Objects

Null Object
Polygon Object
Primitives
Spline Object
Create Spline
Spline Primitives
NURBS
Modelling Objects
Scene Objects
Particles
Deformation
Sound
Object Library

Objects are the most indespensible items in CINEMA 4D. After all, objects are the most-rendered items in 3D, be it parametric primitives, polygon objects or a variety of other types of objects. Additionally, there are many helper objects that can be used to form or duplicate your actual objects or make renderable objects from splines, and much more. Of course these various objects have differing properties or attributes, even if different types of objects, such as NURBS, primitives or particle modifiers, share some of the same settings. Some objects even share nearly identical properties, e.g. those of the Basic tab. All object properties for a selected object will be displayed and can be edited in the Attributes Manager.

On the Objects menu, you’ll find not only a rich variety of object types for building all kinds of shapes, but also objects that allow you to add sound, lighting and more to the scene.

No matter what type of object you want to add to your scene — be it a HyperNURBS object for character modeling, lights to illuminate your city or invisible microphones to record the whoosh of space shuttles in Dolby Surround Sound — you’ll find the commands for adding all of these objects on the Objects menu.

In the Attribute manager, you can animate any object parameter that has a circle next to its name. For details on how to record animation in the Attribute manager, see Chapter 21, Attribute Manager.

If a single object is selected in the Object manager when you create a new object, you can affect where the new object will be placed in the Object manager by holding down one of the following keys at the same time:

Shift: Makes the new object a child of the selected object.

Ctrl: Places the new object on the same hierarchy level as the selected object.

Alt: Makes the new object a parent of the selected object.

If more than one object or no objects at all are selected when you create the new object, the new object will be placed at the top of the Object manager.

The object properties in the Object manager are usually divided into three main pages (although some objects have further pages): Basic Properties, Coordinates and Object Properties.

Basic Properties

All objects have the same Basic Properties apart from a few objects that don’t have the Enabled and X-Ray options (for these object types — such as the Null object — the options are irrelevant).

Coordinates

All objects have coordinates, even objects where coordinates seem irrelevant, such as for the Background object. For most object types, though, coordinates play an important role. The Coordinates page gives you access to the object’s position, scale and rotation in relation to the world system or — if the object is in a hierarchy — in relation to the parent system. P stands for position, S for scale and R for rotation. See also Chapter 16, ‘Coordinate Manager’.

Keep in mind that if you change the scale values, it is the object’s axis system that are scaled not the surfaces — this is the same as scaling with the Object tool.

Object Properties

These properties and other object-specific properties are described later in this chapter, in the entries for the various types of objects.