Unstable

Fantastic! Looks like a true disco astronaut to me. Great job!!!

Check out Puget Systems online and look at what they use for their rendering machines. You can also configure custom machines to see what goes together. You don't have to buy a machine through them, although they're pretty good. But they do a lot of testing on the parts they've chosen to use, and it might provide you more information to base your decision.

So, this submission should have won the contest since they thought it was real, right?

I've never tried mixing live video with 3d and thought I'd give it a go. I want to put a 3d object/character inside an object that is in the video. I think I know how I have to do this but would like confirmation before I try. Whether I'm right or wrong, I'm open to alternative solutions that may be easier. Say I have a video of a live person carrying the lantern pictured down a walkway. I can get the video in C4d just fine and I can track the lantern without a problem. I can also get an object to move with the lantern. My question is how do I get the character to appear 'inside' the lantern behind the glass and wire frame? I think I have to build the lantern as a 3d object and composite the 3d lantern into the scene essentially replacing the lantern in the video. I believe this would allow me to place the character inside the 3d lantern, especially if I decide to remove the glass so the character can grab the wire frame. Is this the correct approach? If so, I guess I'll start looking into how I do that. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

I didn't watch this whole video they showed something like that about 25 minutes in.

I have no idea if you could use this or not, but instead of searching for aerial views of fields, I searched for satellite views. Here is one in particular that you might like Aerial Footage of Cropland · Free Stock Photo (pexels.com) I noticed a lot of satellite images are more directly overhead, making it less likely to see the trees and fences. The other idea I had was, maybe you cut and paste several fields you like together to make a single image and then use Photoshop's generative fill AI to add more for a bigger picture. I don't know if that would work or not, but it might be worth a try. If nothing else, maybe my thoughts can spark you to have an idea. Good luck.

I'm still able to use the Magic center pluggin with 2023.2.2. I just tested it again to make sure it still worked.

I've had similar problems on occasion. For me it seems to vary on the mode I'm in. For example: I might be in poly mode and make several cuts successfully, then one cut doesn't want to stay. It shows the line cut for an instance and then disappears. However, if I switch to a different mode, such as point mode and make the same cut, the cut works. I've had the same thing happen in all modes. Occasionally I find something wrong with the model, but in those cases I can't make the cut stick in any of the modes.

Thanks much, I'll give this a try.

Just wondering if i'm having machine issues or if there is a problem with C4D Redshift material previews. I have material previews set to On. Is there something else I'm supposed to set? It's kind of annoying. These are just color materials for a substance painter id map, they don't contain any nodes like diffuse, roughness, etc. Thanks

According to your profile you have Octane. I'm able to convert Octane materials into RedShift materials manually, so I would assume you could do the reverse. I've gotten free packs from Kitbash 3d for example that were only available with Octane materials at the time. I downloaded those and used the texture images (diffuse, roughness, normal, emission, etc.) in a new Redshift material and it worked well.

Thank you for proving that it does indeed work. I can't believe I've been working on this for more than an hour trying different things. All I had to do was click the UV Unwrap button. Ugh.... I know this is what I'm supposed to do, but I wasn't doing it. I was clicking the Set UVW from Projection and then applying UV Packing and completely skipping the unwrap. Nothing like feeling like an idiot. Again. LOL. Thanks Bezo.

I have attached a very simple model, but I can't seem to get the UV to unwrap the way I think it should. I will be the first to admit I know very little about UVs, but I'm trying to improve on that. It seems to me by selecting the correct UV unwrap type, I should end up with about 12 somewhat rectangular islands. But no matter how I do it, I end up with either islands that have sections attached or stretching. I even tried selecting fewer seams and the model unwrapped the same way it did when I selected all seams. Is something broke? I'm hoping someone can explain to me why this is. I've watched the UV videos of the gas tank and others, but this just doesn't seem to be working imo. It's like even though I create a seam, the UV isn't cutting the seam. Thanks UV unwrap.c4d

Kind of disappointing that the sale is not for renewals, but only new licenses.

