Using the Cinema 4D Collision Deformer in a 2D Workflow Video Lecture | Create stunning 3D Graphics with Cinema 4D - 3D & Animation

everybody it's EJ from I design comm and
today I'm gonna be going over another
way to use the tools inside of cinema 4d
for a 2-d workflow so for those of you
that are used to working in After
Effects and are just trying to get into
cinema 4d and trying to learn what kind
of tools will help you in your workflow
this is what I'm gonna be going over
today so the the tool I'm going to be
going over is the collision deformer now
the collision deformer is is very very
useful it is a way to kind of fake soft
body dynamics get the same kind of soft
body collisions where things kind of
like squash and stretch and stuff like
that and that's exactly what I'm gonna
be demonstrating is using the collision
deformer to fake soft body collisions
and to create your own little squash and
stretch kind of animation so you can see
on the screen right now that I have
these two little dudes and the the
mallet comes down and smacks the one
over the head you can see that the the
the little little Mole guy gets kind of
squashed down and then he shakes it off
and he he kind of pops back to his
original form and that's all with the
collision deformer
so that's where I'm gonna be going
breaking down is how to use this and how
I use the collision deformer in my 2-d
workflow to do a little bit of squash
and stretch so let's go alright so here
is my scene and I have a hammer got my
little donkey kong mallet and we're
gonna squash this little this poor
little sphere here so again I'm always
looking out to see how we can use cinema
4d tools to really enhance and create
really two really cool 2d kind of
animations and stuff and things that if
you tried to do it in After Effects it
would take a lot longer than doing in
cinema 4d and a lot of cinema 4d tools
really lends itself to just trying to
keep everything you can possibly do for
2d style workflows and and everything to
just keep it inside of cinema 4d and and
this is one of those things
that if you wanted to have something
squash something else I mean the first
thing you'd probably go for is alright
well let's do soft bodies or something
like that but dynamics are kind of
tricky for someone that might not be
used to them if someone's coming from
after-effects or something else and not
totally used to how cinema 4d works but
what I'm going to be showing today is a
deformer that oh actually a combination
of deformers that I always like to use
in the main one that I'm going to be
going over is this collision deformer
now what a collision deformer does is it
allows a one object to collide into and
deform another object so it's very aptly
named and what I'm gonna do just to
demonstrate this is to get a de forma to
work you first need to figure out
alright which object you want to deform
and right now I want to squash this
little sphere right here so I'm gonna
make the collision deformer a child of
that sphere so now what's gonna happen
is you have this collision deform when
you have all of these options here so
under object you have fall-off so you
can actually control fall-off of how
this affects your object and restore
shape but the main one we need to go
over first is this colliders tab and
this is where you define what object you
want to collide into your object that
you have the collision deformer
apply to and so we actually need this
hammer this mallet to be the one that is
in this Collider solver so what we need
to do and actually what I'm gonna do is
just select this little mallet head this
little piece right here because that's
really all I need to actually collide
into the sphere so I'll go and drag and
drop that malla head object plays it
right into my solver and what you'll see
is when I actually if I hit play and
just kind of move the mallet down you'll
see that we got something going on we're
kind of squishing it a little bit and
it's kind of clinging to our mallet here
and it kind of looks really odd right
now but what we can do is go into our
colliders tab we have all these
different kind of
so right now it's just set to intersect
and that basically means that it'll look
at the inside and the outside of your
object to create this collision so
that's why when it gets close enough it
just kind of looks more like a water
droplet almost where it's kind of
coalescing to the like kind of fusing to
the mallet and that could be cool for
some effects so like if you want to do a
water drop type thing that could be kind
of cool but what I want to do is
actually squash it and what we can do to
do that and get that kind of effect is
we have these different types of solvers
if you're if you're trying to if you're
trying to Clyde in from inside objects
or outside of the objects and intersect
like I said just kind of works with both
but what we actually want to do is we
want our objects to collide and hit our
objects from the outside so inside is
like if something was inside that sphere
