Creating a ball bearing using arrays in cinema 4d

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a ball bearing using an Array Object. You will also learn about the use of the Taper object, Fillet option and Bevel function

Before you star modelling something you should always first determine the easiest steps to create your object, thats why its easy to have a reference picture. You can find various pictures of ball bearings using google image search, here is the ball bearing which we are going to create:

As you can see our ball bearing has tooth on the side, although in real life ball bearings normally don’t have these its nice to add them. They can easily be made by first creating a cube and then adding the cube to a taper object to give it his taping shape. Then we can add this in an array to duplicate them.

The 2 rings that keep the balls in place can easily be made using a tube object.

Finally the balls can simply be made using a sphere in an array object.

So now we know how we are going to create our ball bearing, lets get started!

Go to Object > Primitive > Cube or use the shortcut menu on top (see the picture above) to add a cube. Now use the following settings in your Attribute browser (bottom right):

The Segment setting will divide your cube in smaller sections, as you can see on the picture above. This has no use yet, but by dividing your cube you get much smoother results when using deformers like bend, twist or taper.

The Fillet will round the edges of your Cube, increasing the subdivision will smoothen the rounding. Using 5 subdivisions is enough here.

Cinema 4d Taper Object

Now its time to give the teeth its shape, so lets add a Taper Object. Then drag and drop it underneath your Cube Object

The Taper object does nothing so far, so lets edit the Taper settings:

I first changed the size of the Taper Object so it fits nicely around our Cube, keeping the mode on Limited and change the Strength. Just play a bit with the settings to check out what they do.

As you can see the Taper is in the wrong direction, it should make the front pointy, not the top so lets rotate the Taper Object. This can be done in multiple ways, I’m going to use the Coordinate tab you can see in the above picture. We need to rotate the Taper around the blue axis (the Z axis). But do we need to roate it +90 or -90?

I always have had trouble with this, if you want to learn this check out this link and remmember that C4D uses a Left Handed Coordinate system.

Of course when you are lazy you can also just keep rotating untill you get it right

Ok nice our first teeth is done, now we are going to add it into an array object

Cinema 4d Array Object

Now we are going to add an Array Object to our scene. An Array Object creates an Array off whatever you set as a child of it. Just have a look for yourself and you will understand that this is a really helpful feature of Cinema 4D!

You can add an Array Object from: Object > Modeling > Array, or the quick select menu. Then drag your cube in the array object like this (you set the cube as a child of the array):

For the Array settings you will mostly only use Radius (how far the objects will be from the center of the Array) and Copies (how many objects you want in your array).

With the other 3 settings you can create a sinus like wave in your array, just set all the settings to zero since we don’t need them.

Your scene should now look something like this (I increased the strength of the Taper object):

Now we are going to create the first ring, to do this add a tube (Object > Primitives > Tube) and size it up so it touches the just made Array:

When you take a look at real ball bearings you will notice that they have an indent in the ring that keeps the balls in position, so lets create it!

With the Tube Object still selected hit C to make the object editable, you will notice that the white raster lines have turned blue.

Now select the polygon tool from the toolbar on the left and while holding shift make a selection on the inter inside of the tube like this:

You will notice that the selected Polygons turn yellow, once you have selected all the polygons go to Structure > Bevel and use the following settings:

Extrusion: since we want to extrude inwards we have set this to a minus value. The inner offset setting rounds the edges of the extrusion, subdivision determines in how many polygons this offset is divided.

Our ring is now done, now lets add some balls to our scene. Go to Objects > Primitives > Sphere and add it to your scene. Set the radius of your sphere to 16m

Now add another Array Object (Objects > Modeling > Array) and set the Sphere as a child of this Array. Use the following settings on the Array:

Now all we have to do is create the center ring, the process is the same as our first ring so I won’t explain step for step what I did, if you get stuck somewhere take a look on how we created the first ring or ask your question in the comments section. This is result after this step (and finished model) :

Tip: when creating the indent on the inner ring you might notice that you can hardly see what you are doing because the balls are blocking your view, to make them invisible simply click on the green icon in the Object browser. To make the balls visible again click on it once.

Finishing your scene

To finish your scene add a floor object, some lights and a sky (Objects > Scene). Now add your fav. materials and set up your rendering settings.

If you want to learn what render / lighting settings to use to create a realistic looking render I suggest you to read this tutorial. With it you can achieve stunningly results like this:

What you learned in this tutorial:

1. The use of the Fillet option
2. The use of the Taper Object
3. How to use Arrays
4. How to use Bevel on an object

Feel free to show your result or ask a question in the comments!