Cerbera

Yes it's definitely an interesting problem - I can't think of any deformers that won't distort that geo when we rotate them off-axis. I wonder if the answer is in watching them being rolled, which does happen in a curiously specific way... CBR

You'd think it would be a square to start with wouldn't you ?! But it's not ! It's a circle of sorts ! Initially I thought that what would make all the difference, but it doesn't... And as we can see, that round has some rather specific diamond-form topology... As a C4D-user of old I believe you should know enough to be able to create that without me going into specifics ?! But let me know if not... CBR

I don't use the Asset browser mats myself, or RS, but I can take a guess ! Sounds like you are trying to use non-RS materials with RS. Remember that Cinema for about 20 years used Standard / Physical Renders, and S26 is the first version of the software that includes it as standard without Maxon One or a separate RS installation. So a lot of materials (I hesitate to say 'all' but I think I do probably mean that) from the Asset Browser are legacy ones from those much older render engines. I'd be surprised if all of them will convert to RS materials via the standard conversion routine - mainly I'd expect the ones with bitmaps to convert, but not necessarily others. So it's not so much about you 'correcting anything' as not using those old-school materials with RS or Maxon including some RS specific materials in the browser and making it clearer which is which ! CBR

Yeah that's much nicer than the old TP way hey 🙂 CBR

Yeah that curves functionality is definitely worth some wholesale poaching 🙂 Could have done with that the other week when I had to model various walls of the palace of Versaille... Fortunately I had the much underused Relief Object and ZRM to help me ! CBR

Cut food into cubes 😉 CBR

Yes I think that should be doable... not what you'd call a simple setup tho ! 😉 CBR

I don't think so, no, or at least not easily. Fields are not a part of the old bullet dynamics so I don't think they can trigger activation specifically. Also there are not 'degrees' of dynamic-ness (other than what is set in follow position / rotation etc, and the transition on deactivation for example) - things are either dynamic or they are not. So if something needs to 'become' dynamic at any point in an animation it needs that tag present from the start. However the dynamic 'enabled' setting inside the tag can be keyframed to activate or deactivate at any given time, and the dynamics can be set in the tag to be activated immediately, on velocity peak, on collision or via Xpresso. Notice there is no 'by field' option there... However, fields ARE very useful when it comes to controlling the forces that can influence soft bodies, and that might be where you can get the result you want with only a subtle alteration to your plan. Why not have everything dynamic from the start, but turn off gravity so it all remains stationary initially, and then use fields to limit and constrain the forces that would make the individual elements move and reveal their dynamic properties ? In the example below my field is limiting where the turbulence force I have in the scene is applying. The gravity we disabled by setting to zero earlier (in Project / Bullet / General tab) can be added back as a separate Force. force fields.mp4 CBR

It'll be to do with collision modes and hierarchy somewhere, but without seeing your scene, or even a picture of the objects in it, it is difficult to know how to direct you. But here is a quick example scene I made, which should show you how things should be set up.... In the above, a Big sphere is a parent of a separate clear dome object. We want both to collide with the ground and any other colliders in the scene, so the big sphere gets a Rigid Body tag with the collision mode set to Compound Collision Object, and Moving Mesh, because both are moving together. The dome does not require its own dynamics tag. Inside that is a small sphere, but it is not part of the other hierarchy - it sits at the same level in the OM as the Big sphere. However it gets its own Rigid body tag, with collision also set to moving mesh. If you've done that right, everything should collide with the floor (which has a collider tag) and interact correctly with each other without exploding... Dynamics within dynamics CBR.c4d CBR

Yeah, I don't think this plan is going to work, based on how you are generating those colours. The Connect Object has texture functionality that can pass through the textures of its children. However that is not what you are doing. You are colouring only with an effector, and the way that knows where to put those colours is because it is defined by the individual objects in the cloner. When you Connect those, that information is lost to elements above it because the whole point of the connect is that everything above it treats it as a single object, so I don't think you can pass through effector-based colour in the same way as you can an applied material. Also doesn't appear to work with Mograph Color shader in the color channel of a material applied directly to the connect, which seems a shame, but I am uncertain if that should work or not.. So now we have to ask why you need those connected, and if that is unavoidable, how do we get those colours on another way, and what do you need them to do... so we'll need to know what is the wider scope of what you are trying to achieve... CBR

That is not possible AFAIK. Whilst a clamp is able to constrain a single object to a surface, that is not the case when that object is in a cloner. But there are other approaches, like for example using dynamics and attractors to make things stick to other things whist also being influenced by effectors and stuff... CBR

