The basics: #1 The Cinema 4D Interface
Welcome to the first tutorial in our “the basics” series. This series of tutorials is designed to teach you the extreme basics of Cinema 4D and is a great way to learn Cinema 4D for everyone that has never used Cinema 4D before.
In this tutorial we will cover the Cinema 4D interface, we will go through all basic menu’s and button explaining what they are and how to use them. By the end of this tutorial it will be as if you have done online degrees or been to college to learn about this topic. We believe that you will have all the knowledge you need to go forward in your use of Cinema 4D.
Lets start by opening Cinema 4D, depending on the version of C4D you are using the interface should look something like this:
As you can see I have devided the Cinema 4D (or C4D) screen into different sections, I will now explain what these sections are.
1 – The Cinema 4D File menu
Almost all functions and things you can do with Cinema 4D can be access from these menus. However, there are many useful shortcuts that will save more time than using these menus.
2 – The Shortcut Buttons.
These buttons will help you access the things you will often use in Cinema 4D quickly, without having to go through the huge amount of menus in the upper menu.
- Undo
- Redo
- Live Selection Tool
- Move Tool, move your object around
- Scale Tool, used to scale the selected object in x, y and z direction
- Rotate Tool
- Restrict to X Axis
- Restrict to y Axis
- Restrict to z Axis
- Use World/Object coordinate system
- Render Active View, this quickly renders your scene so you can check how it looks
- Render in Picture Viewer
- Open Render Settings
- Add a Cube object (Hold down to get a drop down menu where you can select more primitives)
- Spline Drawing Tool (Hold downto get a drop down menu where you can select more Splines)
- Add a HyperNURBS object (Hold down to get a drop down menu where you can select more NURBS)
- Add an Array Object (Hold down to get a drop down menu where you can select more object holders)
- Add a Light Object (Hold down to get a drop down menu where you can select more light objects)
- Add a Bend Deformation (Hold down to get a drop down menu where you can select more Deformations)
- Add an emitter Object (Hold down to get a drop down menu where you can select more emitters)
- Selection Filter
- Filter, hide and unhide things from view
- Object browser, allows you to quickly load materials / previous projects
You will learn more about these tools as we go on. For now, just make sure you know the names of each of them.
You can also access all of these options from the Cinema 4D File Menu (1), however, these buttons are often faster.
3 – Edit and Selection
- Click to convert back to the default layout, or hold to load alternate layouts.
- Make the current object editable so it can be altered, you can also press “c” on your keyboard
- Enable Model Tool, you will now be able to move both your objects and the axis in your current view
- Enable Object Axis Tool, you can now only move your axis around, your objects will stay at there current location.
- Point Tool, allows you to select the different points on a object, so you can edit them.
- Edge Tool, allows you to select the different edges on a object, so you can edit them.
- Polygon Tool, allows you to select the different polygons on a object, so you can edit them.
- Mode Tool, changes modes, hold to select different modes. For example in Auto Switch mode C4D will switch between point, edge and polygon tools automatically.
- Texture Tool
- Texture Axis Tool
- Object Tool
4 – View controls
These Control the current view. They are as follows:
- Move: hold this and move the mouse to move up/down or strafe left/right.
- Zoom: Hold the zoom button and move your mouse to zoom in or out of selected object, you can also use your mouse scrollbar for this
- Rotate: Hold and rotate your mouse to move around the selected object
- Window: Click this to switch from 1 view mode (for example the (x,y) plane), to the 4 way view, showing all 2d planes and the general 3d view.
You might have an hard time moving around your objects at first, but once you got these under control you will love it and use it often. Practice, practice practice!
5 – Object Manager
In the Object Manager everything in your current scene will be listed, for example objects, lights and floors.
With the object manager you can delete, nest, modify, select and do almost anything with your objects. By dragging a material onto your objects the material will be added here, so you can edit and delete it when needed.
6 – Attribute Manager
From here you can change the different attributes of your selected object.
For example when you have selected a cube, here you can change the size, name and much more.
Which attributes are available here depends strongly on the selected items.
As you can see on your left I have selected a Light Object, in the attribute manager you can change the light settings, such as do you want shadows, how strong should the light be, what color etc.
You can use the tabs on top to flip between different pages with options, don’t feel scared, you will probably never used most of them!
7 – Animation Manger
From here you can manage your animations, we won’t go into detail about this here.
8 – Material Manager
In the Material Manager you can open or create materials and shaders. All the materials you have loaded into your current project are listed here, double click on one to edit it.
You can apply the materials listed here onto your objects by dragging them onto the object inside the object viewer or the object manager.
9 – Coordinate Manager
The Coordinate manager allows you to precisely place, modify and rotate your objects. For example you want to move the center of your object to the coordinates (x=100, y=-100, z=400), you can do this in the coordinate manager!
