I haven’t yet really learned a lot about soft body simulation so I decided to do a LinkedIn Learning tutorial to learn the basics.
Above is the finished piece, and below are my screen recordings showing how I got to this point.
My first screen recording shows the issues that I had with the soft body tool. I was following the tutorial exactly so I’m not sure why the bubble was collapsing the way that it was, and decided to completely start over. This just shows how confusing I find the soft-body tool, I wasn’t sure which setting needed changing to fix what was happening. It looked like a problem with the pressure but there was no pressure set.
After my initial trouble I found the tutorial easy to follow, and it really helped me to understand some of the soft-body settings, however I still find it easiest to change one setting at a time and observe the changes whenever I want to change anything, since there are so many different parameters that can be changed.
This is my final section, where I experimented with lighting and materials to give the piece a different look. I really like the dramatic lighting I created for the last piece, and I also like how the pink and navy blue look together when they are complemented by the gold. The piece that is white and blue was meant to fit in with my project’s colour scheme, but I don’t want to use something created from a tutorial for my final piece, I would rather create an original piece inspired by this.
What have I learned?
This tutorial taught me about soft-body physics and how they work. I learned that when objects are touching at the start of a simulation, they explode, so everything must start off not touching.
I also had some good lighting experimentation and discovered a nice dramatic lighting set up.
Finally, I learned that sometimes, simulated work will show up differently in the renderer, so it is best to bake any simulations before rendering. This also means that the simulation will go exactly as expected and you won’t end up with an undesirable effect on your render.
Bibliography
Hassenfratz, E. (2018). Blowing bubbles in Cinema 4D | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com. [online] Linkedin.com. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/motion-graphics/blowing-bubbles-in-cinema-4d?u=42436980 [Accessed 23 Nov. 2019].
Jennie Hawkes 