FXPhD instructor and Luxx founder Tim Clapham has some cool videos up on Vimeo, including a look at a piece that he did for 3D World Magazine, which is something I just learned about for the first time. And here I thought all the C4D learning avenues out there were on the web! 
Jan 142010
Nov 202009
Do you know the Gorilla? Well, if you love motion graphics or want to learn more about how it works, you’ll definitely want to check out greyscalegorilla.com. Nick Campbell (a fellow creative pro living in Chicago) has over the last few months, whipped together a huge array of helpful links, his own tutorials, and even interviews with other creative pros and reel critiques! It’s a pretty wide-ranging site but everything is done in a casual, fun way and there’s quite a lot to learn there if you’re just getting your feet wet. We have tutorials as well but there’s always room to benefit from more than one artist, in seeing how they accomplish certain kinds of tasks in the world of Cinema 4D or After Effects.
For those who are lucky enough to have found a career in the creative arts, it’s often difficult to find the time to expand our educational horizons. “Going back to school” or taking evening courses at the local arts college, even when affordable, can be very time consuming or downright inconvenient. However, those looking for a full-time learning experience in the world of motion graphics and video production, there is a fantastic (and very affordable) alternative to college enrollment.
FXPHD is a one-of-a-kind “online school” that has a rotating schedule of classes focused on all the latest video technologies from Apple, Adobe, Autodesk and Maxon, as well as traditional cinematography topics like filming and direction. Rather than just teaching software functions, FXPHD instructors -many of whom work on feature films, TV shows and other Hollywood productions- focus on real problem solving workflows used in the industry. Each 10 week term offers a new “catalog” of courses that you can sign up for. The cost is under $400 for the standard setup, which gets you their Background Fundamentals course plus three electives that you choose, based on the types of workflows and software you want to learn.
Each week you download a new video and set of working materials from your “class schedule” page, which allows you to work on the lessons when you have time, and to follow along creating things as you go. This is a pretty time-intensive approach compared to traditional video tutorial products, however it’s much preferable to spending the time and money on even a part-time college course load IMHO. Once you’re 10 week session is up you can keep all the video lessons, and then have a look at the new courses being offered for the next 10 weeks. While a few popular courses are given every term, most are different each term so that you can branch out and learn new software and workflows as you develop your skills. For those with a little more time on their hands (that means you, part-time undergrads!) For Cinema 4D training Tim Clapham handles all of the courses there (last I checked); that alone should give you an idea of the quality. I definitely recommend you check it out.
Sep 022009
I’ve been getting more heavily involved with the world of 3D and photo-real rendering, and one of the most confusing choices is which program to use if you’re starting out and serious about 3D. To me Cinema 4D is a great answer to that question. And today they’ve announced their latest update, R11.5. There are some major improvements here including most notably, a big overhaul to the render engine, and greatly simplified physics / rigid body dynamics, using the MoGraph 2 module.
To show you some of the capabilities of C4D R11.5, Aixsponza has created an amazing demo that was built entirely (I think) in C4D. Check it out.
