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CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Non-Linear Animation

1. Motion Layer

We will now explore the motion layer method in more detail. Open the ﬁle, “QS_ML_Start.c4d” and switch the

CINEMA 4D layout to Animation (top icon in the left Icon Palette, directly below the Undo button). As you can

see, our scene contains a monkey head. We will use this head to create a simple character animation. In the

course of this tutorial we will assign two simple animations to the monkey head: Forward and backward nodding

motion; up-and-down motion. You may wonder why a monkey would ever nod or move its head up and down.

Surely, monkeys that only move their heads back and forth or up and down are extremely rare in the wild (or

even extinct) but we thought a very simple, unrealistic animation would be a better way to demonstrate the

basic principle of non-linear animation (NLA) than having King-Kong push his way through the jungle.

When you play the animation you will see that we have already prepared an animation for you. The monkey

head moves from left to right. Stop the animation and select the “Monkey” Null Object.

Motion layers work together with all recorded keys within a given hierarchy. Simply select the top object in the

hierarchy and all its keys will be included (regardless if it’s a character’s controller or animated geometry).

In the C4D main menu, select the Add Motion Clip… function from the Animation menu. Conﬁrm the window

that opens without making any changes. As you can see, our Timeline now looks different. A motion source

(left) and a motion clip (right) of the Null Object’s (and its Children) animation were created.

The original Keyframes were deleted. If we play the animation again we will see that the left-to-right animation

nevertheless still exists. If we click on the “Monkey” Null Object, though, we will see that no Keyframes exist for

this object. These Keyframes are now located in the motion source that was linked to the Motion Clip. You can

now use the same motion source for more than one Motion Clip. Note that CINEMA 4D automatically switched

to Motion Mode (Timeline menu: View / Motion Mode) when the Motion Clip was added. If you want to modify

the animation contained in this Motion Clip you will have to switch to Key Mode ﬁrst (Timeline menu: View /

Key Mode). Here you will ﬁne the motion source that can be modiﬁed as desired. Since the original Keyframes

for the “Monkey” Null Object no longer exist we can record a new animation and add it as a new source and

clip. The motion system must be deactivated before this is done. With “motion system” we mean deactivating

the complete motion system, not just switching from Motion Mode to Key Mode!

This is done by selecting Edit / Use Motion System in the main CINEMA 4D menu. If the icon has a dark

background it is not active – a light background indicates that it is active. If you cannot see the “Monkey” Null

Object in the left part of the track manager, select Bookmarks / Default Bookmark from the Timeline menu. If

the Null Object is still selected, set a key at frame “0” (click on the “key” icon above the Timeline to set a key).

Go to frame 7 (drag the green grabber below the Viewport to frame 7) and move the monkey head a little to

the front (along the Z-axis) in the Viewport. Set another Keyframe.