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20 Quick Tips

There are lots of ways to work that little bit faster in CINEMA 4D, such as using shortcut keys. But there are so many shortcuts in

a powerful application such as CINEMA 4D. So where do you begin? Here are twenty of the lesser known ones. We hope some of

these are useful to you!

1) Mirror, Mirror

Perhaps the fastest way to create the mirrored version of an object is as follows: Select the object. In the Coordinate manager,

ensure that the middle drop-down menu is set to Scale. Depending on which axis you want the mirror plane to be on, set either X,

Y or Z in the middle column to -1 and click the Apply button.

2) Do The Timewarp

With the Timewarp, you scrub through the timeline without having to move to and then drag the timeslider. To use the Timewarp,

move the mouse pointer inside the 3D view, then hold down the ‘J’ key and left-drag the mouse to the left or right to move

backwards or forwards respectively in time. If you also hold down Ctrl at the same time, it will slow down the Timewarp so you can

move a single frame or two easily.

3) New Material to Go

The quickest way to create a new material is probably to double-click on an empty space within the Material manager.

4) Get to the Point

You can quickly switch to the points, edges or polygons tool by pressing the Enter key. Keep pressing Enter to toggle between points,

edges and polygons mode.

5) Convert Selection

Suppose you’ve selected some polygons, and you want to convert that selection into the equivalent point selection. Simply Ctrl-click

on the points tool, and it’s done.

6) The Select Few

Suppose you are in the middle of extruding some polygons. Now you want to select different polygons and also extrude those.

Instead of switching to the Live Selection tool, selecting the polys, then switching back to the Extrude tool, simply hold down the ‘9’

key and, keeping it held down, drag the mouse over the polys you want to select. Release the ‘9’ key, and immediately you are back

with the previous tool you were using (in this case, back to the Extrude tool). This gives you a fast way to use a tool repeatedly here

and there. The ‘8’ and ‘0’ keys work the same way except they give you the polygon lasso and rectangle selection respectively.

7) Hide the Axes

Sometimes when you are working, especially when you are creating splines, the axes can get in the way. No problem, though. One

solution is to hide them, by pressing Alt+’D’. To get the axes back again, it’s the same: Alt+’D’.

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8) Dropdowns

In many places in CINEMA 4D where there is a dropdown menu, you can cycle through the options by pressing the up and down

cursor keys. To test this, create a new material, and click the Texture triangle and choose ‘Noise’ to add the Noise shader. Go into

the Noise shader settings, and choose a type of noise from the Noise dropdown. Now try pressing the up and down cursor keys to

change the type of noise. This shortcut is also really useful when trying out the various blending modes in BodyPaint 3D.

9) Get a Move on

Many 3D apps have the move, scale and rotate shortcuts somewhere on the QWERTY keys, and CINEMA 4D is no different. In the

case of CINEMA 4D, the keys ‘E’, ‘R’ and ‘T’ give you the move, rotate and scale tools respectively.

10) Number Cruncher

Did you know that you can type mathematical symbols into the numerical input boxes in CINEMA 4D? Suppose you want to move an

object up 12.7 units along the Y axis. In the Coordinate manager, type in “+12.5” after the existing Position Y value.

11) Instant Thickness

The problem: you‘ve modelled an object, but it‘s as flat as a pancake. How can you give it some instant thickness? The trick is to

add an Explosion FX deformer (Objects > Deformation > Explosion FX). Make this object a child of the object you want to have

thickness. On the Explosion FX deformer‘s Object tab, set Time to 0%. On the Cluster tab, set Thickness to the desired thickness.

One advantage of this method is that you can change the amount ot thickess easily at any time. Or easily remodel the object.

12) In Record Time

Did you know that you can record position, rotation and scale of an object by Ctrl-clicking on the time ruler?

13) Channel-Hopping

Suppose you‘ve used a Noise shader in the bump channel and now you want to load the same shader, with exactly the same settings,

into the diffusion channel. To do this: On the bump page, click the Texture triangle and choose Copy Channel. Now go to the diffusion

page, click the Texture triangle, and choose Paste Channel.

14) Help!

If you have installed the help system, you can look up any command quickly. To test this, suppose you want to look up the Tweak

Mode. Go to the Edit menu, and move the mouse pointer over the Tweak Mode item. Then press Ctrl+F1 (PC) or Cmd+F1 (Mac).

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15) The Big Screen

Ideal if you are working on a laptop, as is more and more common these days, you can maximize any CINEMA 4D window at any

time. So while you are modelling, you might look to put your 3D view into full screen mode to give you plenty of room to work in.

To enter full screen mode, move the mouse pointer inside the window you want to make full screen, then press Ctrl+Tab. Press the

same combination again to exit full screen mode.

16) Move Parent only

Ever wanted to move a parent object to a new position in the 3D world without moving its child objects as well? Hold down the Ctrl

key while you move the parent, and the child objects will stay where they are in the world.

17) Cross that Bridge

The multi-purpose bridge tool is great for joining several polygon loops together. Select the polygons for the loops that you want to

merge into one loop. Then select the Bridge tool, and drag and drop from one side of the loop to the other side, as indicated in the

diagram.

18) 32-bit Rendering

If you haven‘t yet tried CINEMA 4D‘s 32-bit rendering, we recommend you give it a try. One benefit is that it can give you more

control in tweaking the brightness in the image. To activate 32-bit rendering, in the Rendering Settings, on the Save tab, set Depth

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to 32 Bit/Channel. You‘ll then have more flexibility with the lighting effects when you edit the image in editing software that supports

32-bit images. To test this, render a scene similar to the one pictured. In the Picture Viewer, choose View > 32-bit Preview Options.

You can now greatly change the balance of the lighting using the various sliders. Please note that these controls are for preview

purposes only. To apply permanent changes to the image, please use your 2D image editing software.

19) Render a Closed Scene!

CINEMA 4D’s render engine is renowned for being fast. But sometimes you can make it go ever faster, especially if you are working

with a very large scene file. To do this, start rendering to the Picture viewer, and once the rendering has started, close the scene.

The scene will still render, and you‘ll free up the memory that was being used by having the scene loaded.

20) On the Dot

Some useful extra controls for the visibility dots (highlighted above), which control editor visibilty (upper dot) and render visibility

(lower dot): Ctrl-clicking on a dot sets the dot not just for the object you clicked on but for its child objects as well (this is really

useful for making sure, for example, that all child objects are visible and are not set differently to the parent). Alt-clicking on a dot

sets both the upper and lower dot at the same time.

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