"This is an incredibly detailed book with 381 pages of workshops focused on using Cinema 4D. If you’re a regular 4D user or thinking of moving to the program, then you really can’t find a better guide. From lighting to animation, everything is covered in detail. There’s also a CD containing the files used in the workshops"
- Imagine FX April 07

is the owner of the Vreel 3D Entertainment production studio in Germany, a member of the CINEMA beta-team, and a freelance trainer for MAXON products. He develops CINEMA 4D plug-ins and serves as a forum community leader for creativecow.net and other German CINEMA 4D discussion boards.

Model, animate and render with a practical command of all the essential functions and tools in CINEMA 4D 10. Detailed tutorials, suitable for novices and experienced users alike, demonstrate how to navigate the redesigned UI and orient you to the workflow. Next, the author guides you through the creation of a more complex project in which you model, create, apply textures, light, and render a final showcase image of a sports car. Finally, you will model, texture and prepare a comic character for animation using the new powerslider, timeline and the revised MOCCA module.

Build on your command of the essentials with an introduction to the new layer system as well as these advanced skills:
* Light, texture, and shade with CINEMAs material system, BodyPaint 3D, and the integrated shaders
* Build complex mechanical and organic models using NURBS and polygon tools
* Compose 3D content into photos
* Render with advanced techniques such as Multi Pass rendering, HDRI lighting and radiosity
* Simplify animation setups using XPresso constrains
* Work with specialized tools such as HAIR, Clothilde or SKY for special effects

The companion CD includes all of the required tutorial media, a bonus chapter on character modeling, Macintosh and PC demo versions of CINEMA 4D 10, and a limited edition of the PhotoMatch plug-in that permits you to easily insert 3D objects into photos.

* Covers all of the features of version 10 release including BODYPAINT 3D and the MOCCA module
* Tutorial-based approach demonstrates the workflow processes for modelling, texturing and animation
* Advanced features including HyperNURBS modelling, XPresso programming and the Advanced Renderer.
* Companion CD includes tutorial files, a demo version of CINEMA 4D and plug-in samples

If you find this book confusing you’re not alone!

The German-English translation is just terrible and there are critical steps missing from each and every tutorial, to the point where your learning grinds to a halt while you try and decipher the terrible grammar, or search for a step which is simply not there. Having learned German I can understand some of what the translated English intends, but the inconsistency of terminology and absence of crucial instructions leaves parts of this book useless, and can make new user very demoralised. I wouldn’t recommend this book unless you have at least some experience with C4D, and a very patient nature.

very frustrating to read...

Even though the book is chock-o-full of images and screen captures, it fails at accomplishing its most basic mission: clearly explain how to improve your skills in C4D. Not because it doesn’t provide explanations, it does... the issue is that "decoding" what the german author wanted to say in english is so cumbersome and frustrating, I can guarantee you that you won’t be able to finish one single exercise without having to go online and finding more resources to expand on something or to try to actually understand that one line of text that happens to be critical to finish the exercise you might be working on.

Don’t waste your money

This book will demoralise you! It is not easy to follow at all, many missing steps in the tutorials. I contacted an advanced 4D user and this is what he said

"Yeah not very well translated into English and riddled with errors. I doubt a beginner would be able to follow it."

He is so true, it will put you off using a very powerfull and good programme, there is much better learning material out there. Don’t waste you money its not worth it!

Buy tutorials from C4Dcafe, a lot better use of your money and you will not get frustrated beyond belief!

A Book for newbie’s learning pathway in C4D.

Well written book. That explains all the necessary tools to get started with cinema 4d.

The best way to use this book is to do the tutorials and then if you get stuck which you often do (when you are a newbie), is to read the c4d help system to learn new tricks about the different tools and settings and if still getting stuck, go to a forum like c4d cafe and seek help. If "reading" is difficult for you to learn about a tool, the book has a lot of illustrations to explain what they are doing in a particular step. One also has to accept the fact that, while some people can quickly learn by reading or seeing pictures, others might need a little more guided and visual approach to learn the same. For such people, use c4d learning tools are available in training DVDs or streaming media (which might be a bit more expensive). Even with such learning material, it is possible to get stuck at tutorials steps because these materials are not interactive (student teacher interaction).

In essence, for the price you pay for a book like this, it is extremely good.
If you think you can afford to pay more, and want to get a hands on guided approach to learn the software, get in-house training at different companies/studios in Europe and all over the world.

Detailed Instruction

I like this book and am glad I purchased this book. But I do not recommend this book to beginners. They may get confused and have hard time to understand. If you already know the basics, this is a good try. I like this book. Fist of all I get the details of explanation. Some books just tell the readers to do this, that, then do another in the project files. They do not really explain why. But this book gives us explanations of different functions of C4D. So far I enjoy this book, though I just started the first two chapters. This book focuses on medeling. I am glad I purchased this book.