I apologize that I didn't really answer your question, but you would have to upload the project in order to tell why its doing what it is.

Hi, I'm not sure you can attract smoke by applying an Explosia tag to an object. I'll bet if you move your attractor to the bottom, your smoke still acts as it does now and continues upward. You can however, apply an xpExplosia source tag to an emitter and then attract the smoke/fire. I've attached a simple project you can tinker with if you like. In the future it would help if you can upload the project you're having difficulty with and complete your profile so we know what version of C4d you're using along with system info. Have a great day! attractor_with_smoke.c4d

I didn't find a way to use a selection tag, but perhaps you could use bulge with a field? I attached a project file that starts to do what you want I think. Just by moving the linear field back and forth the side bulges but you would have to tweak it more to get just how you want. Hope this helps. buldging_cube.c4d

Very cool. I think you did a great job! I can also learn a lot about camera movement and flow by watching this. Nice directing.

I think you are correct in that it should be more centered. I kind of liked having the character in the lower corner at the start of the shot, but with the currect focal length it does leave a lot on the left. I wasn't 100% certain this shot goes well following the shot just before it anyway. I'll have to try centering it or coming up with another angle I guess. Thanks

Ok. You guys are a hard crowd to please but I think your feedback helped a lot. This isn't perfect, but I think it is considerably better. I should probably do this blocking of shots closer to the beginning in the future. For this sequence, I'm only concerned about the camera angles, cuts, and sequence. I added a character to give more relevance (I hope) and there will be particles coming from the fingers into the pit to get things rolling. I am not concerned about textures, background missing or lighting at this time. Also keep in mind that the only part of the sword that will be visible is the part that is above the particles. So, I'm very interested in what you all think of this sequence now. More feedback is welcome

I agree with you and @Keppn about determining a bit of a backstory. It was actually after I read HappyPolygon's post and watched a couple of the suggested videos that I started asking myself a few questions. Initially, this was just a little clip to add to a demo reel of sorts. Simply show a magical sword materializing from a fire pit/well with magical particles. But after reading everyone's feedback I started asking myself some questions. Probably the best question was, what's important in this scene? Obviously, the sword is the most important item. So, while the particles are pretty and relate the idea of magic, they aren't the focal point. To me, this means that my camera should be close to the sword and while some shots should give a sense of where this is taking place, and how it is happening, most of the attention should be on the creation of the sword. I think everyone's feedback was great. Let me know if you have more. I plan to work on the cameras, but I also want to enhance the sword model with more detail, and then work on the relighting. I hope I'm not working on this 15 seconds of video forever. Lol.

Very good catch. I actually knew this occurred but I made it this way for a purpose. Maybe not a good purpose thought. Lol. I don't even know if I can explain it well. When I play it back in real time, you can see that the first scene ends with orange particles. However, when I started the second scene where the particles were orange, they changed to the next color so quickly, it looked out of sync that way too. So I started the second scene a little before the orange in hopes it would be too fast for anyone to notice. So good eye! Haha. I completely agree about the sword having the reflection of particles in the blade at the very least. Very good point. Thanks much.

Thanks, this is more good information. I'm going to try several different cameras using several techniques, then render them out and piece together to figure out what works best. The scene I provided is actually two different cameras rendered out separately. Then I put the two scenes together to produce what you see. However, you still make some very valid points and I appreciate your feedback.

Thanks, this is some good feedback. The videos on camera techniques are good as well. After I watch some of those videos, I'll try some greyscale scenes to see if I can improve the composition and camera movement. Thanks

This video snippet is part of a longer video. But I would like to make this look professional like so many snippets that make up the Maxon reels and such. With so many great artist here, I was hoping some of you would share what I could do to make this look better. Is it camera angles, colors, color balance? I have no one in the field close by to ask, so I thought I would turn to all of you. Thanks