I created this animation in Cinema 4D and After Effects.

Music: PIMO – Supamusic

I’d like to show you how I went about creating the laser etching effect and the chain magnet. I have broken them down into 2 separate videos, as one long video could get quite long. I have also included the original Cinema 4D project file to download. You can find a link at the bottom of this post.

The Laser Cutter

The Chain Magnet

Conclusion and Files

I hope these video tutorials will be of use to those who are unfamiliar with the information outlined in each. I apologize for the length of each one, but felt it was necessary to show the detail. Please feel free to download the original project file here:
Logo Animation Project

If you have any questions about the animation, feel free to email me or post in the comments below!

Thanks and God Bless!

Reorderable/Multiple Layer Styles

If I could choose just one feature to add to Photoshop, this would be it. The ability to have multiple layer styles on a single layer would help tremendously. Being able to add multiple Gradient overlays with varying settings, could really add some cool effects to layers.

Being able to reorder layer styles would also be huge. I don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to have both a gradient and a pattern overlay on the same layer.

UPDATE: More Information on this Topic

Swap width/height in New Document dialog

There have been numerous times that I have wanted to quickly swap the width and height of a document size without having to retype the values. This simple addition would save a few clicks.

Layer thumbnail updates with layer style

It would be nice to have the option to see layer thumbnails after a layer style has been applied. There are times when I can’t find a layer right away because I’m looking at the thumbnails and forgot I added a layer style to it.

Define patterns into a particular set

It’s very frustrating when defining a pattern without being able to place it into the group or set that you want. It just places it into the group you used last. Being able to do it when you define the pattern would save some headache.

Keyboard shortcut to add layers BELOW other layers

This may already be possible but I haven’t found it yet. When making a new layer, it would sometimes be nice to have them show up below the currently selected layer, instead of above it. In most PSD’s, I like to work left to right and I like to order my layers from top to bottom respectively. Something easy like Ctrl clicking the New Layer button would be simple enough.

UPDATE: So apparently you can add layers below other layers just by holding command and pressing the New Layer button!

Editable corner radius for Rounded Rectangle Tool

When drawing a rounded rectangle, sometimes it’s a guessing game when trying to figure out the corner radius. When initially creating the shape, it would be nice to be able to edit the radius in real-time.

UPDATE: More Information on this Topic

Rounded Rectangle Marquee Tool

I’d have to say this is pretty low on the totem, but sometimes it would be nice to have a Rounded Rectangle Marquee Tool. I find myself needing it less and less as I have used the Rounded Rectangle tool to suit my needs.

Blur & Noise Adjustment Layers

As a web designer I like to add a little noise to some of my projects…sometimes even some blur. It would be nice to have a non-destructive way to quickly add noise that you can adjust if need be. It gets a bit tedious when adding noise and later on realize that I didn’t have enough or too much and have to delete the layer and do it again.

UPDATE: This can be done using Smart Filters on Smart Object layers
UPDATE 2: More Information on this Topic
UPDATE 3: Even More Information on this Topic

Repeat Edge Pixels on blur filters

This one’s a no-brainer. After Effects already has this feature. When applying a blur to a layer in Photoshop, the edges receive less blur than the center. In After Effects there’s an option to Repeat Edge Pixels, which gives the layer an equal amount of blur throughout. Photoshop needs this same functionality.

Option to turn off rounding on Outside Stroke Layer Style

If you have a layer that is a square, and apply a stroke layer style on the outside, the corners will be rounded. It would be nice to have the option to disable rounded corners. If you apply a stroke to the inside of a layer, the corners will not be rounded. Again, it would be nice to turn on rounded corners in this case.

UPDATE: More Information on this Topic

Show file name on “Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar”

I often time use the “Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar” layout and sometimes forget if I saved the file or not. It would be nice to see the file name with an asterisk next to it somewhere in the Photoshop header so we can see the saved/unsaved status of the file.

Drag layers between projects with grouped windows

When you have two projects open and grouped into one window, you should be able to drag layers across each document. It’s frustrating to have to ungroup each project into a separate window to drag layers from one project to another.

UPDATE: Just discovered this can be done with the Move Tool.

Crop keyboard shortcut & crop selected layer

A quick way to crop is to drag a marquee selection and select Crop from the Image menu. I do this so much that I created my own keyboard shortcut for this. I think the Crop function should have a shortcut by default, as it’s commonly used. Another feature that would be nice is to only crop the currently selected layer instead of the the entire project. Although another option would be to just select Inverse and press Delete…hmmm.

