Cerbera

Superb 🙂 CBR

Harder than I'd like ! 🙂 To be honest for that sort of thing without Signal I would use C-motion rather than XPresso, which is delightfully not tied to the character object as some people imagine, and works on anything, in much the same sort of way that signal does, albeit perhaps not so simply or intuitively ! CBR

Perhaps there should be an 'ignore user' function to prevent further 'fire-stoking' !... CBR

Exactly the same here ! I didn't use it a lot (don't have much call for animation) but it saved my ass many a time when I did, I still have misty-eyed magical memories of how great it was, and I do miss it to this day, yet not quite enough to be shelling out 400 bucks a year for the subs thing. CBR

Golden advice there 😉 CBR

Needs more informations 😉 Where's that scene file, Sir Matt ? CBR

No, that's exactly the same as the top was... just apply those techniques to the bottom as well. If you really do need step by step the whole way through, then perhaps book an hour of my time to go through it with you over skype or similar - that is a service I offer... CBR

Sure. It is not possible to extrude this one manoeuvre, so we have to do it in several manual stages. Start with this (and possibly another disc section on the lower base, which I didn't bother with for speed's sake)... Then select these polys, and extrude them out (with caps, 0 segments). Now select the rim edges thusly, ctrl-scale those out from centre of circle until they match the edge extrude. Weld the points by green arrows. Next we should extrude the entire top cap (with caps again), but then we should remember to go back and delete all the non manifold edges we have just created by doing that, so select them first for easy deletion when they are covered ! So, extrude the top now, then optimise the mesh, then go inside the top section and delete all the non-manifold polys (those that connect to more than 1 surface). That should give you this result, which just needs you to pop these support loops in at the top... ...you can scale this polys out from centre to get the outer base ridge... I didn't do in integrated base in mine, but the same principals apply... and if you get your control loops right you should get this nice tight result under subdivision... so we have to add several supports around the base, AND some in the rim thickness itself, which we didn't add during the extrude as it overly complicated things. CBR

Yes ! But he's usually too modest about blowing his own trumpet, so I have to blow it for him, figuratively speaking (!). CBR

Just checking we've all spotted that C4D overlord Chris Schmidt is back from next Wednesday (30-03-22) for the annual resumption of ROCKET LASSO. Thats normally 8 pm UK time and 2 pm CST. CBR

I had hoped my post above WAS the gentle warning, to everybody ! We DO want all the opinions, but we definitely should drop the confrontational tone please. CBR

I am confused. Which version are you in now - 25 ? Which doesn't have a content browser ? And where are they showing locked - in the R25 Asset Browser or somewhere else ? CBR

You're conflating a bit there. The bits of the forum that help new users tend not to be these extended discussion threads. Forums themselves are not tiring, just some threads within them 😉 But people have to have somewhere to go to talk about these things, so it might as well be here, if we can all continue to play nicely together and not throw our toys out of the pram... CBR

Indeed you can. If they are not on the UV canvas they won't appear on the model, and doubly not (!) if you assign a different material to those parts using selection tags. 🙂 Glad it's working for you... CBR

In modern versions of Cinema we have 'set UV from projection' in the UV edit layout, and I can't remember if that is in R20 or not. But no matter if not. You can select the material tag that is using your cylindrical projection, right click it and do 'Generate UV coordinates' which will convert your parametric cylindrical projection into actual UVs, and change the type of mapping the tag uses to 'UV Mapping'. So in that respect you can get what you want, although there will still be work to do to separate the inside and outside surfaces (which will be on top of each other by default) and the base(s) and rim, which of course should be projected frontally, from a camera perpendicular to them, separately. CBR

Let's start here: you cannot 'deform' a light other than by altering its visible light distance and relative scaling. That can be useful for making it stretched or squashed, and is keyframe-able, but that is the limit of that ! But if we want the visible part of it to 'shimmer' and shift like I imagine you want, then you might be able to use the Noise tab of the light to do that. try adding a large scale animated noise (give it some slow wind speed) and play with the relative scaling until you get something that gently and nebulously shifts... You can also add moving noise in the glow if that would be more helpful, and you are using it. There are 2 types of glow - Material Glow, and Object Glow (accessible through render settings: add effect, glow) and the latter type can use noise. CBR

