Materials Basics

In this lesson, we explore material creation and assignment in Cinema 4D using Redshift, focusing on building clean, flexible materials while keeping your workflow efficient and beginner-friendly.

We start by applying simple Redshift Standard Materials to previously modeled objects, beginning with the pencils. You’ll learn how to verify your renderer is set to Redshift, create and rename materials, and apply them quickly to multiple objects. We use polygon selection tags to isolate different parts of a model—such as the painted portion of the pencils—allowing multiple materials to exist on a single object without complex setups. Common viewport display issues are addressed, including enabling materials and reflections for accurate previews.

Next, we expand into creating color variations efficiently by duplicating materials, reusing selection tags across identical objects, and replacing materials quickly. You’ll also see how to preview results in the Redshift RenderView and improve performance by keeping models low-poly in the viewport. Instead of subdivision surfaces, we use a Redshift Object Tag to enable render-time tessellation, achieving smooth results without slowing down scene interaction.

The lesson then moves on to the laptop, demonstrating how to apply materials to multiple object parts using existing selection tags for keys, trackpad, hinges, and screen. You’ll learn how to adjust metalness and reflection roughness to control surface appearance, and how to make a screen more glossy and reflective. We introduce the Redshift Node Editor to show how image textures can be connected to a material, and explain why UVW mapping allows images to fit perfectly on geometry.

For cases where UVs aren’t available, we cover texture projection workflows, including switching to Flat projection, entering Texture Mode, manually scaling and aligning projections, and using Fit to Object for faster setup—all without creating UVs.

To speed things up further, we explore the Asset Browser and its library of Redshift-compatible preset materials. You’ll see how to apply ready-made materials like gold or plaster, inspect how they’re built in the Node Editor, and understand the role of roughness maps and normal maps in creating surface detail. Finally, we cover a practical everyday trick: replacing materials instantly using modifier keys.

Workflow tips covered in this lesson:

• Always confirm Redshift is set as the active renderer before creating materials
• Use polygon selection tags to apply multiple materials to one object
• Duplicate materials to create color variations quickly
• Keep viewport geometry low-poly and smooth objects at render time with Redshift Object Tags
• Adjust reflection roughness for realistic plastics, metals, and screens
• Use Flat projection and Fit to Object when UVs aren’t available
• Leverage preset materials to save time and learn by reverse-engineering them
• Replace materials instantly instead of reassigning them manually

Shortcut Recap

• S – Jump to selected object in the Object Manager
• Double-click (Material Manager) – Create a new Redshift Standard Material
• Ctrl + Drag – Duplicate materials or tags
• Shift + C – Open the Commander (used to add Redshift Object Tags)
• Alt + Drag (Material) – Replace an existing material