that was trying to push out like an
alien coming out of your stomach or
something like that like it would push
out of the stomach and that's really not
a really good imagery to have but that's
the first thing that came to mind but
anyways outside is what we're gonna need
to do to actually deform from the
outside so our mallet is on the outside
of the object and that's gonna smash it
down so we have two options here just
normal outside and outside volume and I
really like to use the outside volume
because it actually takes into account
that you are object if it has volume
like a sphere it will actually take that
into account and kind of have it stretch
or squash a little bit so I'm gonna take
my hammer again after choosing that
outside solver and you can see that now
as I push down on the mallet we're
getting a little bit of this nice kind
of squashing thing and you can see that
we're having a little bit of issue just
with how this is kind of working and
what we do to fix that is go into the
collision tab and we're going to go to
these Advanced Options here now the one
a few things that are important in here
is number one the size and what I'm
gonna do is just bring my hammer down so
we have a little bit of squash you can
actually see
what these options are doing as I tweak
them so this size here just defines how
much kind of space you have between the
collider object in the actual object
that's colliding into so you can see
we're giving it a little bit of buffer
there so we don't have any pixel or
pixels we don't have any polygons
colliding into each other so we're
getting this kind of like a barrier
growing so we're kind of like growing
this barrier between our two objects
here so that is pretty handy if you're
trying to avoid polygons overlapping or
anything like that or any kind of
intersection with any of your objects so
that's very important the steps just
kind of brings up how much steps how
much evaluations put a keyframe here so
it's a more precise kind of calculation
so just like with with dynamics if you
up the steps with dynamics number one
it's gonna be a more precise calculation
but number two you're also gonna slow
down your viewport here as you can see
but again you'll get a more accurate
result so you can see that we're kind of
getting a more accurate mmm thing going
on but we're still getting a little bit
of issue here in the mmm the thing to
keep in mind with this is that if your
object collides too far so you can see
that like right in the middle like
halfway down my sphere if it intersects
too much it'll just kind of get all
screwy so keep that in mind when you're
doing the collision deformer that you
want to try to go no more than like
halfway on an object so you can see
right here that we're really pushing it
and then all of a sudden once we go half
way through that object it just kind of
snaps back to its it just kind of snaps
through our geometry there so steps is
very important relax just kind of
relaxes the geometry more so you get a
little bit more fluctuation in how your
object kind of
wishes so let me get let me get to a
good point where my mallet actually is
kind of affecting the sphere and
squashing it a little bit and you can
see that we're kind of relaxing the
geometry of a little bit so more of our
objects kind of relaxing against the
mallet head there if we bring this down
to two you can see that it's much more
tight on our mesh it feels more tighter
and it's not really going up against and
conforming to the shape of that bottom
mallet as you would if you just increase
this relaxed value so you can play
around with that I think if value of
five is pretty good for that and stretch
is just how much stretching you want
going on over all of your polygons so
the more stretch the more kind of
ripples you'll you'll kind of get and
you can see right now that actually
mm-hmm it's making it squashy er so it's
almost like you give it more Springs or
more give to the object so you can see
that looks pretty good right now for
just for speeding up the viewport I'm
gonna bring down the steps here just so
we can speed this up you guys can see
what's going on so this looks pretty
cool with that stretch value you can
really see that we're getting this kind
of squash going on we're having a little
bit of issue at the bottom there and we
can actually let's try to fix what we
got going on here so the other type of
geometry if I go into my shading you can
see with that standard we have polygons
very close together or points very close
together at the bottom there so we're
getting that kind of point what we can
do is make it a little bit more uniform
and let's see what looks good here so
nice even I think that that might work
pretty good let's see yeah I think that
works a little bit better when we're
squashing here you can kind of play
I mean this is just because I'm using a
sphere but hopefully with with your
objects you'll have a little bit more
evenly spaced polygons and more smooth
polygons so actually I think this