Great cake, half baked

I just got the C4D Workshop book mentioned above, and I have to say I’d give it mixed reviews. When I flip through it, I can tell that I REALLY want this book to be great, but digesting the content is difficult enough that I’m going to return it (haven’t cracked the CD yet). This would be an outstanding book if they gave it a thorough re-write/re-format by a very linear-minded English-speaker (or five).

PROS:
--Lots of detail, many details covered
--Tons of COLOR illustrations

CONS:
--Typos / translations errors
--Poorly written prose style is difficult to follow when trying to follow a sequence of instructions. For example, rather than saying "Choose Menu>Submenu>Function", he says, "you can find this feature in the such-in-such command", sometimes not even giving reference to the master pulldown that it’s in. I spent a lot of time cross-referencing the search capabilities of the C4D help files to find the function mentioned.
--Again, the prose style of writing make following instructions difficult: Sometimes I had to read ahead to discern whether some paragraphs are introductions to what’s ahead, or literal instructions to be performed right then.
--They tried so hard to save space that some illustrations are two full pages ahead of it’s text, completely into the next topic. Most are not on the same page as the text related to them.

(p.s. Note that I’ve only read about 80 pages into it)

I gave up on this book, very complicated...

This book is not worth neither your time or your money, I am still in chapter one and I don’t seem to be able to finish it, as it’s too complicated, and there seem to be a lot of missing steps and directions that you have to discover yourself in order to get to the result that the book wants you to achieve, and as I am writing this review, I have decided to buy another more useful book to teach me Cinema 4D 10. I really regret buying it and wasting my time on it.

AVOID, its almost impossible to follow. Buy the Ann Powers book instead!


In my opinion this book is best avoided at ALL COSTS! I have years of experience in the creative industry and am completely self taught from books and tutorials like this, so have both vast experience with different authors and also huge book collection too. As I have now ventured into the world of 3D and Cinema 4d too. I thought I would try this book as it looked professional and the author had a good solid background too.
Unfortunately though, this book was a complete waste of money in my opinion.

The book is made up of only a few main projects which are then developed throughout the following chapters. This means that if like most people (myself included) you find the first few chapters almost impossible to complete due to the terrible translation from German to English. You simply won’t be able to continue with the rest of the book or get an understanding about what you are doing and why.

Within only the very first 2 chapters you will find numerous obvious mistakes and errors which lead to hair pulling and general frustration on a large scale. If you have already purchased this book then let me save you some time. Don’t continually go over and over the chapters trying to figure out why you can’t create your 3d models the way the book shows, as its just not possible due to the details left out of the book and translation mistakes throughout.

On another note though. I can fully recommend "Ann Powers - The artist projects sourcebook". I bought this book only a couple of weeks ago and so far it seems perfect. The tutorials are fun and easy to actually follow too. Buy that instead!

Should be in the box!

I usually don’t write a review unless a book is exceptional, and in rare cases, exceptionally bad. But happily, this book exceeded my expectations, and is a great help in learning this amazing program,
Cinema 4D 10.

I must be a real beginner (according to one reviewer) as I love this book. "sloppy, inaccurate translation"???...hardly. I’m impressed with the very good translation.

It "sounds" like a European speaking, but I haven’t had any problems with it so far. It’s very clear, and the author has a friendly, encouraging tone that translates well. Nicely printed, easy to read.

I agree about the screenshots, but cannot fault the writing and translation.

This book, IMHO, should be packaged with C4D instead of the manual which I find practically unusable and difficult to read.

Excellent work Arndt & Frank!!!
Thanks! =)

Cinema 4D 10 Workshop is Worth the Time

Though it may take people more than a book to learn something as complicated as Cinema 4D, "Cinema 4D 10 Workshop" is your best shot. As a 100% newbie to the program I found the in depth tutorials extremely helpful, and by the time I walked away from the pages I found myself able to model and animate even the most complicated things as if I’d been using this program for years. It should be noted that I am a Motion Graphic Designer with years of experience animating with Adobe After Effects. This knowledge was clearly helpful in understanding the animation functions in the program, but 3D modeling is a completely different language, and this book deciphers it perfectly. To do is to know, and by the time you get through all of the tutorials (including the awesome bonus tutorial on the included DVD)I definitely feel like I now know what I’m doing with this program; and for anyone who has even opened this program and taken a look at it’s infinite buttons and menus, you know that’s one incredible feat. I’d recommend this book to anyone who has the time and patience to walk through every step of the tutorials, because by the time you’ve finished, you’ll have a very solid understanding of Cinema 4D.