Copy/Paste layer masks to other layers

It would be very nice to be able to copy and paste layer masks. Right now, from what I know, you have to duplicate the layer containing the mask, drag the layer mask from the copied layer to the desired layer, then delete the copied layer. A simple copy/paste function would save some time.

UPDATE: Press the Opt key then drag the mask to the layer you want the mask duplicated to (dragging moves the mask)

Drag + copy layer style keyboard shortcut

There should be a quicker way to copy/paste layer styles. It would be nice to be able to drag the “FX” icon to another layer while pressing Ctrl and a little “+” icon shows up next to your cursor indicating that you’re copying the layer style.

UPDATE: Press the Opt key then drag the effect/style to the layer you want the effect/style duplicated to (dragging moves the effect style)

Drag “leading” amount for character starts at auto

When you have a multi-line paragraph of text and you want to adjust the line height other than auto, you just drag the Leading icon in the character menu. It’s frustrating when you want to adjust the line height slightly from what the auto amount is, because it starts at 0. It would be nice that when you start dragging, it starts from what the default auto amount was. I’m sure this same functionality could apply for any of the values in the Character dialog.

Adjust Hue/Saturation of entire gradients

It would be nice to be able to adjust the Hue and Saturation of entire gradients rather than trying to adjust each color stop separately. There are times when I just need to adjust the brightness and darkness as well and it would be much quicker with a slider of some sort.

Direct Selection Tool – Shape Layer within a Shape Layer

This seems like more of a bug than a feature, but when I try to select a shape layer within another shape layer, it always tries to select the outermost shape layer. This is very frustrating and there should be an option to lock the selection of points to the selected layer using the Direct Selection Tool.

Per-line Layer Styles for multiline text block

If we have a text block with two or more lines, it would be nice to be able to apply layer styles to each line of text individually. For example, sometimes I have a text block with five lines and I want to apply a gradient. Instead of the gradient flowing through the entire block of text, it would be great to apply the gradient to each line of text. The only workaround is the make each line of text its own layer with a layer style.

Conclusion

Well, I know it’s a somewhat long wish list but these are all things that would save time in the long run. Some of my hoped-for features are smaller on the priority list, while others would be nice to have in the next Photoshop update. Let me know what you think by leaving your comments below! I’ll gladly add to this list if it’s something that most users would want. Like I said, I plan to submit it to Adobe in hopes to see some of these features in a future version of Photoshop!

One problem with 3ds max is that it is a Windows-Only package. After waiting almost three years for Autodesk to hopefully port it to the Mac, I decided it would probably never happen. Don’t get me wrong, I love 3ds max’s modeling tools…I think 3ds max has an edge over Cinema in this area. Cinema, however does contain a few tools I think are better than 3ds max. For example, the material editor and the physics engine inside Cinema. I’m writing this article to hopefully make it easier for people who are in the same boat as me…switching from 3ds max to Cinema 4D.

Reversed Orbit

If you’re using a version of Cinema prior to release 13, the first thing you’ll probably notice when navigating the viewport is that the orbit/navigation is reversed. To fix this, open up the Cinema’s Preferences under the Edit menu and select “Navigation” on the left. Notice the “Reverse Orbit” option. Go ahead and select that to match how you were used to moving around within the viewports in 3ds max. Please note that in release 13, it is now defaulted to deselected and works the same way as 3ds max.

Cinema 4D R13 - Reverse Orbit

Keyboard Shortcuts

One of the great things about Cinema 4D is that you can customize its interface and keyboard shortcuts so that it is fairly similar to that of 3ds max. A few of the big ones I used fairly often was switching between Select, Move, Rotate and Scale. In 3ds max, it was Q, W, E and R respectively. It’s easy to set up this same functionality in Cinema 4D. In Release 13 of the top menu, go to Window → Customization → Customize Commands. In release 12 and earlier, go to Window → Layout → Command Manager. Then find the functions in the list and assign a new keyboard shortcut to them and click Assign.

Under the Editable Poly modeling mode of 3ds max, I always thought it was easy to switch from Vertex, Edge, Border, Polygon and Element sub-object modes using the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 keys. You can also set this up with matching keyboard shortcuts using the above method.

