Modeling a Raised Diamond Pattern in C4D

Adding small details to a larger overall form, while keeping nice topology is always the challenge  with modeling. You don’t want to paint yourself in a corner where you need to follow through with what could be extra edges, all the way through a model that doesn’t need it in all areas. That is wasteful, and leaves an unnecessary mess for the rest of the pipeline. An example would be the small raised diamond pattern that you would typically see on the grip of an item.

one method to model a raised diamond pattern cylinder

If you are a C4D user, and a modeler, then you likely know about Shane Benson’s Sub-D modeling series of tutorials. Shane has done some great work to demonstrate modeling of some really complex situations using the polygon, NURBS and Sub-D tools in Cinema 4D.

They don’t come out too often, but recently “Part 21” was posted, which takes a look at creating an intricate raised diamond pattern, on a cylinder. Shane Benson shows how you can solve this modeling problem, by first creating the raise diamond pattern first, and then deforming it into the shape that is required later. There are some finer things to take care of, connecting the detailed parts to the overall form, but it is a fairly straight forward process.

Of course when talking about modeling, there are always a number of procedures that can produce the same final result. With this case, you could create a cylindrical mesh, and triangulate that, and then get rid of the original vertical and horizontal edges of the mesh. This will leave you with the diamond pattern that you can then continue to work with.

Either way works, it’s a matter of object specifics and which gets you there faster. Shane uses the Point to Circle script for Cinema 4D in the tutorial. You can download that here.

2 comments

  1. Regarding “Modeling a Raised Diamond Pattern in C4D” tutorial.

    On September 22, 2015, I uploaded a tutorial regarding this problem (https://vimeo.com/140131786), and frankly I am surprised to see you take such a complicated approach , for such a “simple” task. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful that you are contributing to the online community, but tutorials should be there to make work easier with the software, and not vice versa.
    But, the most surprising comment, that you made, at 8:06 on the timeline, saying that there is no way to fit the deformer to the object in C4D, simply shocked me. Clearly that option is under Object – at the bottom you have the button: Fit to Parent.
    Again, I am not criticizing, I am merely trying to help you and the others to not jump to conclusions without learning the basic tools first, and see what they can offer to the user of the software (Cinema 4D).
    I usually enjoy watching tutorials, in general, and learned so many good techniques that I am using in my daily work. So, keep up with the good work and tutorials that you are creating, but please, as an advice, do a research on the internet first, to see if there is easier way to do a particular task in C4D, and if not, and your method is unique, and easier to do, then please post it. Otherwise instead of helping other, you will end up looking incompetent on the subject that you are treating.
    For the end, I hope that you will not hate me for replying to you. The fact that, among many other web sites, I have bookmarked your web page, it means that I respect your work in general, and I am looking forward to see more tutorials from you.

    • Thanks for the comments. Please note that Lesterbanks.com aggregates tutorials from around the web. This one happens to be from Shane Benson.

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