Perhaps too early to judge, but...

..i’m giving up on this book, somewhere around page 50. I have been, and still am, thrilled to learn 3D, but this book is ruining the fun. Translation is a mess, screenshots are too small and the (only) tutorial i’ve done so far left me frustrated a lot of times.

Sentences like "There are not enough points only at the lower end" are confusing, and if you add to that unreadable screenshots and non-foolproof tutorials, then, well, it sort of ends for me. I actually got pretty far with modelling the G5 Mac, but considering the pace i will be old and gray by the time i’ll finish the darn book.

Moving on.

cheers, ronald

99% there, but that missing 1% is SO frustrating

every 3D book I’ve ever used leaves out steps here and there, and this is no exception. Almost all of it is great, but that missing one percent can take a half-hour out of your life, or worse, every time you encounter it. Several times i manage to figure something out by trial and lots of error, then i go back to see if i misunderstood the steps and no, it just wasn’t there at all. I just wish it had been better edited, in which case, yeah, i’d give it six stars: what works, works very well, but again, those missing details just grind my brain to a stub.

Finally a practical workbook

So many workbooks use obscure tutorials and treat readers like beginners from cover to cover. This book is how a workbook should be. The writing isn’t overly wordy and each step is well illustrated, plus tricks are provided for solving problems or speeding up workflow.

The one huge problem I have with this book is that it seems to be a set of one. It would be nice to have a series of workbooks with sections on architecture; interiors; natural elements - liquid, sky, earth, manmade objects - things which are fluffy, spikey, smooth, metallic, bouncey, etc. ; engineering - product design - using Cinema like a CAD program, etc.
A few volumes following the layout of this workbook would be much appreciated. When you reach the end of Arndt’s workshop it leaves you wanting more.
Highly recommended.

confusing, not well explained

If you want to continue to sustain your fear and frustration with learning 3D software, then this is your book. If you want to actually learn Cinema 4D, do not buy this book.

The book is laid out like an academic textbook with scattered images showing different states of 3D models and images. Mixed in the endless pages of prose are supposed tutorials, kind if hidden away. They reach a state of daunting complexity very quickly, The language is dry, ambiguous, and not well explained. Imagine someone explaining how to build a complex 3D model to you over the phone, that is this book. Steps are described assuming knowledge of tools and terms. There are very few visuals of the steps, almost none of a helpful explanatory quality, so I found myself reading through paragraphs over and over saying "now what does he mean here?" "what is that and where do I find it?"

I think I know what the author was trying to accomplish by having a different approach. It is written like an academic lecture. You will have a LOT of questions and nowhere to go for help. But with 3D what you really need is hand-holding, and lots of explanatory visuals. I cannot recommend this book, and I will be chucking mine to find a better one.

Bring a magnifying glass...and smack the publisher upside the head with it.

This book is good. If you are new to Cinema4D, it will give you a solid foundation of modeling skills. Because of the way it is formatted it will require some patience and a magnifying glass to get the most out of it.

I think I have to blame the publisher on the flaws within this book. The publisher (Focal Press) almost ruins the book because the the screen shots are TOO small. If you can go to the library or book store first please look before buying. Let me give you an example that you can easily check if you go to a bookstore.

On page 88 the text talks about the sweep NURBS operation. The text says, "We need a torus object, a cube object, and a linear spline." Nowhere in the text are the settings. The settings are in the screenshots. I defy you to read the screenshots. I think they are TOO TINY.

This is not the only place where such difficulties occur.

I wonder if the German publisher made the book at a different size or format and the American publisher resized it.

This is a good book but be warned. It will take effort.

Disapointing

If you know anything about Cinema 4D you will be very disappointed. It is really a First time beginner’s book. The only good thing is that it goes through different parts of the software, like rig animation and UVs.
What really bothered me is that the chapters are huge, and uses pages and pages to explaining little details. But as i said, if you are the real beginner, you will enjoy it.

Lost in translation

The things they have you build look really cool, but the big wrench in the works for this book is its sloppy, inaccurate translation to English. You really have to move through it super-slowly, watching for potential mistakes. Having said that, I did get through the first tutorial on modeling a G5 Mac, but only at a snail’s pace because of the translation.

Another complaint -- they continually reference screen-shots that aren’t on the same page, so for instance, they say "Do this, like in fig. 8.5", and fig. 8.5 is on the next page, while directly above the instructions is fig. 8.4. The whole book is like that, with the pictures lagging one or two pages behind the text.

If you’re just getting started in C4D, I’d look elsewhere.

CINEMA 4D 10 Workshop

I am a designer who has recently transferred from working on Lightwave to C4D.