Thats all for now, I hope you now understand the layout of Cinema 4D better, when you are just starting you will get lost looking for options many times, but don’t worry you can always go back to this tutorial to see where you can find certain tools.
My advice is to just play around with Cinema 4D, check out every option yourself to see how they work and where you can use them for, thats in my opinion the best way to quickly learn C4D.
And don’t be discouraged, you will probably never use most of the functions that Cinema 4D has anyway!
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Comments (49)
nice information thank you
thanks for starting … i hope ASAP this site be the best one
I have already written the next 2 lessons and I will write 2 more. (I will publish one every week)
If you want a certain subject to be discussed in the “the basics” series please let me know.
After that I will start working on some more advanced tutorials!
MORE TUTORIALS PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!
hello dude
(( can you please let us know how we can design water splash with c4d and also i like to know more about v-ray
we are still waiting for more tutorial….
Thank you
[...] use this tool to improve or achieve other effects in their work, with fabulous results. This Tuturial helps to understand the interface of the C4D for those who start in this new world. Who want to [...]
[...] Tutorial Link [...]
[...] the basics: #1 The Cinema 4D Interface [...]
Thanks a million for your time and dedication.
im new to cinema 4,,this is very helpful..
thks a lot
Thanks a lot for your job, great
thanks somuch for sharing this starter tutorial, i need to learn it from the very beginning
What happened to the other issuesS!! we want moree please they’re just excellent
THNXS aLOT….this really helful…^_^
This is a great tutorial, thanks.
I’m restarting with my Cinema4D, haven’t touched it for almost a year now, so this tutorial
was really coming handy.
Wow this is great! Thanks!!
very precise tutorial
Thank you so much for the elaborate starting points. It is indeed very helpful for newbie like me.
Thanks God I found this site! Keep it up!!!
[...] (version release 11) the first time and because blogs are fantastic, take a look at this great basic interface tutorial. It describes the most important buttons you will need. After reading this tutorial I played around [...]
Its great and good please more tuts
Thanks
thank you so much, but please help with this, i cant find the file menu.
how to display it please?
Wow, brilliant thanks!!!!!!!!!!
Awesome work, +++++++
sir i nee Cinema 4D software pls help me
@Jasper –
Please make tut about shortcuts, or any faster workflow in c4d.
ty
Iam new to cinema 4 d,,this is very helpful ,
Thanks
Thank you for explaining the screen step by step.All I am used to getting is some guy flying his mouse around at warp 10,and then telling you how EASY it is to use.
@Jasper –
I would love to see a tutorial where you create a render from start to finish of a simple object. Just pick something really basic like a cardboard box with the lid folded open and write a tutorial about the steps required.
- modeling the box
- unwrapping the box
- creating the materials and textures for a good looking box and apply them to the model (show me everything, not just to slap a texture on the box but all the details to get me a nice, dirty ,scratched up box)
- set up the lighting to properly display the box
- simple rendering techniques, for instance rendering the box against a nice white display background with a shadow
There’s so many generic tutorials showing really specific topics when all people need is one basic tutorial on how to create something from start to finish. Frankly I’m far more interested in learning how to create a simple thing like a low poly airplane or a box and learning how to get it done from start to finish than to say create a fancy car using a blueprint.
Show me how to do that and I can apply the same knowledge to any number of projects, then I’m ready to dive into the specific stuff.
Great Job of explaining the layout.
Clear and precise
Its very worth tutorial, I learned something on this. I am new to cinema 4D, trying to learn something for my motion works. cheers!!
Thanks!
thank you it’s useful
[...] Cinema 4D Tutorial- Basic Interface [...]
[...] http://cinema4dtutorials.com/basics/cinema-4d-interface-tutorial/ [...]
Esta xelente ste tutorial, sobretodo para los que somos mas novatos gracias
Thank you so much for making this, It has helped me a lot starting out with cinema 4d
thanks. great job. more power!!!
thanks my program sinema 4d
i m new in cinema 4d and trying to make a bright future with photoshop and 3-d with cinema 4d starting is good thanks pls give me more tut . thanks again.
Hi
I’m an “advanced” 3DSM user and I’m experiencing with Cinema 4D, is there a shortcut (character on keyboard) to switch easily between point – edge & polygon type of selection ?
Instead of clicking on the corresponding symbol
Thanks
Very good !
very help full for learing c4d .
[...] The Cinema4D Interface Tutorial. [...]
[...] to the second tutorial in the “the basics” series. In the previous tutorial you have learned the basics of the Cinema 4D [...]
Thank you for posting this awesome site. I am taking a 3D online course and struggling. I’ve searched the internet for books, tutorials and other help. THIS is the help I was looking for, just basic rules for Cinema 4D. This is so helpful!
hey thanx for the great basics!! very helpful!
Thx a lot for this tutorial,,very helpful to learn more about c4d,, love cinema 4d
Great tutorials! congratulations.
Thanks for sharing ideas