The same goes for any other tools (Extrude, Connect, Weld, Cut, etc). Find the option you’re looking for in the Command Manager and assign them new keyboard shortcuts.

Customized keyboard shortcuts are saved to a file called c4d_shortcuts.res. You’ll find this inside your Cinema 4D install directory → resource → res.

Cinema 4D R13 - Customize Commands Dialog

Here are a few other keyboard shortcuts in Cinema 4D that you may find useful when switching from 3ds max:

C – Make Editable (Convert to Editable Poly)
Enter – Cycles through Sub-Objects (Points, Edges, Polygons)
K – Knife Tool (Cut Tool)
D – Extrude
O – Focus on Object
S – Frame Selected Element (Zoom Extents Selected)
H – Frame all Geometry within the Scene (Zoom Extents)

N~G – Wireframe, meaning press ‘N’ first and then ‘G’
N~B – Gouraud Shading (Lines) (Smooth + Highlights)

Modeling Tools

In Cinema 4D a few of the modeling tools work a bit differently. Here are a few of the common ones I used frequently.

Extruding Edges

In 3ds max, an easy way to create new polygons was to select an edge, hold down Shift on the keyboard and then move the transform gizmo (x,y,z) in the direction you wanted in order to form a new polygon. Unfortunately for release 12 users of Cinema, this functionality is not possible. But release 13 makes this possible using the Control key. Select an edge you want to extrude, hold down Control, then move the axis in the direction you want new geometry, and Bam! you have a new polygon.

If you’re using version 12 of Cinema, the only way to extrude edges is with the Extrude function. Make sure the offset is set to 0 in the Attributes Manager, then use the Move tool to position the edge to the desired position.

Target Weld and Weld Selected

Another powerful tool in 3ds max is Target Weld. With this, you’re able to select a vertex and drag it onto an adjacent vertex and it will instantly merge the two together to create a single vertex. You can do this in Cinema as well. Select a vertex, enable the Weld tool, hold down Control, then click and drag the selected vertex to an adjacent vertex. There you have it…vertex weld.

To weld multiple points in Cinema 4D, use the “Optimize” command. You can adjust the tolerance, (or weld threshold/proximity) in the dialog that comes up.

Connect

If you’re familiar with the Connect tool in 3ds max, you’ll know that you can select two or more adjacent edges and click Connect in the command panel, and it will create a new edge perpendicular to the two edges.

In Cinema 4D, the Connect function is identical to 3ds max. Select the edges you want to connect, then select Connect Points/Edges (release 13) under Mesh → Commands. If you’re using release 12 or earlier, it’s under Structure → Connect.

If you need more fine-tuning control, you can do this using the Edge Cut tool. Select the edges you want to connect, enable the Edge Cut tool, then in the dialog make sure that Create N-gons is not selected. Click on Apply, and you’ll see a new edge is created in between the edges you selected.

Cinema 4D R13 - Edge Cut Tool

Constrain Vertex to Edge

In 3ds max it was always nice to constrain vertices to edges so as to not mess up the flow of geometry. You could “slide” a vertex along an edge to keep it in the same position. In Cinema, you can do this as well using the…well…Slide tool. Select a Vertex, enable the Slide tool, then move it in the desired direction.

Creating a New Element from a Polygon

In 3ds max, it was easy to create a new element from the same object. You could select a polygon, hold Shift and drag one of the axis arrows. A dialog would come up asking if you wanted to make the new polygon an element (belonging to the same object) or create a new object altogether.

Creating a new element from the same object works slightly different in Cinema. First select a polygon, then click on the Split function under Mesh → Commands, under release 13. You’ll see in the object manager that a new object was created. You’ll have to move the original object in order to see the new one in the viewport. If you want the new object to be part of the original object (two separate elements), select both objects in the object manager. Under the Object menu of the object manager, click on Connect Objects + Delete (release 13 only). This will make it one object. If you’re using release 12 or prior, you’ll have to click on Connect Objects under the Object menu and then manually delete the original two objects.

Selecting Elements

One thing about Cinema is that it does not have Border and Element modes. This is one thing I did like about 3ds max. Element was nice to quickly select all the polygons touching eachother within an object. In release 13 of Cinema, there is a quick way to do this. Once you enable polygon editing mode, if you have Move, Scale or Rotate enabled, just double click the polygons of the element you want to select. You can also do this by going up to Select → Select Connected. If you’re using release 12 or prior, this is under Selection → Select Connected.

