In these two videos, I take a quick look at the way Boolean operations work in Cinema 4D. Specifically, I take a look at my usual approach and examine it a bit further. I’ve heard some 3D veterans and amateurs alike say things like, “Booleans always create messy geometry” or “Just don’t use Booleans… Ever!” I disagree however. As long as your approach is well thought through, using Booleans can be quite a pleasant and time-saving experience.
Here are the steps I take when doing a Boolean operation in Cinema 4D.
- Simplify the geometry
- Prep the area that will be modified
- Clean up the geometry that is left over
Subtracting a Sphere From a Cube
Joining Two Cylinders
Still images from the screencasts:
If you enjoyed these videos and or would like to see more, please leave a comment letting me know what you’d like to see.
Translation:
If you’re a polyglot and are interested in helping me translate the captions of these videos to another language, email me: [email protected]
Update:
Since this post is so popular, (and the YouTube videos are too) I’ve decided to test my new “related comments” plugin. You may notice some YouTube comments populating the comment area, acting as WordPress comments.
Plizze
The best tutorial on how to solve problems in the Booleans
tsunami30003000
Hi I really enjoy watching your tuts… One question for this kind of boolean isn’t it easier to just create a sphere and then select a edge loop and extrude it out and form a small rectangle around it and go from there.. that way you have quads
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Yes, if we were creating the model from scratch, your described method would be better. However, for the purposes of explaining the Boolean techniques, I thought that a cube and sphere illustrated the situation nicely.
Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for watching!
puLsEVFX
dont understand why people using boolean
Jamie Hamel-Smith
You don’t like them? Or you just never tried to use them?
puLsEVFX
i tried to use them but the result is just a bad mesh
javier reyes
Really useful! Thanks Dude!!
Shawn Altorio
Lots of great tips for a noob like myself. Thank you very much Jamie!
Jamie Hamel-Smith
No problem, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Let me know if there are other things in Cinema 4D you’d like videos for.
megamonkees
Good tip about isolating the mess. I would have just started melting and welding, which would probably have messed up the cap.
Your tutorials are great and you’ve definitely earned yourself a new subscriber.
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it, and I’m glad you found the videos useful.
megamonkees
Great tutorial! There are lots of good tips in there. One thing I would disagree with you on is making the loop cut to turn the tris into quads at 11:10 . I know that tris aren’t ideal to subdivide, but having half of the boole’s surrounding polys half the size of the others creates more unnecessary geometry, that will be accentuated with a subdivision. That’s just my opinion, though. And the default shortcut for the Weld tool is M~Q.
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Thanks for the feedback megamonkees, I’m glad you like the tips.
I agree with your observation about the triangles. It’s better to preserve the spacing but I just wanted to show the viewers how to turn a pair of difficult triangles into two manageable quads. It was purely academic. Had it been a different object, I would have tried to create another split heading away from the circle instead of along it.
megamonkees
That’s very fair. It was still a good tip, and a good thing for people to have in the back of their mind when correcting topology. As I said, I wouldn’t have used it there, but I agree with the tip in an academic sense, like you said. :p
johnn89
really useful tips… thanks a lot, ur tuts are awesome keep it up the nice work