hexahedron works pretty dang good so
there we go got a little bit of that
going on and you'll notice that we're
kind of getting this crumpling and you
can fix that with I'm going on my
collision here with the stiffness a
little bit so we're we're not getting
those pick polygons kind of crumpling
you know itself if we relax a little bit
that might fix it too and then again
probably adjust in the steps it's
probably a good idea to just so it's a
little bit more accurate simulation so
again of the reason why this is so cool
was the collision of former so cool is
that you don't have to run a dynamic
simulation it's a lot like the g-code
áformer where you kind of applied
dynamic soft body looking things to your
objects but then you can freely move
these objects around you know and even
have know if that yep we can actually
move this sphere and animate the sphere
jumping into the mallet so you can have
the have this thing actually jump into
the hammer there if you want to but with
dynamics you can't do that you need to
set your dynamics up press play and run
a dynamic simulation you really have no
control you can't keyframe dynamics
really you can only kind of try to
control the the dynamic forces the
real-time physics kind of calculations
but this collisions deformers a really
good way to do soft bodies and keyframe
at the same time so you're kind of
faking soft bodies and have full range
of motion on your objects and still get
this kind of soft body thing so speaking
of the jiggle deform or one of my
personal favorite deformers I'm gonna go
ahead and add and stack that on top of
our collision deform or so it's very
important how this stack works is you
want your collision to former to
calculate and then your jiggle deform
will come
after so make sure you apply your jig Oh
- former after the collision and then
what we'll do here is again press play
and see how the jig ODA former kind of
works here you can see that now we're
really getting this nice squashy jiggle
going on but again you're seeing that
kind of jagang is going on that's
actually due to the jig oda former and
the one thing you need to pay attention
to is the structural the structural will
try to maintain the polygon structure
and try to and that's why we're getting
this kind of deformation like that but
if we bring that structural all the way
down to zero it's not gonna try to have
all these Springs try to fold in on
itself we're gonna get a more solid kind
of objects and now you can see that
we're not getting that polygamous
crumpling going on we're just getting
this nice little squash and a little bit
of stretch going on because of the jig
Oh - former so that's really cool so we
can play around with all these different
type of values here the stiffness of
your object and if you want a little bit
of drag so you can see how that kind of
works their objects feels a little bit
more stiffer and there's more drag or
more friction there due to our jig Oh -
former action here and actually have a
tutorial about the jitter the jiggle -
former that I will post in the in this
tutorial comments section so you can
check that out as well I don't want to
go too in depth because our main guy is
this collision deformer here so the cool
thing about another cool thing about the
collision deformer is we can go to this
restore shapes you'll notice that when
an object collides into something else
it'll just go back to and restore its
shape but what if you want it to kind of
stay deformed based on that object that
ran into it and just kind of stay squash
so what we can do is actually we can do
that and we we just turned down this
restore shape and then we can go and use
this hammer and you'll see that BAM we
just squashed it and it stayed squashed
so that's all due to this restore shape
so if you have zero
person restore shape what's gonna happen
is you're gonna squash your object and
collide and deform your object and it's
just gonna stay that way but if you
actually just give it a little bit like
maybe 10% what you'll find is that
you'll squash it and it will slowly
return back to its shape and restore its
own shape so you can have a lot of fun
with that setting there and messing
around with the restore shape settings
can you see that kind of squashes and
then now it's kind of almost inflating
back up to its original state there so
again really really cool one thing
you'll notice though as you can see
we're still getting that kind of weird
jag enos all the polygon deformation
going on and what I like to do to smooth
that out is actually use a another
deform ER in that is the smoothing
deform and again we're gonna place this
in our deformers stack after the jiggle
and then what's that's gonna do is just
kind of smooth out our geometry based on
our options here so we can see if we
deform this we have a much smoother mesh
we don't have those little polygonal
jaggies anymore or anything like that
and this is the basics for that the gif
that I showed you off the top there