This is a difficult book to use for tutorials in C4D as the translation from the German original is shockingly bad. It is, no doubt, grammatically accurate, but at times the text makes little or no sense. It becomes convoluted and confusing when trying to describe simple 3D principles, and thus the examples become impossible to follow.

It is, in short, disappointing.

Cinema 4D 10 Workshop

Im a motion graphics designer and decided to upgrade my knowledge using 3D and found out that Cinema 4D is easy to use. I tried and downloaded several tutorials in the internet and most of them are very helpful and I learned the basics in Cinema 4D. However, there are some aspects of this tool that is quite hard to find in the web (advance topics)and so I decided to purchase a book.

I found this book and I was quite disappointed in several of its projects/tutorials. The steps are not well-written. Usually, most of them are shortcuts, it doesn’t give you the step-by-step procedure on how to accomplish a task. Perhaps, if you’re an advanced user of Cinema 4D you would understand it, but if you’re a beginnner, then you would have a hard time accomplishing the projects.

Now Im planning to buy another cinema 4d book the one written by anne powers.I hope that this one would be really helpful and easy to understand.

almost satisfied

Although the tutorials are very good, they are very hard to follow, there are no numbered tutorials, they are made in paragraphs, so you find yourself reading an entire paragraph which at the end you already know.
Some important little details are sometimes forgotten so you spend a long time going back and experimenting until your result looks like the result in the book.

Good book for modeller

The print quality is very good. Nice tutorials for modeller. Lacks any in depth information for animator/special fx. Pity...

My views

This book really surprised me The first thing that hit me was the whole book is in colour. It starts with basic tools and there uses and how to get around and configure the new interface. After that it gets on with modelling, starting off modelling an Apple Mac pro and then moving on to a car. The car project is very detailed and go into realistic materials and lighting. The only part of this book that seams a bit light is Character animation. It does cover the tools and different methods but not in depth. Saying that, you could write a whole book on the new character animation features in version 10.

All in all it’s a very good book. It cover a massive amount for it 381 pages. If you’re new to Cinema 4D I’d give it full marks. If you’re looking for help with the new features of R10, it covers all of them but not in huge detail. I would have liked more info on weighting problem areas, like the shoulders.

It does have 3 extra chapters on the CD which are a nice audition. They cover 3d compositing, modelling a comic character and a bodypaint chapter.

CINEMA 4D 10 Workshop

Great book. The tutorials are great. The only drawback is that there are a few translation problems.

Easy of use, great graphics

This book replaces an earlier manual on Cinema 4D release 9. It is a most welcomed trip into the release 10 world. And what a world! The author takes us on a well planned trip into the secrets and techniques of Maxon’s fabulous program. Being a Mac lover and user, this publication especially feels at home. While I am not finished with the book, so far it is exactly what I was looking for.

Good information with drawbacks

Right now this is the only book I can find on vs 10 and it’s valuable. However, I have to say the language is awkward and the descriptions of the steps in the tutorials must be read a few times because the information sometimes does not flow from one paragraph to another. For example, a paragraph titled "Rounding Edges" discusses "this tool" which is not identified as the Bevel tool until 3 paragraphs later. The mode necessary for this tool is not identified, but sometimes it’s fun to sleuth these things out.

The screenshots are very difficult to see. Some of this is due to the thin blue or red lines being hard to see on the gray viewport - too bad there isn’t a fix for this. The screenshots of the menus are often inexcusably small - a magnifying glass helps.
Compared to Tony Alley’s crisp tutorials in "3D Modeling with Cinema 4D R9" these are difficult, but Konigsmarck’s book contains more than 5 times the information and is about the current version. Alley’s screenshots are excellent and appear to have been modified so they can be seen, but he only has a fraction of the screenshots Konigsmarck does. Konigsmarck does have a nice way of explaining why he’s using various tools and is obviously an expert.

Simply Awesome

I consider myself a beginner when it comes to C4D, and I have found this book to be of great help. The tutorials are great and the author takes the time to explain the why and how behind the way things work.

I must confess that I’ve sometimes found myself a bit lost in following some of the instructions, but I feel it’s more a product of my own inexperience than anythingn else. And besides, there is a fantastic online community that is willing and able to help along and see you succeed.

This is definitely a must have book!

Remarkable work

I’ve used Cinema4D for a little more than two years, long enough to know some of the basics, not long enough to be expert.

This book made me apprehensive, because I knew the original manuscript was written in German, and foreign language translations to English are sometimes awkward. In this case, my apprehensions were not well-founded.

The translation in this book is superb, English is clear, and difficult concepts are explained lucidly and without extra verbiage. The author’s skills with his subject matter are well-known, so the combination of Arndt’s deep understanding and the clear explanation makes a formidable result.

I wish I had this book when I started. I’m fortunate to have it now.