HappyPolygon

Hey Cesar, very nice list of functions. It's a very interesting post for someone who want's to dive in 3D graphics programming with Python in C4D. What is your plan with all these functions ? Some of those have allready been implemented as Scene Nodes and it's very likely for the rest to be implemented in the future. Have you considered applying Maxon for a job ? https://www.maxon.net/en/about-maxon/careers

Luca Movie info A young boy experiences an unforgettable seaside summer on the Italian Riviera filled with gelato, pasta and endless scooter rides. Luca shares these adventures with his newfound best friend, but all the fun is threatened by a deeply-held secret: he is a sea monster from another world just below the ocean's surface. Trivia Gross worldwide: $49,750,471 Portorosso can be seen as an advertisement on a travel agency window in Pixar's previous film, Soul. Alberto's surname, Scorfano, is Italian for scorpionfish. It's commonly used to indicate a person that is not good looking. "Piacere Girolamo Trombetta" is a joke that was popular among young kids in Italy until the '70s. It literally translates into "Nice to meet you, [my name is] Girolamo Small Trombone". The joke consists in grabbing another kid's hand as in a handshake and move it forward and backward as if it was the hand-slide of a trombone. Trombetta also means "fart" in Italian, which makes the joke even funnier to very young kids. The train number at the end is "94608' which is the zip code for Emeryville, California where Pixar headquarters is located At the very end of the credits, it says "produced in our slippers around the bay area" due to the covid-19 pandemic, this is the first movie that was made at home. Jack Dylan Grazer performed his vocal tracks inside of his house due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The only room that provided the acoustics needed was his mother's closet. A Donald Duck plush toy can be seen in Giulia's room, which is fitting because Donald Duck is very popular in Italy. As the boys race through town toward the end of the movie. The famous Pixar Luxo ball can be spotted on a rooftop. Hank the octopus is shown as a concrete carving in the town of Portorosso. Luca works as a fish shepherd, with 24 fish that he looks after. This film is marked as the 24th feature animation movie that Pixar has created. In Luca's sea creature form he has 3,436 scales on his body. Originally, Enrico wanted legendary film composer Ennio Morricone to score this movie seeing how he was a very huge fan of his work. But Ennio died before Enrico could ask him. Dan Romer who would score this movie, had some of his score pieces of this movie have some similar score styles to Ennio's style in honor of Ennio. The classic Pixar clouds from the Toy Story films are prevalent in this film. Trailer Behind the Scenes According to character supervisor Sajan Skaria, the sea monsters’ hair paddles were complex. “It’s the sea monster version of hair, “ he says. “They’re individually modelled and they move around.” Since the animation team had no reference footage of real sea monsters to help establish how Luca and his underwater family would move, they pulled reference footage of salt-water iguanas. “We looked at how their tails move when they swim,” says animation supervisor Michael Venturini. “Iguanas use their tails in a left-right pattern, not up and down like a dolphin, and their arms and legs drag behind while they swim.” Director of photography David Bianchi’s team used only two wide-angle lenses for all underwater shots. But they still needed to convey motion in the shots, so they dove into the project – literally, creating the actual motion of the camera by tracking themselves in the Pixar pool. “We rented gear, built trackers, filmed ourselves and put it into the computer,” he says. “Two lenses and a repetitive shot pattern give way to a completely different approach when Luca emerges from the water.” The filmmakers had to figure out how to showcase the incredible transformation from sea monster to human and back again in a fun and organic way. They were inspired by observing squids and octopuses and how they change the colour of their skin. Given concept art and parameters driven by story, the technical teams worked towards giving artists the flexibility to craft each transformation according to story needs – dictating details like the origin and speed of the transformation. The end result – developed through the collaboration of multiple teams, including art, tools and global technology, characters, effects, animation, simulation and lighting – is stylised, specific and seamless. “We had to develop very specialised technology on this film to make that happen,” says Venturini. “Those shots, on a technical level, are complex, so we had to be really mindful of when we’d show the transformation.” Coordinating models were created and rigged for both versions of the character – sea monster and human – so each transformation could begin with one and end with the other. “In a way, it was building two main characters at the same time,” says Skaria, who adds that the tail posed some challenges since it only appears on one version of the character. Visual effects supervisor David Ryu says the effects and lighting teams had to figure out how to coerce a water surface into the desired shapes. “We wanted to create a more illustrative picture,” he says. “That boiled down to building layers of stylised water looks. The effects and lighting teams developed a technique that would allow artists to control the detail in a reflection, allowing for a simpler, more stylised look. “We also wanted to incorporate the patterns we see in the ocean due to wind or underwater formations,” Ryu continues. “A patch of turbulent water here and a band of calm there – artists can use those elements as a compositional tool. Our team developed a few recipes – choppy water that pushes triangular shapes, calm water with curved shapes. We could paint big swaths in the frame like brush strokes to compose an ocean pattern.” As Ryu explains, “Enrico really wanted us to inject colour and texture into the edge of a shadow. It turned out to be pretty difficult because of the way we render now – shadows are just a byproduct of having something blocking the light. Our RenderMan team developed a technology that allowed us to detect those shadow edges and to be able to insert colour and texture in just those areas. It’s a pretty subtle effect, and it’s a good example of what we’ve peppered in to take the CG edge off.” Source: 3D World October 2021 Things I'd like to know how they did: The coast waves New video2.mp4