Does this have to use softbody dynamics ? Because spline dynamics (S25) and Hair constraints should be able to do this very easily. If you must use softbodies (so it can work with field forces for example) then I think the dynamic connector is the only way that will work, and there are limits to how close you can get those clamped. Unless there is some clever Xpresso way of clamping the end points (and ideally a few points back from them as well) I'm a bit out of ideas if we must work within those limitations. Apologies if this is not helpful, but I am working in S26 at the moment and couldn't resist trying the new rope sim stuff, which I have to say binds very well to objects at either end via the rope connector, and intersects (or rather doesn't) with everything else and itself very nicely. I really would recommend you at least try it... CBR

CAD programs do not consider topology any of their business on the whole, so the options they provide at export are not as comprehensive as we might like, and certainly can't do the slightest useful thing with edge flow - there simply won't be any ! ZRM is the closest we have ever got to being able to turn these CAD monstrosities into quad meshes and something approaching appropriate flow automatically. And as you say, although much of an improvement on the Instant Meshes solution, it is still a real struggle to tell it which edges are hard edges, because you have to select them on the original model, which is a deeply unrewarding process on this sort of dogshit topology, where there's 200 parts and only about 2 of the selection tools will work. So in 2022, the ONLY way to get this perfect topo is to build a new mesh on top of the step, ideally using the HB modelling bundle Retopo setup. But as mentioned sometimes the STEP surfacing is good enough to render fine without alteration, as long as you don't need to alter the model in terms of point count or order, or to use displacement, which will just fail. CBR

Hmm. I don't have HoRope. But I notice you don't have a collider on the sweep, so that would probably explain why isn't colliding with the plug. Where is the animation in the plug coming from exactly ? I am not seeing any keyframes or vibrate tags or Forces anywhere in the scene, so slightly puzzled as to how that is happening, and what we can do to slow it down ! Generally I would say that is far too fast and frenetic an animation to expect old school dynamics to be able to keep up with it in a realistic way, or at least you'd have to REALLY push the substeps... I don't suppose you have access to S26 do you ? The rope sim in that is likely to produce considerably better / less complicated-to-setup results faster than the alternatives could manage. But if not, I think rigid body dynamics on the connectors, and spline dynamics on the rope might be the next best thing to try. CBR

Apologies it's too late to help but the reason for the hair problem was that it was sticking to the floor because of an issue with the collider tag. If you remove that it sorted itself out, and any temporary intersection with with the floor as it crouches before the jump would have been unlikely to have been seen, especially with all that shadowy lighting... CBR

I don't think there is a way to get dynamic data out of Cinema. Could you attempt to detect the collisions with Xpresso, and then get that to play a 'click' mp3 every time that happens so that you render out that sound with the file ? Even though you would have to export as video you only need the sound from it, which you could then combine with a separate image sequence render, and additional soundtrack stuff in post ? CBR

No I don't need the screenshot, I believe you (despite your handle) ! I just need the broken file so I can demo it in a potential bug report ! Pls upload the .c4d ! CBR

I didn't say it was the problem, I said it was a possible reason that the Normals commands didn't work on that mesh in your version... Trouble is, your file works fine in modern versions of Cinema. Look - here are the hairs pointing the correct way ! This makes it very difficult to work out what is going wrong for you, and alas I don't have R19 installed any more - perhaps someone who does can investigate further for you... maybe @bezo ? CBR

Me too ! I LOVED that film, which was one of the most visually rewarding things I have seen for some time, and not entirely because of Ms Delavigne in that all glowy armour... The first Avatar film fell a bit flat with me, on the whole, but it certainly had some visually amazing bits in it - the forest at night was particularly memorable. I look forward to seeing more underwater stuff particularly, and the amazing landscapes will probably lure me into a Cinema at some point, regardless of what the rest of it's like... CBR

I am unable to replicate that in 26.014. Please could you upload a scene file that demonstrates the problem ? CBR

Yes they do ! Even when they produce horrible results that is still useful in some circumstances. I use them sometimes in an SDS workflow, mainly as surfaces to build proper topology on top of, where they function entirely as a guide to the shape we're trying to get. Occasionally I clean up after them and can turn them into decent results directly in place. And in C4D, with Z-Remesher in the mix they become more useful still ! They still have a place in 3D, even when they are sitting next to a volume builder, which can be used in similar ways, because often the hard edges and polygon efficiency (such as it is) we get from booles are more suitable than the softer curves, raggedy edges and massive poly densities of its otherwise superior counterpart. CBR

Oh excellent - was hoping that would get an S3 ! CBR

Not sure but I can check for you in R25 if you copy just that object, and the maps for it into a new scene (save with assets, and make sure it's the only asset in the scene so I don't get all of em !) and upload it !! 🙂 CBR

Worry not - I have the file in case you come unstuck ! CBR

Oh I think we all would ! Horrible booles could be fractionally less horrible than they are now ! And they haven't had an overhaul since about R18 so I hope it's on their list of things to update ! 🙂 CBR