- [Narrator] In this movie, we're going to
explore how we use Fields to create
organically growing vertex maps.
And these can be used to drive
deformers and materials.
So we got this scene partially set up
and we're going to work with this cube.
So I'm going to turn off the subdivision surface
and let's just make some vertex maps.
Now, I've an edge selection already prepared,
but how I got to that.
If I just deselected, I went to Select
and used the Phong Break Selection
and just choose Select All.
And now, what I want to do is,
if I stop flicking through this camera,
I'm just going to zoom in a bit more,
and I'm going to convert that to a point selection,
so I'm going to Hold + Command.
And click on points, and then press
U + Y to grow the selection.
Now, a quick way to make a vertex map is
just coming to the Paint Tool in
the Character menu.
And holding down Shift and just clicking.
Now, what I want to do is transfer this c4dsky.com
point selection to the white map.
So I'm going to apply Selected, and that's done there.
If I click off the cube and just onto the vertex map
that gives us a cleaner look in the view board.
So we're not seeing all the points and the lines.
So let's just click onto the vertex map.
And I'm going to rename this to "Edges",
vertex map, Edges,
and we're going to use Fields.
So we'll check the box.
And we have our freeze layer, which is going to
store all this information for us.
What we want to do is keep that,
and I'm going to add an invert layer.
So next I'm going to make a new vertex map.
Just Shift + Click again.
And I'm going to make sure I'm clicking off
my vertex map I've already got,
click back onto the key,
Shift + Click, I have a new vertex map
which I'm going to call "Growth 1",
and moving to the right of the previous vertex map,
let's enable Fields, and with the
freeze layer, we're going to tell it to grow.
Now, we need something to trigger this.
And that's going to be our spherical field,
which is renamed "Vertex Map Driver".
So we'll drop that into the field list,
and we'll set that to Add, and then if you
play it back, you'll see the vertex map grow,
which is amazing and a really cool effect already.
So, let's continue this now.
I'll create another new vertex map.
So I'm going to click back onto the key Shift + Click.
We'll call this vertex map "Growth 2",
and I'll use Fields. And what we're going to do
with this one, I'm going to delete all the layers,
and we'll drag in our edge, it's going to be
our lower layer, and we'll drag in "Growth 1",
that's going to be our top layer.
We're going to set that to Subtract
and change the mode to average.
Reduce the radius to around 50.
Now, what this will do is blur out
the effect of the vertex map. So if you
play it back through, you can see it's softened that now.
Okay. So, with that done, I'm going to duplicate
"Vertex Map Growth 1", so Command + Click + Drag,
and that's made as a copy.
I'm going to create a curves layer,
'cause what I want to do with this vertex map
is create a kind of edge. So actually I'm going to
come back and rename this "Growth 1 Edge".
Now, in the fields list, we have our curve layer.
What we can do is use this to expand
the vertex map that we already have.
So we're going to remap that data.
So, I right click and choose Spline Presets
Linear, and then what I want to do is just
bring this down somewhere around here.
You can see the effect that
that's having in the V port.
So, with that done, what we want to do
is bring in the "Growth 1",
which is this, and subtract it.
So we're going to take this away
from the result that we have below.
So once you subtract, you may be able to see
this is the area that's actually starting to subtract
so we should get a really cool
growth effect subtracting from itself.
Now, I'd like to add a bit of variation to this,
so I'm going to add a decay.
With the decay, I'm going to just lower this
effect strength to around 20.
Let's just play that back to what we got.
So there we go. We've got that cool-looking edge.
Let's just rewind and zoom back out.
So now we'll enable the Displacer.
And it looks a bit crazy, let's turn on
the subdivision surface to smooth things out.
Now, the displacer needs something to drive this effect,
and in the Falloff, we're going to use our "Growth 2".
So this vertex map here.
And what I want to do again is blur this out.
So, I've got this selected, I'm going to
set the mode to average, reduce this right down,
somewhere around 29, 30, something like that.
If we play through, we'll see the effect of that now.
So it's going to gradually remove the displacement,
in a really cool, organic-looking way.
Okay. Now, let's...
Add the material.
And we'll drag that onto our subdivision surface,
but we need to set this up.
So I'm going to double click, and I open up
the material, in the material editor.
In the Luminance, we have a fusion shader.
And the fusion allows you to
combine two textures with a mask.
So, in our mask we have a vertex map.
With this one, I want to add "Growth 1" edge to it.
So we'll add that. And there's also a Bump
with the fusion shader.
And this one, we're going to add "Growth 2".
So, what will happen is, we'll get this cool-looking,
luminescent edge running through the material,
and as the effect increases,
the Bump strength is going to go down.
So if we just look at that now,
and we'll look through our...
Morph Camera.
And it might be a little bit slow to play back.
Now, we're not going to get the
accurate sort of visual representation in the
view port, so what we can do is just pause this
and press Command + R, and I've got some settings
ready here, and so it's going to prepare it,
take a few moments just to prepare the view port.
We've got some glow over the lumination,
but now you can see half of this
really cool-looking effect, and
it's all driven by those vertex maps
that we've set up with fields.
This is one of my favorite uses for Fields,
and up until Cinema 4D R20, it was quite difficult
to set up animated vertex maps.
But by using Fields, we can create
these effects quickly and procedurally,
allowing more time for experimentation and refinement.