BLSmith

Hi Bezo! Super happy to see you still after all these years being one of the first to reply to my crazy questions! Yup, with the same company. Haven't used Cinema4D in many months and excited to get back at it again! What's more, your solution worked! 😄 Thank you so much @bezo! Also thank you @Vizn for the idea!

Hi there. I'm trying to make a tube contour to a spline. I create a new file, it works fine, I try to do the exact same thing in my main project, the spline changes every time I select it. How can I prevent this? Video on the topic (3m). Thanks!

Hey Mike. Lenovo assures me they are going to be doing 1-2 weeks of testing on my machine before shipping it, add to that the 3 year warranty.

I may be misunderstanding, my original post mentioned two GPUs. Understood about the 4000 series, but sadly the decision must be made soon and I don't have control over the timing. Regarding 2x 3090 vs. 1x A6000: Interesting point about memory not scaling 1:1 with two cards over one. In Octane, it gives the impression that it's using the memory from all your cards but perhaps that's misleading. Regarding memory: My models are mostly rips straight from CAD. They're often 1-2GB large without anything added to them, throw in particle effects for fuel etc., it starts to get nutty slow. I'd imagine the added video memory would help cache some of this. Very happy to hear! Part Number 30E1SD9300 Country/Region USA Preload Type Standard Image (Preload) Preload OS Windows 10 Pro 64 preinstalled through downgrade rights in Windows 11 Pro 64 Preload Language Windows 10 Pro 64 preinstalled through downgrade rights in Windows 11 Pro 64 English Platform Tower WRX80 1000W Motherboard MB AMD Castle Peak V1.2 Processor AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5965WX Processor (3.80 GHz up to 4.50 GHz) Memory Selection 32 GB DDR4-3200MHz (RDIMM, ECC) QTY(8) Storage Controller Adapter AMD Integrated Controller Graphics 2 x NVIDIA® RTX™ A6000 48GB GDDR6 Onboard M.2 SSD 1 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC Opal QTY(1) Onboard M.2 SSD Boot Drive Yes Second Onboard M.2 SSD 4 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 Performance TLC Opal QTY(1) Ethernet Integrated Ethernet Keyboard USB, Traditional, Black - English (US) Mouse USB Calliope Mouse Black Audio Card Integrated Audio Line Cord LineCord - USA Publication Publication-English Warranty 3 Year On-site 5WS0U26649 3Y Premier Support Upgrade from 3Y Onsite Lenovo put this system together for me today, and it is expensive but this may be the best approach since I've managed to get the IT department and my manager to agree on the purchase. Any red flags stick out to anyone?

Wow so many replies so quickly. Lets get to it! Excellent thank you for this information. I'll dock the DDR5 from my preferred hardware to save some money. I just thought it'd save someone time if this wasn't relevant to someone helping. Good points. Yes will be doing all my renders with GPU/Octane Renderer. Main reason was to have sort of the best of both worlds since the software applications are varied and certain benchmarks often inflate what looks good vs. what is actually useful. Rendering with Octane in Cinema4D and rendering in Premiere Pro is basically a daily occurrence, usually rendering at the end of the day because my current system takes forever to do ether. Perfect thank you for checking. I was coming under the same impression. Hello Dave, thanks for this! I love Threadrippers, but the price on these alone almost hits my budget limit, especially with the Lenovo inflated prices. I've reached out to IT regarding the perks-at-work program and will see what they say, could make a big difference! Thanks everyone for these replies. I'm now much more educated on this and will follow up once I learn more from my end.

TLDR: I need to build a all-in-one workstation (Cinema4D [Octane, X-Particles], Premiere, After Effects, Local Rendering), and while I was going to expense out all the components and build it myself, I'm receiving pushback from my IT department and I'd love some help trying to navigate this exchange. My budget: $12,000. My goal; kitchen sink: Higher frame rate in the viewport viewing X-Particle fluid simulations, faster render times in Premiere and Cinema4D, ability to multi-task with all applications open at once. My problem: I originally planned on building a system myself, but my boss said I better use a vendor because it's more likely the IT department will approve a single invoice from a single purchase rather than various components from various websites like Amazon, Newegg, etc. I spec'd the system with "Puget Systems". Spec sheet below: Motherboard: Asus ProArt Z690-Creator Wifi CPU: i9 12900k RAM: 4x DDR 5-4800 32GB GPU1: RTX 3090 TI GPU2: RTX 3090 TI SSD1: 1TB Samsung 980 Pro M.2 (Local Program Directory) SSD2: 4TB Samsung 870 (Local project directory) SSD3: 8TB Samsung 870 (Local archives, Cache) Various other bits and bobs. After submitting this quote to IT, IT had this to say: I was under the impression Xeon processors are not very good for my purposes. I could be wrong. Can anyone provide data on this? Can anyone tell me if it's possible to spec an excellent system for my goals using these two vendors (HP/Lenovo)? Why or why not? I also read that DDR5 offers excellent opportunities once future firmware revisions start to optimize for it, and with my system being one I'll need to live with for at least 5 years I want to make sure I get this right. Or is DDR4 sufficient for my goals? Thank you all for your time.

