Dream Machine

Since the first days of 3D, androids have captured the imagination of digital artists. From music videos such as Björk’s All Is Full Of Love to blockbusters like I, Robot, the pairing of sleek, inorganic materials with the organic curves of the human form has produced some of the industry’s most iconic images.

But, as those artists discovered, creating a believable android is not as simple as it looks. While steel, glass and chrome may seem simpler surfaces to simulate than human skin, a formidable array of texturing, lighting and compositing techniques must be employed.

Over the course of this tutorial, we’ll be exploring some of those techniques as we recreate this month’s cover image in Cinema 4D. First, we’ll make use of some of the advanced shaders which are now built into the software. Originally known as the Smells Like Almonds shaders, this collection introduces a whole range of complex features, including Anisotrophy, which we’ll be using to create some realistic metallic surfaces. We’ll also be covering some basic texturing principles, using Alpha channels to add decals, and using bitmaps to generate embossed logos.

On the support files, you’ll find C4D files for some of the components of the android model, which we’ll use to illustrate these techniques. We’ve also provided the entire model, ASIMOV-MK13.c4d. In this file, most of the textures have been set up, and a camera has been added. This will form the starting point for the next part of the tutorial: a simple but effective lighting set-up that simulates a typical studio product shot. To make the most of this, we’ll be rendering the image using Cinema’s multipass rendering and compositing tags to create separate layers and selections in Photoshop. You can find the render in the support files, along with the final scene file, ASIMOV-MK13-FIN.c4d. The last section of the tutorial will cover the Photoshop work to add the final touches to the image.

Extra scene files, showing refinements to the set-up, are supplied for you to experiment with, along with an extended version of the tutorial text: refer to this if you get stuck.

Click here to download support files and hi-res screenshots