Exploring 3D Modeling with CINEMA 4D R19: A Beginner’s Guide

CINEMA 4D R19

Welcome to the latest version of CINEMA 4D. In any 3D computer graphics application, the first thing you see is interface. Interface is where you view and work with your scene. The CINEMA 4D's interface is intuitive and highly customizable. You can make changes to the interface and then save multiple interface settings using the Layout feature. You can create multiple layouts and switch between them easily.

CINEMA 4D Interface Elements

You can start CINEMA 4D by using one of the following methods:

•Double-click on the CINEMA 4D icon on the desktop

•Double-click on a CINEMA 4D scene file

•Clicking CINEMA 4D entry from the Start menu

•Dragging a .c4d file from Windows Explorer to the program icon

•Running it from Command Prompt

•Running CINEMA 4D Lite from the After Effects

When you first time open CINEMA 4D, you are presented with the UI, as shown in Fig. 1. I have labeled various elements of the interface using numbers. The following table summarizes the main UI elements.

The CINEMA 4D interface is highly configurable. You can dock and undock windows in the main window. When you move a docked window, the surrounding windows are resized automatically. You can also display windows as tabs to save the screen real-state. You can define the arrangements of elements as layouts and freely switch between them. The fastest way to switch between the layouts is the Layout drop-down [labeled as 6 in Fig. 1] located on the top-right corner of the interface. See Video: m1vid-01.mp4.

Let's explore various components of the CINEMA 4D interface.

Title Bar

The title bar is the first element of the interface and located at the top of the UI. It displays name and version of the software as well as the name of the currently opened file.

Menubar

The menubar is located below the tile bar. It hosts almost all important commands, tools, and functions that CINEMA 4D offers. You can tear-off a menu [or sub-menu] from the menubar by clicking on the corrugated line located at the top of the menu or sub-menu [see Fig. 2].

Standard Palette

The Standard palette is located below the menubar and it hosts various tools, commands, and groups of commands. Some of the icons on the palette have a black triangle on the bottom-right corner that indicates a folded group of tools/commands.

To access the folded group of commands, hold LMB on the icon and then choose the desired command from the displayed flyout. The following table summarizes the tools available in the Standard palette:

Note: Highlighting and Selections

The selected objects are surrounded by an orange outline. If you hover the mouse over objects in the editor view, a white outline appears on the objects underneath the mouse pointer. If you are using a graphics card that is not supported by CINEMA 4D, these highlights will not appear. In case you have a supported graphics card and highlights are not appearing, you need to enable the Enhanced OpenGL option. You can access this option from the Options menu of the MEV menubar.

Tools Palette

The Tools palette is the vertical toolbar located on the extreme left of the standard interface. It contains various tools. The following table summarizes these tools: