So I have been working a lot in Cinema 4D over the last few months, and I decided to take advantage of this holiday break and fill my head with as many tutorials and article’s as I possibly could. Overall I can say it is definitely worth it Cinema is an awesome program and is going to be an extremely helpful application in my Motion Graphics toolbox, if not the go to tool itself. I want to make sure to thank Nick Vegas of Greyscale Gorilla and Rob Redman of Pariah Studios for all there tutorials and openness with support. Seriously the work they are doing is awesome and saving me hours of headaches. Thanks to them I have a huge jump start on Cinema 4D.

Now into why you are here, Global Illumination or GI. GI is consider an effect in a C4D render but it really is a dramatic one. The quality of lighting, reflection and overall look of an image can be made by using this and some basic understanding of materials and lights. The downside to GI is render times. A normal render time in C4D can quickly blow up when adding GI, and the more lights,, materials, reflections, etc you have the crazier those times will get.

So this tutorial is more of an exploration for me as I have been messing with GI for a while now and looking for efficiencies on render times. I had always seen the Irradiance Cache File tab, but never really explored what it was doing, or in this case not doing.  In the following tutorial you will see how to use the IR cache file as I understand it and hopefully it will spee dup some renders and give you a better understanding of how it all works.

if your interest in Global Illumination from a technical overview check out this post on Greyscale Gorilla – The Science of Global Illumination where you will find a link to an awesome article breaking down everything you would want to know about GI. There is also information on what properties can be changed without having to recreate your IR cache file, so you can get an idea of the limitations that come into play when using it. For those who want to be lazy here is a quote from Michael Vance’s Gi Tutorial

” A saved cache is a wonderful thing. Once saved, provided you haven’t changed the scene, and once the Auto Load setting is activated, you can rerender with different AA settings, different multipass settings, different resolutions, zoomed in, and in some cases even different materials, all without having to wait again for the cache to rerender. If you leave the cache lock setting unchecked, even different camera angles can be rendered and only records for areas not seen in previous cache renders will be added to the existing cache, saving a great deal of time, …”

Alright, well I hope this tutorial is helpful, and those who are more advanced in C4D if I have made a horrible mistake please let me know. I would love to know more about the cache file and the proper way to utilize it! And make sure To Check out Greyscale Gorilla and Pariah Studios for some awesome tutorials and information!

Watch the Tutorial: Cinema 4D – Irradiance Cache File

Info : Global Illumination IR Cache Test Results

Update :: Well ask and you shall receive! Response video from Nick and Rob on GI Cache files, they give a great explanation of all the check boxes and exactly what they do! Check it out and Speed up your projects at Greyscale Gorilla – A Quick Guide on Irradiance Cache Settings in Cinema 4D

Tags: cinema4d, motion graphics, motiongraphics, tutorial