southpaw

Very clean Jed, thanks for sharing 🙂

If understand you correctly, you need to drive the "to" parameter of the Spline Wrap with the "Position" parameter of the "Align to Spline" tag (As both use 0-100%) Also set the mode in the Spline Wrap to "Fit" rather than "Keep Length". Scene file is atached, hope this helps. Sphere with boole rotate along spline_0001.c4d

Thanks for taking the time to view it Igor, I can assure you there where no drugs involved 😉

Just wanted to share a recent personal project, exploring the creation of complex geometric designs from a single animated object. Pretty simple, just playing around with Mograph cloners. Rendered with Cycles4D, post production in After Effects. https://www.philrichards.co/work/project-one-6xh4f-dxrsd Here's a few stills,

@Jops I've definitely learnt more about the memory node thanks to this thread, I was aware if it, but didn't really undertand how to use it.

Really clever stuff jed 🙂 Thanks for sharing.

Here's a variation using the Time Offset feature of the Step Effector, as with Jops' example, you can adjust the spacing in the Step Effector's position parameters. But this version uses the Time Offset function as a delay. Step Effector-Time Offset.c4d

I think it's the Memory node but I can't be sure. You can the moInstance object from the Mograph menu to create these effects. The docementation expains quite well how to use it, but basically you would select the text object, then add the moInstance object and animate that.

Fantastic work, love the facial expresssions. Thanks for sharing 🙂

A test piece for a faux title sequence, re-adapted from a previous commercial project produced for ITV (UK based TV channel). Produced mostly in C4D, the rotations of the planets were calculated via xpresso, I found the orbit times foreach planet on Wikipedia, then set up the expressions for each planet's orbit time. (A collegue helped me with the math). Finally the animation was exported as Alembic, then shaded and rendered with Blender/Cylces, composited in AfterEffects. Just a bit of fun really, trying to explore a workflow between C4D/Blender. Screen shot of the the Xpresso to rotate the Earth mesh. The other plants follow the same set-up, with a change in the 'Days to Orbit' node.

Great breakdown, thanks for sharing 🙂

It's an interesting question, as Fastbeen mentions, alot of depends on your client base or the studio your working at. I often to listen to similar debates on a youtube channel called 'artcafe', hosted by Maciej Kuciara, a concept artist whom has worked on numerous hollywood productions. His argument often talks about kit bashing (painting over photo reference) in concept art, and wether or not that is cheating. (Not the main focus of his channel but often comes up in conversation with the guest artist). He states that, as long as you have an understanding of the fundamentals, then it's not a problem. If the client wants to see the chareacter from another viewpoint, you know enough about drawing to re-construct the character as requested. He often talks of the 'old days' when kit bashing was frowned upon and seen as cheating, where-as today, with deadlines becomoing ever shorter, kitbashing is the norm. For me, working as a freelancer, I think that when comes down getting paid for the work you take on, then use whatever you can to keep the client happy. I use personal projects to challenge myself and learn from, then I intergrate/adapt those skills when on a commercial job down the lne. In my experience, the client's main concern is that it's done on time and on budget, and looks or excees what they envisioned.

That partly explains the mess I got into, aside from my crappy Xpresso setup. Thanks again for the explanations.

Ah thank you @jed, I knew there was a way to interate througth the spline points, but I've always found iteration in Xpresso a little confusing. I didn't understand that I needed to re-use the spline object & point nodes in order get the count and then use the index, so your file is a great help in understamding this. Thanks again for you help 🙂

I have a rough working solution using a condition node, new scene file is attached. But this means I still need to enter the spline index values manually into the condition node. Which is fine for 2 or 3 but i'm looking for a more automated solution. There should be a way to do it using the iteration node to loop though the spline index points, and check which are even or odd, then set the position of say the even point indices to that of a null. If anyine has any ideas, please let me know. Xpresso controlled Spline Points 001.c4d

I have a six point spline, and i'm reying to set every Nth point to match a null object. So for instance, set points 0,2, and 4 to the position of a Null. I've tried using iteratiing through the spline points, and using the Modulo node to select every other spline point, but am unable to set the Xpresso up correcly. I've added a scene file, and and image for reference. Any help would be much appreciated. EDIT: After some research, I think it I should be using something along the lines of a Compare Node to evaluate the MODULO of Spline Point Count/2 ==0 to find the even number indexes, but still can't it to work properly. Xpresso controlled Spline Points.c4d

From what i can gather in the documentation, you can only use the polygn node to find the index and postion of a polygon, but you can't set the position of it. The Point Node gives you a point position as an input. So you could set the position of 3-4 points to match another object such as a null, and this would move the polygon when you move the null. Found this tutorial, it uses a point node to set the postion of a polygon by using the Cluster tag from the Character menu. of the

You could try saving a polygon selection, you could access that through xpresso, and from there, you might be able to set the position or matrix of the of the poligons. Alternatively, wouldn't the pose morph the pose morph be easier? You could store the polygon postions in a number of pose morphs, and animate them.

Some styleframes for a News Feature I worked on recently. Also included are some early mockups, and a few viewport shots. The topology of the tree model is pretty bad, but as it wasn't going to deform in shape, it was left as it was. The UV process was a little difficault at first due to the poor toplology. The bark areas of the mesh where cleaned up and UV's seemed to work much better. Rendering was done in Cycles4D.

Just seen this official version of this video on motionographer.com.

Fantastic work Jed, If you havn't already, check out a book called "The power of Limits" It's quite old, but talks about geometry of nature. I've found it very interesting, although the math stuff is way over my head, but I think you should be able to translate alot of the content into your tests judging by the work posted here. There's also a Houdini artist named Serjan Burlak that does a lot of this kind of work, I found out about the book from a podcast he was a guest on.

Thanks for sharing, great work! The other breakdowns on his Vimeo are interesting too. When i first read the title, I thought is was Erik Wernquist, whom produced this video https://vimeo.com/108650530

Quite a long poem, must have taken a whle to animate, Ccongratualtions on the film being selected for the festival.

There's a free node based addon (plugin) called animation nodes that has similar functionality to C4D mograph. I heard on a padcast that the developer of Animation Nodes now has full-time position at the Blender Institute, and is working on updateing the particle system within Blender amoungst other things.

For anyone who is thinking about purchasing XParticles, Insydium are having a half price sale for NAB. Here's the link to the page on the Insyduim website: https://insydium.ltd/news/nab-2019/