I wanted to create a short sci-fi scene from the ground up using Cinema 4D. For this piece, I started in C4D with some primitives. Two toruses, two spheres and a bunch of cylinders make up the basic structure of the station. Next, I animated the different sections of the station as well as the main camera movement.
I then created displacement and luminance maps with the JSplacement app. I made 2 separate images to use in the material's respective channels and then used multipass rendering so that I could manipulate them in After Effects. This gave the surface the look of being raised in certain areas and also added the different light areas on the surface.
Once in After Effects, I created a background environment layer and added some particles to simulate stars moving by. I also added some glow effects to my luminance layer to get it looking like lights. Finally, I created a brief music track to add to the deep space tone of the scene.
The primitives in Cinema 4D.
The material editor showing the luminance channel with the JSplacement image applied to the texture.
The JSplacement image used on the material's displacement channel.
The JSplacement image used on the material's luminance channel.
The final After Effects workspace