Cinema 4D: The Artist's Project Sourcebook 3rd Edition

The book tells you up front that it is not going to explain the inner workings of Cinema 4D. With a very good reason. Cinema 4D has excellent help documentation that explains every function down to the smallest detail if you're interested. Perhaps this should have been explained, but if you point your mouse over anything in Cinema 4D, then hit "Ctrl+F1" on Windows or "Cmd+F1" on the mac, you'll get the help documentation that goes along with it. The book is designed so you don't need to learn all of the esoteric names that come into 3D applications. The majority of which are named after obscure mathematicians who made arcane equations that figure out how to interpret light, (it's incredibly complicated), refract it, etc. Instead, the book gets you designing new things immediately and if you want to learn more behind the scenes, you can read the help documentation. If that's not your thing, both Cinversity.com, (which is Maxon's official training site), and digital-tutors.com, both have free training that just covers things like shaders, light occlusion, ambient lighting, volumetric lighting, etc. if you want a more detailed knowledge of 3D in general.So you now know the purpose of the book: to get up and running with Cinema 4D as fast as possible. Does it work? Yes. It's incredibly well-illustrated, showing exactly how to manipulate parameters to get the scene to look right. The DVD includes a lot of extras, including a basic rundown of what's what in Cinema 4D. The font is huge, but it comes in handy when you're walking through a project. If you follow through the exercises, you'll understand how to model and animate scenes without a detailed knowledge of what makes a program tick internally. If that's your thing, read the help documentation. If you by this as an e-book, you'll be cheating yourself as there's some six gigs worth of training material on the DVD.

I always say that it's not about the book, but the reader. Nevertheless, this is an amazing book for those who are starters and those who are a little more advanced in this subject. Great info, great excercises, great everything!

I like this book.If you're new to c4d and need a crash course of all the basics, then get this book.Covered modeling, animation, rendering, mograph, etc.The black background with blue text that everyone is complaining about is only found for a few interviews the publishers did with people working in the field of animation.The book is easy to follow and walks you through each exercise step by step.You get a CD with videos/tutorials and exercise files, if you end up with a broken CD then there's a link to access them online.This is one of the most current and best books for beginners looking to learn cinema.As a bonus you also get 3d glasses, I wear them around town.

Althought I read the reviews about this book I decided to buy mostly because this one is the only related to R-12,the very one I have.The book arrived and everything was true about the format and design (if any),however the problem with this was not only the design,it was too the companion DVD which a group says was OK with them and another one says it was not.As I am very related to the many difficulties with books from Focal,by past experience,I went directly to Focal Web Site,where sometimes I have found some help,this time saw the files included in the companion DVD,downloaded them which are zipped but joy was short as "The DVD Support Files" cannot be opened by my PC,you see a window that inform you that the file is unknown or corrupt.It happens too when try to open the DVD.....Following the tutorials,finished number one which did not ask anything from the DVD,with number two it remained incomplete as the tif.image needed could not be taken...With my best intentions followed the tutorial three,"Desert Scene",on page 37 the author wrote: I'm not crazy about the preset sky texture provided by MAXON,so I've included a few of my own for you to use...as for me it is a pity that this guy rejects those provided by MAXON as far they would be in the library and job could be finished...contrary to what is happening now...Browsing the book I can see that is a nonsense to go on,as deeper is more DVD dependent...I was charged $52.00+ for this trashy book,really think very expensive bunch of paper "good for nothing".I want to say that I bought the book knowing the designing or format problem,but here it happens that there is a problemwith everything,I thought to override the book style,but what about with the DVD support files?Related to After Effects and stuff like this is underestood that I have more than thirty books from Focal and it is very difficult go easy with them,most of them because of the companion discs,till today the life saver was sometimes download the files but actually even that is bad,business getting nastier...The author is unable to help me in this case,I really trusted the publisher site and support on it...Big Mistake!A lot more to say but finally would be a wasted time.

If it says Anne Powers on it... I want it! I wish all of these type of books were as well made as this one. The printing (color) makes for a great read. And if you like pictures to follow along with... as you learn... you're in luck. This book is Outstanding! My only pit fall is having C4D-R11... Sadly, things changed greatly around R12 I guess. According to a Maxon Tech... there is no backward compatibility. So many of the files on the DVD do not work. I had trouble with the DVD in many ways. You may not. That aside, I highly recommend this book.

good stater book

The book.Pros: Step by step tutorials were quite (?) easy to follow and interesting to do for a beginner like me.Cons: Because C4D has a lot of palette controls tucked within palettes I was spending a lot of time, going back, trying to find where check boxes, sliders and different channels, etc. were nested. Might be just me though, not seeing things under my nose.Readable screen grabs used throughout the tutorials which was good but a few sentences from the author about why I was clicking/checking something would have been very helpful. I suppose you can always go back and experiment after you've completed the tutorials but C4D is such a big programme to learn, it is very easy to get lost and you do need 'lots' of help.The DVD.Pros: None !Cons: Couldn't open the DVD. I don't know how you can do the exercises without the necessary files off the DVD (Kindle ?). Gave the first two projects a try and guessed what texture/image files I needed and made my own. The further on you get you need to load prebuilt sets. It was mentioned in a previous review, if you were able to download the files, problem solved.Overall. If the DVD worked I would have given this 4+ stars. Instead, 1 star and returning to Amazon. I might at a later date reorder and hopefully the disc will work. If the files became downloadable, definitely would recommend buying.Update to review above......Since writing the above review the author has emailed with a link to download the necessary files which I am very grateful for. Thank you. I'm now slowly ploughing my way through the tutorials.With the aid of another C4D book, which delves more into why and what all the various settings and tools are for, I might learn something.I don't think you can get the hang of C4D from one source but this book does help you a lot to get familiar with it's ways of working.Overall. Well worth buying and if you have problems with the DVD, download the files.

I have given this book only 3 stars for one reason - theDVD doesnt work and there are no links to be able to download the material on the DVD. This for me was a big setback as the book is sold as being extended by the DVD - so thats money lost for me. Many publications also have the DVD material available for download but this doesnt.Other than that I found this very helpful, very clear. Its for beginner C4D heads. However I think a person will need to have some basic c4D knowledge under their belt first - at least being able to find their way the GUI but any of the online tutorials will do this. So if you do a basic free online tutorial course then after that this book is really good for moving on.Big let down with the DVD though.....

Really like the layout of this book. It is really useful to LOOK INSIDE and see what you get here thanks to Amazon.I'm not an expert but I reckon this book serves as an excellent introduction to Cinema with a good range of colorful and eye-catching tutorials. Modeling, exploring materials, creating a scene and animation to name but a few. Much of it I already know but then that's just the level I am at, so no complaints there.Almost reminds me of the Photoshop/illustrator WOW books which really grab your attention.If you are a seasoned 3D illustrator/animator then I would look elsewhere.Wish this book had been available when I started.

The contents of the book are useful but the faulty DVD is a major issue because most of the tutorials require access to the DVD content. I have been able to follow along using just the book but it would appear that there is a manufacturing problem. There doesn't appear to be any content on the DVD.