Well look at that, it's perfect! This texture tool sure is neat! Makes it a lot easier than what I've done in the past. Thanks so much for the video!

I've never seen this tool interesting, I don't remember it in R19 haha. So I deleted the tag on the object (to clear all changed variables), and placed it back on the object from the material manager so that everything was set back to the default values. I then entered Texture mode, and I could see a 1:1 representation of the texture in the preview window and live-view window, progress, however, it was still wrapped around spherically. Interesting, you might be onto something here. The projection is set to Spherical. Maybe that has something to do with it? Sure thing! File attached 🙂 TextureQuestion.zip

Hi all. Short 2 minute video for you: TLDR: The Preview Window shows a good texture placement, but in live viewer it's wrapped around and contorted. What can cause this? Thanks!

Ahh ironically I never actually considered the order! Thanks so much!

Heya @MJV! Thanks for the reply. I enabled the Clamp Lower and higher, but sadly to no avail. I isolated the object into a real small file, hopefully this will help! 699619742_C4DQUESTIONMOVEOBJECTWITHINRANGEMAPBOUNDARYV1.c4d

I have two objects: Screw Connector: H Rotation value rotates from 240 to 328 degrees. UFO: Y Height value moves from 78.4 to 77.2. Goal: While the Screw Connector is between 275 and 250, bring the Y value of UFO down from 78.4 to 77.2. The problem: The UFO continues to move linearly as the Screw Connector rotates between 240 and 328 degrees even though the Range Mapper says to only move between the values of 275 and 250. Video: Any tips? Thanks!

Perfect! Came up with a solution that works using my file using @bezo's file as a reference for learning and I was able to rebuild it from scratch. Here's a video of my solution using my provided file from the original post. Thanks all. Until my next question! 🙂

Hi all. Attached is my simple project. I want to stretch this spring using pose morph. I'm not sure why I'm unable to do it. I'm coming from R19 to R25 and still learning. Here's the video version of this question: Alternatively, here is the text version: I have a spring, it's resting state I've called the "Minimum" position, and the desired stretched out state is the "Maximum position. Using the file I've included in this thread, I made a copy of the Minimum spring, added a FFD deformer under it, stretched it out to the desired shape renamed the spline to "Maximum." A. I then added a pose morph to the Minimum spring, set the targets to Minimum and Maximum and set it to animate. Didn't work. B. I assumed A didn't work because the Maximum still had the FFD deformer, so I right clicked Maximum, set "current state to object" and then set this new Maximum into the pose morph target. This also didn't work. It compressed the Minimum spring so much it destroyed it. I couldn't even delete the pose morph tag to fix it. C. I assumed B didn't work because the "current state to object" increased the number of points in Maximum exponentially, and pose morph (to my understanding) needs both the Minimum and Maximum need the exact same number of points in the same order, which is why it broke it. So this time, I copied the Maximum FFD to be a child of Minimum and moved the FFD points to squish the spring to a minimum state. Then I set both Maximum and Minimum to current state to object so that they likely had the same number of points in the same order. Then I created a pose morph on the new Minimum and set the target Minimum and Maximum, only this time the Minimum got stuck in the Maximum position (instead of what happened in B) and I could not animate it between the Minimum and Maximum positions. I'd simply like to figure out why I can't stretch this spring using pose morph. I'm sure it's a simply check box I forgot to tick. Thanks all! POSE MORPH C4D QUESTION V1.c4d

Thanks for that video! It helped a lot. Took me about 70 minutes to slowly figure it out haha. But here we are with a perfect result. Thanks again as always 🙂 681357519_2022-04-2200-23-09.mp4

Hi there. Two questions: If I have an object that I was to rotate from -165 to -195, I'd like to have a slider on the screen that limits its rotation between those two values. How can I accomplish this? When I create a Target Expression, the object is facing 90 degrees in the wrong direction. In the past I would look for the "object" tab, and simply change the orientation and it would fix it, but I'm coming from R19 to R25 and I'm not sure where that option is anymore. Optional video going into more detail: Thanks!

You've given me so much hope @mrittman! I need a few days to digest and form proper questions as to waste as little of your time as possible but I will reply back with some!

Dude that'd be awesome. Yeah this could be a super cool approach! Will definitely send ya some beer money once I get this all arranged and animated on my project.

