broadcast logos (as seen in popular television shows such as "Will & Grace"), special effects, (seen in "Gladiator" and "Inspector Gadget"), medical and architectural illustrations, multimedia graphics, and more. This program is used throughout the world and is the primary application in a number of computer graphics programs at universities and training facilities. The "Cinema 4D XL Handbook" provides the growing user base of C4D with a definitive guide and resource. It takes a project-based approach by providing creative solutions to a variety of graphics issues and techniques, and includes new practical ways to implement the numerous tools and vast power of C4D. The text includes: tutorials using BodyPaint 3D and C4D Net; a comprehensive guide to using Cinema 4D in specific graphic applications from broadcast logos to special effects; a variety of tutorials in modelling, character modelling, animation, and more; and tips and tricks from expert C4D users. The companion CD-ROM includes colour images, demos of Cinema 4D products, and tutorial support files.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Adam Watkins is the Director of Computer Arts at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. He has a BFA in theatre set and lighting design, and an MFA in graphic design from Utah State University. He is also the author of 3D Animation: From Models to Movies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 546 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; Bk&CD-Rom edition (August 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584500395
• ISBN-13: 978-1584500391
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,395,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Informational content, incomplete, vague tutorials, January 13, 2002

By 

J. Julian "banterer" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cinema 4D XL Handbook with CDROM (Graphic Series) (Paperback)

Let me preface this with an apology for any spelling errors, I am not spell checking this.

I am new to the 3d world but not in any way new to tutorials and technical writing. While the author clearly has a command of the program, I have to disagree with the other reviews that praise the tutorials.

The book is a valuable resource but leaves out much needed information for almost every tutorial I have gone through in the book [I am just about to end Chapter 10]. All of the figures and or diagrams meant to explain or supplement the text are in black and white and small. For example: the double knife cuts that he refers to for the car model tutorial all appear as single cuts in tiny b/w pics so unless one knows to look at the corresponding pics on the CD, one would never know where and which double knife cuts he is referring to. Therefore much of the needed details are lost in almost every picture. In order to use the pictures one must look at the pictures on the CD to see them in color and zoom in to see the settings of the dialog boxes or the cuts he is referring to.

Many of the files referenced in the book that should be on the CD are simply not although I think the publisher has some of the files ready to be downloaded from their site. I think the more recent books are supposed to have an updated cd. Some cases in point would be the automobile sketches, sketches of the character head and the chandelier in the lighting tutorial.

Very few of the tutorials when completed can possibly look like the book because the author [or the tutorial authors] constantly uses relative terms like "extrude these polygons inward towards the interior of the car three times, by just slivers each time" or as in the lighting chapter "...the Outer Distance should be very large". The tutorials would be much more useful if the parameters were to be fully explained but this does not happen. So not only does one not know how large is large and small is small, there are so many permutations and combinations of some of the parameters [many of which are not clearly spelled out] that unless one keeps a careful log of the trial and error needed to reproduce the look of the tutorial - it is sometimes impossible to know when you are learning how to use a particular tool or type of light.

The character head tutorial makes it a point to tell the reader how important it is to determine the least amount of essential subdivisions and how to do it - drawing vertical lines on the frontal sketch at certain key points. It gives a fairly good written description of how to do it. It then goes into how many lines to put and where to put them BUT FAILS TO PROVIDE A PHOTO TO SHOW YOU WHAT A PROPERLY SUBDIVIDED FACE LOOKS LIKE. Again,a photo depicting what was described in writing would go a long way to aiding the student in future projects but alas, one has to figure it out on their own, never really knowing and only hoping their interpretation of the description was a correct one.

The author sometimes assumes the reader's knowledge of photoshop. The top of page 247 is an effort to explain how to create a bump texture for a floor. "...The process show in Figure 8.19 is building a final bump map by, drawing over the color map, and then deleting the color layer." Figure 8.19 is three images of the floor. These images have no captions no descriptions and no photoshop palettes in view. Take a look at those three images and see if you can "divine" a process from them without knowing photoshop.

While I am not discounting the importance of user exploration and experimentation, these tutorials do not have enough information. The information that is missing prevents a smooth "flow" and neccesitates trial and error in the very midst of the tutorial. The constant "searching" for the meaning of "large", "thin" or "close" completely defeats the purpose of a tutorial.

Again, the book presents many good concepts that I would not have learned elsewhere or would take months to learn some other way [if at all]. The problem with the book is that the author did not recognize exactly what tutorials are for and therfore did not take the time to put the information needed for the reader to be able to go through them smoothly. I understand that exact values may not encourage experimentation but ranges would. NO VALUES LEAVE READERS CLUELESS AS TO WHERE TO START OFF AND WHERE TO END UP.

Buy the book and get what you can out of it but do not expect to be happy when going through the tutorials.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Author - Please Improve this book!!, October 15, 2003

By 

DAVID HUGHES (READING, BERKSHIRE United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cinema 4D XL Handbook with CDROM (Graphic Series) (Paperback)

* Note: Would the author of this book please take note to the following!!

I have started reading this book, but I am already finding it time consuming and non-efficient. As a designer, I have used countless manuals. Comparing this to a friends Lightwave 7 manual I have these things to say:

* although the book has information to relate, it does so badly. Points are not set out in the text, and tutorials are not taken through in steps (rather, a mass of info). The tutorials and general text are waffly and badly written. The author should have written in a concise, informative, bullet-point style format. Also, it would help to have helpful hints at side of text - in margin.

* Pictures are B/W and appaling

* The book starts relatively well, but when it gets to tutorial in 3rd chapter, the author gets really lazy and does not explain in-between steps and wastes readers time!

If you are to buy this book, be sure to have plenty of time on your hands and a highlighter!!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A helpful guide for those of us just beginning C4D, December 1, 2002

By 

Bob Nolin (Bethel Park, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Cinema 4D XL Handbook with CDROM (Graphic Series) (Paperback)

Cinema 4D has a reputation as the world's best 3D package that no one has heard of. But it is also known as one of the easiest to learn. This is in large part due to the intelligent design of the interface. C4D is at least as deep a product as Photoshop, however, and you are not going to learn how to use it by just clicking buttons. You need a hands-on tutorial type of book. Well, maybe you don't, but I sure do! And this book is only one of two about C4D written in English. (C4D is a German product.) So I was relieved to find that this book is as helpful as it is. Otherwise I'd need to learn German, and fast! The book covers most of the basics quite well. There is a project that continues throughout, which you work on more as you learn something new. In addition, there are three (for some reason) tutorials on creating a human head. This seemed a bit much, personally. I would've liked to see more on textures and lighting.

I agree somewhat with others' comments that the tutorials can be vague. And the screenshots, which look great on the CD-included PDF files (250 extra pages worth), look simply awful in the book. They are small, low-contrast, grey, and sometimes impossible to make out. This is the book publisher's fault, I'd guess, not the author's. Luckily, the author has included every single screenshot on the CD. Makes me think he was doing his best to make a bad situation better. Charles River Media could learn a lot from Peachpit's Quickstart Guides.

If you are new to 3D and/or C4D, I'd highly recommend this book. There is hardly any information available on the Internet about C4D...yet. But my guess is, this product is going to leave its competitors in the dust. Maxon has just released version 8, and it SMOKES. I think this is a product worth learning, and this book is the place to start. I hope Mr. Watkins does a revision for R8.