Create a low-poly rocket and bring it to life in Cinema 4D

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through the steps to create a low-poly rocket and animate its launch using Cinema 4D. You’ll learn the basics of modelling, applying simple materials, and animating the rocket’s movement for a lift-off sequence.

Step 1: Modelling the rocket

When you open Cinema 4D, you’ll see a blank canvas. Let’s start by adding some geometry.

1. Add a cylinder object to the scene
2. Adjust the cylinder’s properties until satisfied with the shape
3. Delete the phong tag to remove smoothing and achieve a low-poly look

For better visibility of the adjustments, switch to the right or left view and set the display to gouraud shading (lines) in the display settings. This will help you see how each change affects the cylinder’s geometry.

Shaping the rocket

To achieve the rocket’s shape, apply a taper deformer to the cylinder:

1. Add the deformer to the cylinder by dragging it beneath the cylinder in the hierarchy (a downward arrow will appear)
2. Adjust the deformer’s strength and curvature properties to refine the shape
3. Select fit to parent before making changes to ensure accurate adjustments

Here are the settings used for the taper deformer:

Create the rocket boosters using similar techniques. Group all rocket components into a null object for better organisation. Label this null object as “Rocket.”

Adding and configuring the fins

1. Select Spline Pen from the Spline menu
2. Draw the desired fin shape by adding points

To give the fin depth:

1. Apply an Extrude Object to the spline
2. Make the spline a child of the extrude object
3. Adjust the extrude’s properties as needed

Here are the settings I used:

To create multiple fins:

1. Use a cloner object
2. Make the fin a child of the cloner
3. Adjust the cloner’s properties to position the fins around the rocket

Step 2: Adding materials

Next, add materials to the rocket. For simplicity, focus on the colour and environment channels.

1. Create a new material in the Materials Manager and label it “Body”
2. Apply different materials for the rocket body, boosters, and fins
3. Enable the interactive render region to preview changes in real-time

For the “Body” I used the following colour and environment properties. The other parts of the rocket adopt the same approach with a modification in gradient colouring.

Step 3: Creating the rocket’s environment

Now that the rocket is complete, create a suitable environment. This will include a floor, background, and lighting.

Adding the floor and background

1. Go to Create -> Environment -> Floor
2. Go to Create -> Environment -> Background
3. Select the Floor object, right-click and select Render Tags -> Compositing

Create a material for the floor:

1. Label it “Floor”
2. Enable the Reflectance Channel and leave its settings as default

To blend the floor with the background:

1. Select both material tags for the floor and background
2. Set Projection to “Frontal”
3. Set Side to “Both”
4. Check the Tile and Seamless checkboxes

Adding scene lighting

1. Go to Create → Light → Area Light
2. Reposition the light 830cm above the rocket on the Y-axis
3. Rotate the light -90 degrees so the blue arrow points downward
4. Place the light inside the rocket null to move it with the rocket

Adjust the light’s properties for subtle floor shadows:

Step 4: Creating animated smoke

With the environment set up, add a low-poly smoke effect for the rocket launch.

Creating the smoke object

1. Go to Create → Mesh → Sphere
2. Move the sphere above the rocket on the Y-axis

Adjust the sphere’s properties using the following settings:

Adding material to the smoke

1. Create a new material and label it “Smoke”
2. Apply this material to the smoke object

Adjust the colour and environment channels:

Adding an emitter to smoke

1. Go to Simulate → Emitter
2. Make the Smoke object a child of the emitter
3. Rotate the emitter -90 degrees so the blue arrow points downward
4. Move the rocket up on the Y-axis, off the ground

Configure the Particle Emitter

1. Select the particle emitter object
2. Go to the Emitter tab and set the X-Size and Y-Size to 16 cm
3. Position the emitter just under the rocket’s boosters

Playing the timeline will now show particles emitting downward from the rocket boosters.

Adjusting particles for realism

1. Select the emitter object
2. Select Particles tab and check “Show Objects”

Particles will now emit correctly but may not look realistic. Adjust the particle properties for a better effect:

Preventing smoke from penetrating the floor

1. Select the floor object and add a Bullet Tag → Collider Body
2. Select the emitter object and add a Bullet Tag → Rigid Body

Refining particle behaviour

1. Select the rigid body tag
2. Uncheck “Self Collisions” and “Use Deformed Object”

Fine-tune the emitter properties:

Experiment with these settings until achieving the desired smoke effect.

Step 5: Animate and render the rocket

This step allows for creative freedom. Create a full animation by using a series of keyframes and interpolation to bring the rocket to life or render single frame images for static compositions. When rendering single frame images:

1. Add multiple cameras to the scene to create alternative angle renders, including close-ups and distance views
2. Experiment with camera positioning and focal length to highlight different aspects of the rocket

For animations:

1. Use keyframes to control the rocket’s movement and timing
2. Refine the motion path and ease settings for smooth transitions

To inspire your creativity, I’ll provide an example composition and video output demonstrating the final rocket animation.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve successfully modelled, textured, and animated a low-poly rocket in Cinema 4D. By following this tutorial, you now have a solid foundation for creating similar projects or expanding on this one with additional features.