Original Title: Utvandrarna Based on the book by Vilhelm Moberg (published in 1949) depicting a few people emigrating from Sweden to the United States in the 1840 - early 1850. Haven't seen the movie, but judging from the VFX below, I really do want to see it.

I wanted to mention that on the "Effects I'd like to know how they were made" but he morphs so quickly that I don't even thing there's a smooth transition. I think the new form just pops out from a heavy blur. The effect of the clothes roling down is intresting and that's what sells the illusion best.

I think this is close enough. I couldn't make the effect to crawl on the wall and that's probably a limitation of the Shader Field that doesn't support a cubic projection (I used a 2D texture for the swirls). test.mp4

My favorite art books are from Ballistic Publishing. There's the The Art of Oddworld Inhabitants that i've never got my hands on. I think all books from Ballistic Publishing now belong to 3DTotal. For design references I trust the Dover Design Library.

Actually I do know how it works but I don't have the full picture because I do not know exactly (technically speaking) how they did this... I'll try to replicate it in C4D later.

Encanto Encanto tells the tale of an extraordinary family, the Madrigals, who live hidden in the mountains of Colombia, in a magical house, in a vibrant town, in a wondrous, charmed place called an Encanto. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift from super strength to the power to heal-every child except one, Mirabel. But when she discovers that the magic surrounding the Encanto is in danger, Mirabel decides that she, the only ordinary Madrigal, might just be her exceptional family's last hope. Trivia The opening Walt Disney Animation Studios logo appears with a "60th Animated Motion Picture" commemoration. The word encanto comes from Spanish and means charm, spell, or enchantment. It is both used as a way to tell a magic incantation and as an adjective for "sweetheart." Most of the Latin voices are from Colombian-born or Colombian-descent actors. In "The Family Madrigal" production number, one of the kids is having a cup of coffee, then when they're getting all excited to see Mirabel, while Mirabel takes his cup and says "That's why coffee's for grownups." Not in Colombia, it isn't. Coffee in the morning is traditional for children in Colombia and other South American and European cultures. The fifth Walt Disney Animation Studios film to explore Latin American culture. When Luiza is singing her song to Mirabel about being under pressure, she pushes against her own magical door and a row of other doors. Those other doors resemble the doors from Monsters Inc. Walt Disney Animation Studios' 63rd feature film. One of very few Disney animated feature films released outside of the 20th century to have a G rating in Australia, the others being The Emperor's New Groove (2000), Lilo & Stitch (2002), Brother Bear (2003), Home on the Range (2004), The Wild (2006), Meet the Robinsons (2007), Bolt (2008), The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), and Winnie the Pooh (2011). I couldn't find any CG related breakdowns for the movie but found this nice director analysis. Every new CG movie from Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks feature some kind of new breakthrough. Encanto didn't stand out for anything in particular but I have isolated one detail that do make this movie special. Clothes - I've never noticed embroidery and needlecraft so realistic before. Other points that make this movie stand out: Music - Let go of "Let it Go", you will have earworms with at least three songs from this movie. Characters - I was amazed with how much they studied the Colombian facial characteristics. All 12 characters are so stereotypical of the "latin" structure. (the word stereotype has gained some bad rep these days but for me is nothing negative) Effects I'd like to know how they were made: The way magic spreads New video 23.mp4 The holograph 537955378_Newvideo.mp4.4227c05e686184ac89bdbfc203393e6b.mp4 Other behind-the-scenes shots Hear the same voice actors sing in 28 languages ... how do they find voice actors with so similar voice ?

