Cinema 4D for Beginners: Modeling a Die

Cinema 4D is a professional 3D modeling and animation software application.  This tutorial is designed for those who have little or no experience in 3D modeling using Cinema 4D.  If you do not already have Cinema 4D installed on your computer, you can download it for free at www.brothersoft.com/cinema-4d-download-67120.html.

If you are new to 3D modeling, it is important to know that getting started and learning the new software can be somewhat challenging.  It is almost inevitable that you will make mistakes and occasionally become frustrated.  However, once you become familiar with the various tools and features offered by Cinema 4D, there is no limit to what you can create, and you will find that 3D modeling can be a lot of fun. 

In this tutorial, you will model a simple die.  You will create the cube using object primitives with the fillet option.  The dots will be created using sphere primitives, arrays to create copies of objects, and booleans to delete pieces out of objects.

Step 1 Getting Started

In Cinema 4D, there are four main viewports:  Perspective, Top, Right, and Front (Picture 1).  Each viewport can be seen individually by hitting F1, F2, F3, and F4, respectively.  F5 will let you see all four of them at once.  Alternatively, you can also click the small window icon located in the upper right hand corner of each viewport (see the second photo below to learn the functions of all four icons).

To begin modeling the die:

1.  Hit F1 to see the Perspective viewport (Picture 3)

2.  In the main menu, go to Window>Layout>Standard to work in the standard layout (Picture 4).