The trouble is, the statement above exists in opposition to your main aim of accuracy ! If the source graphics are rectangular then it will be impossible to map the graphics onto that surface without some distortion - so the graphic will start one size at the top, and get squeezed down as the model shrinks into the base, which is not accurate, or precise or correct ! if there is a circle on your rectangular artwork (for example), it will not be a circle by the time you have forced that to wrap around a cup ! It'll be wider at the top than it is at the bottom ! If you have difficulty understanding this it can help to visualise it in the physical world. Get a bit of A4 paper, and make it into a tube. Are you able to make that a into a physical cone without overlapping the paper at either of its ends, folding it, or leaving a massive gap somewhere ? No you are not - that can only work if the cylinder is straight. Yes ! And specifically the same arc as you get from the correct UVs, which is why you generally need to export the UV Mesh layer so you can use them as a template in PS or illustrator. If you do manage to find any professional label master sheets for printing on curved objects like this you will see that the artwork is indeed arc form, and not a straight patch. The reason you will sometimes see a rectangular form or cylinder-projected UV for an object like this, or receive rectangular form artwork is because a) people are lazy, and b) sometimes the difference in size between top and bottom is so slight as to make the distortion in any graphics minimal to the point where it is not really noticeable. But if accuracy is your main goal, that won't do, and you have to work a little harder to get there. No. Either the artwork AND UV are arc form, or they are both straight, and wrong ! But they must be the same, or the mapping won't work properly at all 🙂 So in summary, your choices are: Redo the artwork, or accept the distortion / inaccuracy inherent to using rectangle artwork and cylindrical wrapping ! Unfortunately back in R20 there is no way to see that distortion other than on the texture in the viewport, and if you think that looks 'right' to you, then that might be OK for your purposes. I don't know what Blender functionality you refer to, but there is no way in Cinema R20 to specifically input the aspect ratio of a UV map. CBR

Cylindrical mapping would be wrong for this - it is not a cylinder, and that UV mapping does not reflect the tapering sides of the model or take into account its thickness. The resulting unwrapped shape should be an arc, (or rather 2 of them, inside and outside surface + the rim and base islands) its exact dimensions are unimportant to the goal of UV mapping, and should be defined only by the physical dimensions of the model ! If you get that right, then the UV mapping (when done correctly as below) will also be right. Fortunately Noseman is here to explain that... CBR

Actually no, I think the water jug bit goes into the rear half as well, so the outer has to be hollow. In which case I would add the roof and floor (but no control loops by it yet), then add negative thickness and then add the control loops, giving you something like this... CBR

Trouble is, that is not enough reference to see clearly what that part does behind the clear plastic bit. But I think it should start from this sort of thing, and not with adding thickness as you have tried above... CBR

Yep, that should be fine, though your large curve won't be as controlled as mine because mine is anchored at its centre and yours is currently... not. A is the anchor point, and the point which dips in to describe the curve, while the C(ontrol) loops, which are pretty much equidistant from the anchor, control the tightness of that curvature. The edges outside that E(xtents) control how the curve is restricted from and transitions to the straight parts it adjoins. All of those loops are necessary to fully describe that curve. CBR

Sort of. The hole in your reference is much lower than where yours is now, and you'll notice mine is separated from the nearby edge but at least 2 loops, which keeps that area nice and controlled where it meets the edge. Lastly, you don't have a box corner here, so your corner will collapse too much under SDS whereas my (latter) example would not... Also note how my large corner is not 90 degrees like yours, but actually curves in to describe it... CBR

Yes that'll work, but don't add the thickness to the wall section so early. Get all the topology in you need, including the edge flowing loop in my example above and the cut-out button bit BEFORE you add thickness, otherwise you'll be doing all that twice and trying to make it match on both sides ! Lastly, note additional horizontal loops added to the middle of the button to more tightly define the rounding there... Lastly, I changed my mind about that top right corner part, and made it a box corner instead of an inset type, which results in much less of a curve there now. CBR

As usual, I have to say, not enough radial segments in that plan. Curvature has to be established to a much higher degree when we want curves like that. This started off as a 48 sided cylinder... CBR

I too am confused by what you want here. As Bezo says. your UVs should occupy the full UV canvas (which is square), and then the aspect ratio of the image you use with that material determines the aspect ratio of it. Normally this would be a square map too, but when it isn't the UV scales to match it. CBR