Who are you going to call ?

What kind of capabilities are expected from SceneNodes to be considered a release feature ? I thought the tech demo status was present only in R23 through S24 and R25 uncovered the final system with the introduction of Capsules. Introducing new nodes is considered normal improvement.

Introducing PixCap, the first browser-based 3D Animation Editor powered with AI motion capture, auto foot locking, auto rigging, and cloud storage and viewing. Use the AI Motion Capture feature with any video source - both shots you’ve made or YouTube videos. Capture keyframes in a matter of seconds, retarget them to your rig, and fine-tune using the editor. Export or import projects using industry-standard formats. The best thing about it, it’s all in the cloud! No downloads or installation required! Open beta is coming soon and you can be a part of it if you subscribe on the website - https://www.pixcap.com/ PixCap runs in most modern web browsers: the developers recommend Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox. It requires a constant internet connection, although an offline mode is planned in future. Hardware requirements are relatively minimal: a “fast CPU” is recommended, but PixCap can run on systems with integrated graphics, like netbooks, although the UI is not designed for mobile devices. Use of the PixCap editor is free, with users able to export animation in glTF and FBX format, although exported videos and animations published to the web are watermarked on free accounts. Instead, users pay for AI credits for use with the motion-capture system, with one credit paying for a single image capture or one second of video capture. Free subscriptions provide 30 credits/month. Professional subscriptions provide 200 credits/month and cost $20/month or $180/year; Studio subscriptions provide 600 credits/month and cost $45/month or $400/year.

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There are still a few useful and powerful noises C4D doesn't support. I think the main reason behind this is the fact that they rely on a specific raster input in contrast with the "classic" c4d noises that are bitmap independent and defined purely mathematically. I believe noises like the Phaser and Diffusion Reaction would only make sense in the material nodes context.

The update adds Phasor noise: a versatile new 3D noise type used by Industrial Light & Magic during production on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and recently implemented in RenderMan 24. It’s capable of creating a variety of geometric or organic-looking patterns, ranging from sand dunes and fabric folds to tree rings and reptile scales, the latter shown in the video above. Users can guide the result by using texture maps or Mari’s Vector Paint sytem as inputs. The update also introduces a range of presets that can be modified to create custom Phasor noise effects. http://www.cgchannel.com/2021/12/jens-kafitz-releases-mari-extension-pack-5/

Intel has become the latest Corporate Patron of the Blender Development Fund, increasing its financial commitment to development of the open-source 3D software to at least €120,000/year. The news means that all of the major CPU and GPU manufacturers – AMD, Apple, Intel and Nvidia – are now members of the Blender Development Fund’s highest standard tier. Increasing financial support for Blender development year on year Intel first backed the Blender Development Fund in 2019, initially at the €12,000/year Corporate Silver level, increasing its financial commitment each year since then. Its new Corporate Patron status guarantees a contribution of at least €120,000/year, equivalent to the salaries of two full-time developers. At the time of writing, the fund provides over €1.8 million/year for development of Blender, far in excess of its original goal of covering the salaries of 20 core developers. The news also means that all of the major CPU and GPU manufacturers are highest-tier backers of Blender, Nvidia and AMD having become Corporate Patrons in 2019, with Apple following this year. http://www.cgchannel.com/2021/12/intel-becomes-latest-blender-corporate-patron/?fbclid=IwAR0NJfdkn2tgBBDw192Jktbx_lBjeJZ7-Ufo_aQncBUAdCMAWYRafnJbsLQ