where I have a hammer slamming down but
the thing is with that one is I actually
keyframe the collision to former restore
shape so what am I gonna do that's
actually I'm gonna animate this guy so
let me actually let's see if I can do
some cappuccino here so cappuccino is
kind of a way to real-time create
keyframes and I have a tutorial on this
as well but what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna record the position scale and
rotation actually let's just do position
and what it's gonna do is when I hit
start real-time what its gonna do is
we're gonna record all the movements I
do in my viewport here so I'm gonna have
this come down and then go back up and
what that just did is it created
keyframes for all of those things which
is pretty cool and you can see it's a
little bit Jaggi what I can do what
sorry about that guys what I can do is
go into my timeline and I can stretch
that out a little bit and go to my keys
and let's see there is an option here to
smooth everything out where is it key
let's see maybe it's if I select all
these there is a key reducer right there
why won't you show up let's see okay so
we actually have to select the tracks
you can see that I'm doing this on the
fly but there's a key readers key
reducer and what I'll do is unfold all
of my keyframes there and what we can do
is just adjust and click in these values
and then I'll actually reduce the
keyframes in this will kind of smooth
everything out a little bit there as you
can see that we're kind of simplifying
our keyframes and smoothing everything
out so that's a really nice smooth track
there and what we can do is kind of soft
make everything soft and that's a little
bit of cappuccino and keyframe reduction
on the fly there I can post the more
in-depth tutorial on that in the
comments but you can see that alright
that's good enough but you can see that
we have it squashed and then what we're
gonna do is actually keyframe let me get
this cappuccino window out of the way
what I'm gonna do is keyframe that
restore shape so I'm going to slam the
hammer down it's gonna stay squashed
when I'm I hit stop and I set a keyframe
for restore state maybe go five key
frames ahead and then bring the restore
shape all the way up to a hundred and
what you'll notice is I'll hit play we
have the squash going on and then here
are our restore shape keyframes you can
see that our object kind of pop pop
right back into its space and it even
had a little bit of springiness due to
the J go to former so this is kind of
like a perfect
combination with the collision deformer
and then adding the jiggle on top of
that to create this nice overshoot and
like squash and stretch kind of
animation and then the smoothing deform
or just to smooth out all of our
geometry that does get deformed by that
collision deformer so with those three
things that's actually how I created the
animation that I showed off the top
where let me turn this off my little
dude down here and he's looking around
he gets smacked by the hammer and you
can see that I keyframed the the the
restore shape here so my little guy just
kind of pops and back into place after
he shakes his head and so very nice
cartoony kind of effect where something
gets hit and it stays squashed like that
stays deformed and then he shakes it off
he's a champ and he just goes back to
his original state there and that's all
again due to the collision deformer
restore shape keyframed we add a little
bit of jiggle to the collision so it's a
little bit more springy
kind of eased and eased out kind of
motions going on and then smooth out all
of our geometry by using this smooth the
former here and you can see that if you
smooth it out too much we got problems
but you only want to less-is-more kind
of thing with the the smoothing
deforming you see we still have a little
bit of jiggles there so you want to it's
a it's a it's a little balancing act you
have to pull here for this to look good
but this is also for for a little
capsule object here so you whatever you
wanted to form might be a little bit
different but at least you are equipped
with the knowledge to try to adapt this
all these collision to form or the
jigger to forma and the smoothing to
former to get what you get the kind of
look that you want so if you have any
questions leave them in the comments
just like I said if you try I really
encourage you to try this on your own
objects I really love seeing what you
guys come up with so post them on
Twitter hit me on
Twitter whatever wherever I am just post
your stuff show your work that's the
only way you'll get better is if you get
feedback and get see what you're doing
right see what you're doing wrong and
then grow from that so I really
encourage you to show you show
everything you're making try this on
your own work and have fun most of all
so again collision former really cool in
emulating and simulating kind of soft
body like stuff and that that'll do it
for me but thanks for watching and I'll
see you in the next tutorial bye guys