I'm going to sort of live blog my way through this. Writing this before watching @Cerbera's Youtube video: First off, thank you for making this video. I like to download your videos and save them into permanent locations and often refer back to them for guidance so I can try and spend less time wasting your time and more time getting stuff done. Even the little things like increasing your mouse size really helped! Now, on to the Youtube video: You say in the video, roughly: My response: 0:38. Position of spring to keep tension. Correct! 0:52. Position of rigid structure to bob about. I will check on this. However, I think when you see the full file, that this says pretty rigid as well. I'll make a video on this under this table: 1:23 You press play on the animation and see that it’s still wobbly. Yeah exactly the problem I had. 1:47 “Press A to update viewport” (Twice) I didn’t know about that shortcut, thanks! Helps a lot! Saves a bunch of time. 4:13 After offsetting the keyframes by one. I just about dropped by coffee. 5:25 Talking about viewing from a distance wobble not being detectable. Yeah my intuition is the same. My projects typically have me make the mechanical stuff work, then the trainers come in and direct me to move the camera at the end. Since this video I’m making is all about springs, they might have a few spring close-ups. 5:49 You mention being a bit depressed. Sorry for me being the cause of it! 7:26 You changed priorities and pressed play. I did spill my coffee. My GOSH YOU’VE DONE IT MAN! Very Exciting! I feel it’s only fair to pay you for the hours of troubleshooting you did to solve this, and any potential time we may set aside if we were to bring in my big model and discuss this in more detail. This is great! I am completely fine cheating. I've even had a sidebar conversation with my boss about this prospect and he is OK with it. When it comes to that spring surrounding that rigid governor rod, it can remain rigid. Perhaps an FFD isn't needed at all then? My boss says the spring barely moves in real life and if it didn't extend/retract in the video it would not matter. Things I'd like to discuss if we were to have a 1-on-1: Optimization: "Un-Subdivide" "Dissolve," and adding a "phong," I didn't quite understand these tools as they were presented and spent time on Google trying to do this but came up short. Also would love to hear your opinion on future importing a CAD file like my engine to C4D. Xpresso and Keyframes: Applying your techniques to my larger model. I went through your replies and made a summary of my thoughts below if your interested. Good ideas in there! Increasing performance gives me one less excuse to work from home 100% of the time haha. Rocking 75fps with that. Also nice that they stay in the holes, very cool. Will keep this in my back pocket and bring this up again if performance on my work system could use it. When it comes to xpresso my understanding starts and stops with Set Driver/Set Driven so I apologize for my ignorance on it.

Thank you Cerbera, no really, thank you. I eagerly look forward very much to see what you discover and what, if any, actionable ideas we could potentially deploy.

I'm so happy to hear this. So here's what I'm thinking. We start over. We kill the XPresso, and completely start over. To understand if an answer is achievable, let's assume the Xpresso completely disappeared and we keyframed everything. Is an answer achievable? Here's some added thoughts in more optional detail in video format if you'd like to hear them. This would be epic to go to my boss with a potential solution rather than "This is so too hard we might need to can this".

Oh nice! Will look into more in depth on Monday at work. I'd be happy to send you the CAD and see what you think too if that helps.

Wow thanks for these replies. What a reality check. On top of the regulars saying this is very difficult, even for them, I fear this animation has grown beyond my ignorant ability to solve it. I honestly don't know how I'm going to bring this news to my boss... However! Anyone would be willing to set aside some 1-on-1 Zoom/Google Chat time hours, perhaps we could start from scratch on this. When it comes to labeling/texturing, that can be my homework between sessions. We could optimize the model (from the CAD source file), re-create this properly, and have this run the right way. I could go to my boss Monday and ask for the necessary funding for the training hours. This could be good for me mentally because I feel like a dead horse that's been kicked repeatedly on this for months and I'm been reluctant to tell management that I've stalled. If I had the right guidance I'm sure I can make this work. Without it, I fear I'm completely lost and I'll have to go to my boss and tell him animation isn't for me, I'm fine faking it but even that seems difficult. If no one here can help me one-on-one with a blank sheet of paper, could anyone please direct me to someone who can?

I have two objects, each with hooks on each end that move left to right, that hook into two moving holes, all driven by Set Driver / Set Driven. The problem: The hooks need to remain under tension, but instead bobble around inside the holes. I have tried Set Driver/Driven, key-frames, and even warped a model with an FFD, but none seem to work. I'm 100% fine making major changes to this project in order for this to work. Here is a video on the issue: Here is the file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YOKEq5BY7afjXQhA3PqH-h5B1p-XaMvs/view?usp=sharing If anyone could help me understand a solution for this I would REALLY appreciate it. Thank you for your time. PS: If needed, I will pay someone to help me on this because frankly if I don't figure this out I fear I'll be fired or something as I've been on this problem for weeks and I just can't solve it myself. Reach out to my DM, or email at BLSmith2112@gmail.com if that is required.

Gotcha. Thanks again! You rock!