VFX Breakdown from season 2

AMD has released the stable 1.0 build of the USD Hydra plugin for Blender The new plugin supersedes AMD’s ‘classic’ Radeon ProRender for Blender, although AMD says that the old plugin will continue to receive periodic bugfixes and updates to the latest Radeon ProRender SDK. Since the original beta release, the USD Hydra plugin has been updated to support Blender 3.0, which has itself now shipped, and now integrates with AMD’s new free online library of MaterialX materials. In addition, AMD has released an early public beta of Radeon ProRender for Maya – USD, the Maya counterpart to the USD Hydra plugin for Blender. The initial 0.1 release only supports viewport rendering. Licensing and system requirements AMD’s USD Hydra plugin for Blender is available free under an Apache 2.0 licence. The plugin is compatible with Blender 2.93+ running on Windows and Linux. Read more about the USD Hydra plugin for Blender on AMD’s GitHub repository Download AMD’s free USD Hydra plugin for Blender Over 290 PBR materials spanning a range of common real-world types AMD has launched the GPU Open MaterialX library, a new online library of free downloadable materials in the open-source MaterialX format. The firm describes the library as providing “ready-to-use PBR materials aimed at jumpstarting the creative process and rendering workflow for 3D graphic designers and game developers”. The library currently contains over 290 materials, including architectural staples like tiles, flooring, brick walls, plaster and concrete, plus metal, wood and fabrics. An open standard for rich material data supported in a growing range of renderers and DCC apps Originally developed by Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic and open-sourced in 2017, MaterialX is intended to provide an open standard for exchanging rich material and look dev data between DCC apps. At the time of writing, the library contains 294 materials, grouped into common real-world categories including concrete, marble, metal, paint, plaster, rock and wood. There are also a range of ground, flooring and wall materials, including brick, tile and cobblestone. The materials are also available in themed collections, including urban exteriors, contemporary and historic interiors, and mountain and forest environments. Materials are provided in MaterialX .mtlx format, at a range of resolutions: the default resolution for AMD’s own materials is 8k and 16-bits-per-channel for texture maps. Users can also upload their own materials to the library, so the range of assets available should grow in time. System requirements and licence conditions The free materials in AMD’s GPU Open MaterialX library can be used in any application capable of loading .mtlx files. AMD’s own assets are provided under an Apache 2.0 licence. User-contributed materials must be made available via either a CC0 or MIT licence. You don’t need to register on the site to download files. Download free PBR materials from AMD’s GPUOpen MaterialX library

Unigine has uploaded this nice demoreel Download the free edition from here: https://unigine.com/

I don't recall C4D artists doing anything useful with Material nodes in general. Material nodes from third-party Renderers yes, but native no.

That's amazing Srek thank you for this.

Then I was tricked by naming conventions. I thought Displacements in C4D allowed movement along one axis only. I'm excited to try this on the Sub-polygon Displacement Channel and the Displacer Deformer. (Why did they remove the feature from the standard material editor then ?)

The Displacement is supposed to displace polygons only to +/-Y or other direction (but isn't used much for X and Z). I use Y to refer to the "Up" direction and Z for "Depth" but in C4D usually the Z is used to refer to the "away from" direction of a polygon... The ear picture is too small to see if there is an overhang of the lobe from the plane. And the asteroid picture is too small too to examine how you combine the xyz displacements. Anyway if a Displacement Material Node can do what the Vector Displacement node of Blender does, then that is great and I didn't know that. Is there a standard procedure to convert a mesh into an EXR map and use that in the Material node environment?

These kind of achievements was the reason that I suggested from Maxon to add the Vector Displacement Feature along with the Parallax Mapping years ago. Unfortunately the Vector Displacement lived a very short life in C4D (I think R14 to R15) due to incompatibilities with the Physical and ProRender. The Vector Displacement was introduced before the Node Material introduction. If those two ever met we would have the opportunity to reproduce some of the Blender examples. In a way i'm thankful for not having to deal with all that chaos a Vector Displacement node system would create. I get quite stressed when things get over complicated that even I can't remember why I did things the I way I did them some weeks before. I think the Vector Displacement system somehow still lives in C4D helping the Sculpting corner under the hood. I'd like to know by the Blender users in here if those Vector displacement examples we saw in those videos are quicker to render than their classic polygonal counterparts. And here's a more philosophical question: Is this pipeline worth the effort ? What are the advantages over the mainstream texturing and modeling procedures?

Did you use fields to restrict the luminance only to the center of the explosion ?

Thanks, I'll have a look at that.