MAXON Computer Cinema 4D Tutorials: Light Posts

Project Based Tutorials - City Scene

City Scene:
Light Posts - Walls & Streets
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PDF / Works with:
GO SE XL Requires:
Version 5.0+

Description: In this tutorial, we will go through how you can construct a wall lamp and a street lamp using lofts, booleans, and genlocking.

Wall Lamp

Step 1: First, we will create the lamp support then we will create the lamp itslef. Start by creating a short, thick cylinder (Radius=50 Height=12). This will be the wall base of your lamp.

Step 2: To make the arm which will connect the base to lamp, create a loft object. Go to 'Objects=>Splines=>Circle Elements=>Circle...' and create a circle with a diameter of about 10 or so. Lay this circle flat by inputing P=90 in the Coordinates Manager and place it on the center of the base cylinder (Coordinates: X=0 Y=5 Z=0).

Step 3: Make a copy of the Circle Spline and set P=45 degrees in the Coordinates Manager. Now move that circle object up and away from the base a small distance (Coordinates: X=0 Y=60 Z=10).

Step 4: Make a copy of that Circle and set P=0 in the Coordinates Manager. Move the Circle to the side (Coordinates: X=0 Y=70 Z=50) so that when the circles are all connected you will have a pipe like arm.

Step 5: To loft splines together they must be in a group. Group together the three Circle Splines and go to Objects=>Spline Object=>Loft Object with the entire group selected, then click OK. Your Circle Splines should now be joined together to form a pipe like object.

Step 6: Group together the loft object and cylinder and position them upright by setting P=90 in the Coordinates Manager.

Step 7: Next, create the lamp. Go to Object=>3D Object=>Pyramid to bring a pyramid into the scene. Use a width and height of 100. Flip the object upside down by setting P=180 in the Coordinates Manager.

Step 8: You'll need to make use of the Boolean tool to shape the pyramid into a lamp. The boolean tool allows you to cut away pieces of an object using another object. You'll use a cuboid to cut the pyramid's peak away. Bring a cuboid into the scene and position and scale it so that it intersects the pyramid where you'd like the separation to occur.

Step 9: When you have the object positioned correctly, go to 'Tools > Boolean' and select 'A minus B' in the first Text field. The next two text fields tell the program which objects you'd like in the boolean operation. You want the Pyramid object minus the Cuboid object, so in the next text field type in Pyramid ( or whatever you renamed your pyramid to ) and in the final text field type in Cuboid. Then click OK.

Step 10: Your pyramid should now be cut where the cuboid intersected it. In the object manager, you will have a new object group with a pyramid an cuboid inside. Your original Pyramid and Cuboid will still be in the object manager but they will have display tags making them invisible in the editor and raytracer. If you're satisfied with the Boolean operation you can delete the original objects and move on. If not, simply undo the operation and try it again.

Step 11: Now, you will probably have to scale your new pyramid object so that it somewhat resembles a lamp cage. To add a top to the lamp you can simply copy your pyramid, flip it upside-down and scale it to fit on top of the other pyramid.

Step 12: To start texturing the lamp head, create a glass material in the material manager. Move color strength to 5%, Transparency at 100% with n 1.5, Reflection at 30%, and Highlight Width = 5%, Height = 100%. Apply this material to just the lamp head pyramid.

Step 13: Create a gold material and apply it to every part of the lamp except the pyramid to which you just applied the glass texture. We set the Gold Material Settings to; Color: R = 95% G = 80% B = 40% S = 100%, Reflection = 20%, Highlight: Width = 30% Height = 100%.

Step 14: In the Material Manager, highlight the gold material and drag out a copy of it by holding the Control key as you drag.

Step 15: In this new gold material, turn on the genlocking channel and bring in one of the images you used for the windows in the city tutorial genlocking earlier (if you do you have not completed the city tutorial, follow the procedure here ______). Now apply this material to the glass pyramid of the lamp and set it to cubic mapping.

Step 16: When rendered out, this texture will probably be out of place on the object. You want the texture centered in the middle of the object. Highlight the genlocking texture, then go to Texture=> Adapt to=>Object. You can now play around with the texture height settings to get the desired look.

Step 17: You can choose to light the inside of your lamp. Go to Objects=>Scene Object=>Light. The settings used in the example scene: R=100% G=100% B=85% S=100%. Checkbox decrease with 1000 Distance, Soft Shadows On, Visible Light Settings - XYZ Decreasing, X=100 Y=100 Z=500, Volumetric checked. Then, position the light inside the lamp.

Street Lamp

Step 1: To create a street lamp, you can create the same lamp in the preceding steps without the wall base cylinder or the loft object arm ( Start at Step 6). For the post, simply use two cylinders, a shorter one for the base, and a taller thinner one for the main post. Then position the lamp head on top of the post. You can texture the post with the same gold texture or any other type of texture you think is appropriate.