Conclusion

For the time being, these are the main functions I can think of when making the transition to Cinema 4D. There are still some things I wish they’d bring to Cinema. For now however, I’m content with the workflow.

I plan on adding to this article as I discover things about Cinema that I wish was similar to 3ds max. As for now, this is what I have come up with. Feel free to leave your comments below if you can think of anything else that may be helpful to other people and I’ll be happy to add it in.

Thanks!

My main part in the game was modeling and animating all the 3D objects. The character, cave transitions, birds, etc are some of the things I helped create. I really enjoyed having a part in the project and it was so cool to see it all come to life.

Here are some screenshots of actual gameplay:

Check out the JellyPants website for more information about the game or visit the app store today to buy the game! It’s available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
http://www.jellypants.com/flyboy
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flyboy/id452656148?ls=1&mt=8

Here’s a quick animation I put together to illustrate this concept. It’s a ton of fun and I’m constantly looking for ways to improve the scene for realism!

You’ve seen them all, Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, Verdana, Times New Roman, Lucida Sans, etc… common web safe fonts used on most websites. One way to stand out from the crowd is to embed a custom font. With the emergence of CSS3 and the new @font-face property, it’s now possible to deviate from the standard web safe fonts. One of my favorite resources for adding a custom font is Font Squirrel. They offer a huge list of 100% free commercial-use fonts. Just find a font you’re interested in, download to to your computer, then upload it to your website directory, and walla! Well recently, I discovered an even easier way use custom fonts… Google Web Fonts!

How to use Google Web Fonts on your website

1. Point your browser to http://www.google.com/webfonts and select a font you’re interested in.
2. Click on the “Use this font” tab.
3. Copy the HTML provided and paste it into the head of your HTML document. It will look something like this:
   

   <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Varela&v1' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>

4. Style the element just like you would any other in your style sheet. Here is an example:

   h1 { font-family: 'Varela', arial, serif; }

That’s all there is to it! No need to download any fonts and then upload them to your web server. Google hosts everything for you on their end.

Need help using a custom font on your website? Let me know!

I’d like to share with you today one of those tools I wish I had picked up since I first began using Photoshop. It’s called a Layer Mask. What the heck is a layer mask!? I’m sure there are a million websites out there that explain layer masks. Well guess what… I’m just going to add to that number. So if you’d like to read elsewhere about the topic, be my guest!

Anywho, a layer mask is basically a NON-DESTRUCTIVE way to hide parts of a layer. For example, say you have two photos each on a separate layer. The top photo is black and white while the photo beneath it is in full color. They’re the same exact size and all that jazz. And you’re thinking to yourself, “It’d be freakin sweet if the shirt I was wearing was in color while the rest of the photo was in black and white because it’s so cliche and I want it as my facebook photo!” Well the first thing that comes to mind would be to grab the old eraser tool and erase the top layer’s shirt right? Guess again sucker. Remember that term I used earlier…NON-DESTRUCTIVE? If you just start erasing parts of a layer, you lose that layer’s information forever! With a layer mask, you paint the areas of a layer you want to hide in black and it reveals the underlying layer. And say you accidentally removed a part of your sweet shirt you didn’t want to, all you have to do is paint white over the area you painted black. BAM! Your black and white portion is brought back to life! And you can go back and forth as much as you’d like without losing any image information. Hope that makes sense because I can’t explain it any better. How about a mini tutorial?

Mini Tutorial

1. Open your color photo in Photoshop.
2. Duplicate the layer by dragging it down to the “Create a new layer” icon.
3. Make the top layer black and white by choosing Image -> Adjustments -> Black and White. Choose your desired color settings then click OK.
4. Make sure the top layer is still selected then click the add layer mask button. You’ll see a white layer mask thumbnail is created to the right of the original layer thumbnail. You can now either select the image thumbnail or the mask thumbnail. Make sure the mask thumbnail is selected (it will have a black border to denote it is selected).
5. Set your foreground color to black and adjust your paintbrush diameter and hardness.
6. Start painting the area in the photo you’d like to hide. If you make a mistake, change your foreground color to white and paint over the area to reveal the black and white layer again.

That’s really all there is to it! Layer masks can be a very powerful tool and a great way to edit your layers without losing image information. If you have any questions about this tool or any other Photoshop tools, feel free to contact me.