A Working Example

Since Cinema 4D supports volumetric and channel-based materials, double-clicking a material's icon can open different dialog boxes. (There are, for example, dialog boxes unique to Maxon's SLA shader bhodi | NUT.) But these materials appear like normal Cinema 4D materials in the Materials window.

In order to give you an idea of how to work with Cinema 4D, I will spend the rest this chapter describing a typical modeling task. For this purpose, I have chosen to model the pistons, connecting rods, and crankshaft of an automobile engine without proceeding according to a special technical drawing. In the course of this working example, you will see the majority of the polygon and spline tools in action, and you will learn how to plan projects.