In this presentation from NAB 2015, Athanassios Pozantzis demonstrates how Cinema 4D's tools and workflow can be used to create a visual effects shot of a planetary explosion.

01:23	Creating a Sphere with Random Topology using Polygon Reduction
04:25	Thickening and Fracturing Sphere with ExplosionFX
09:31	Adding Effectors and Dynamics
12:41	Dynamics of Intersecting Objects
14:06	Dynamic Collision Shape - Visualization
14:56	Using Particle Forces in Rigid Body Dynamics
16:14	Adding a Core to the Planet
17:19	Shockwave Effect - Trigger Velocity Peak
22:39	Negating Attractor Force to Create Explosion
23:50	Adding a Starfield Sky
25:13	Applying a Planet Texture
28:28	Swapping Materials - Material Assignment Tab
30:19	Lava Material - Animated Noise and Volumetric Light
37:42	Particle Shockwave with Thinking Particles PMatterWaves
42:19	Rendering Thinking Particles Velocity Trails with Hair

You'll learn how to explode a sphere into random shapes using Polygon Reduction and Explosion FX. Next you'll see how to add Rigid Body Dynamics which trigger at Velocity Peak and a simple effector with falloff to trigger the effect. You'll see how the Attractor particle force is used to simulate planetary gravity, and animated to first implode and then explode the pieces of the planet.

You'll also see how to create a glowing lava core to the planet with animated noise and volumetric lights, and a shockwave particle effect using Thinking Particles PMatterWaves.