helloluxx - Cinema 4D - X-Particles

Presented by the ever-popular Tim Clapham from Luxx, this tutorial series takes you through the most important areas of the X-Particles plugin from Insydium. The lessons take the form of a collection of full projects for you to follow along.

Clocking in at just over 7 hours, Tim Clapham shows you the incredibly popular X-Particles 3 simulation plugin. Starting with the basic workflow of the tool, you will learn how to work with particle emitters, then control the newly created particles through a series of Question and Action objects. these allow you to interrogate the simulation system and then take any action you wish.

For more control, Tim then moves on to presenting particle groups and modifiers, with these you will be able to start creating effects such as exploding fireworks which leave additional particles in their wake as they explode.

Particle systems aren't just about throwing around large numbers of objects, you can also use them to model up ethereal objects such as floating infographics, think of the heads up display in Tony stark's suit for example. With the map and globe projects you will be able to produce animations for a wide array of jobs or industries.

Moving on the course delves into branching particle systems. These will allow you to spawn new particles from others to create diverging structures such as plants, veins and nervous systems. Once the branches are in place, our tutorial even places a flower blooming at the end of each branch.

X-Particles includes fluid simulation tools in the form of the Flip solver. These can help you with the basics such as a few stray splashes or dripping liquids and gels, all the way up to full water simulations for pouring drinks or flooding a city. These particle systems can then be skinned with a mesh to create a single wireframe mesh object for lighting and texturing.

These tutorials run for 7 hours and ideally require Cinema 4D R16 or above plus the Mograph tools found in the broadcast or studio packages. You can still follow most of the tutorials if you are missing the Mograph tools or have an older version of Cinema 4D, but keep in mind certain parts may be tricky without them.