No Particles

I recently had a question of how to create TP from dynamic collisions when using a Cloner Object.  In other words how do you create an emitter at the collision point of each clone.  If you haven’t seen the original tutorial on this then please check this post.

It isn’t actually that tricky once you understand the basic principle.  What you need to do is to iterate through each of the clones in the cloner and then by using the Dynamic Body State node you can output the dynamic position of each object (clone).

Xpresso Setup

In your Xpresso setup, output the Object from the Cloner Node, then link this into a Dynamics Body Node, you can then output the Count.  This number corresponds to the number of clones in the cloner.  Use this as the Iteration End value in an Iteration Node.  Now you have an iterator which will iterate through all the clones.  You also need to link the Cloner Object Output into another Dynamics Body Node.  In this second Dynamics Body Node you can link your Iterator Output into the Object Index, this will then link the iteration value to the index of the clone.  In other words it will count through each clone and check the dynamics state.

Particles From Clones

Once you’ve done that you can link the object output into one of the Object A / B inputs of the Dynamics Collision Node, just as I did in the original tutorial.  You should find that all your clones will emit particles when they collide with the other specified collision object.

Particles Galore!

I recently completed a tutorial for the Maxon’s You Tube channel. It goes into quite a bit of detail, so for that reason it is split into 4 parts.

Something you might be interested in?

I’ve copied some of the blurb from the You Tube page here so you get an idea of what I cover in the tutorial. If you want to check it out then please visit the Maxon You Tube channel.

In this tutorial, Tim Clapham from Luxx takes you step by step through the process of creating a Motion Graphics animation with CINEMA 4D.

Working with Release 13, Tim covers several of the newer features such as the XRef object and the new Physical Renderer. However, throughout the process, options are presented to enable users of versions prior to Release 13 to complete the tutorial.

You can view the first section here, but why not visit Maxon’s channel and you can watch the other sections and also check out some other great videos.

If you ever wanted to work with high and low resolution models in Cinema4D then this tip should come in handy.

Using the Instance Object combined with a simple Xpresso setup, this shows you how to create an object that allows you to work with a low polygon model and then swap this out for a high polygon version whenever you need to render or preview the final result.

This technique will keep your workflow streamlined, and allow you to perform tasks such as dynamics simulation and caching without the overhead of polygon heavy scenes. Once the caching is complete, you can switch out the object for the detailed version and render away.

Once created, this simple object will become a vital part of your Cinema4D library. You’ll never know how you worked without it!

Kudos to Kai Pederson who originally showed me this trick.

For more in depth and detailed tutorials, check out the Learn Dynamics for Cinema4D training collection. Over 10 hours of intensive training for working with Cinema4D and Dynamics. Available to purchase online here

In this tutorial I demonstrate a technique that allows you to create a sticky type effect with your dynamic simulations in Cinema4D.

By using the Force object in combination with Step Falloff you can create a setup where the objects stick together depending on the force applied.

Check out the tutorial below, or watch it on Vimeo.

You can download the scene file here.

A new collection of training for Cinema4D R12 will soon be available.

This teaser shows an example of the content that is covered in the tutorials.

This tutorial from demonstrates a method to create Thinking Particles from Dynamic Collisions using Cinema4D and some simple Xpresso.

Although the technique described is fairly basic, this will lay the foundation for much more complex effects that are possible by developing the principle further.

Download the scene file for this project here.

A new collection of training for Cinema4D R12 will soon be available.

This teaser shows an example of the content that is covered in the tutorials.

A wooden world…

It has been a while since the release of Cinema4D r12 and I must apologise for the lack of blog posts. To be honest, I’ve been absolutely snowed under with work. Lots of really great projects that will hopefully be online at the Luxx website as soon as I have time to update it.

Exclusive!

I worked with TWP on a long piece that is all about a wooden world for GE Fleet Card. Created some cool jellyfish animations that were projected onto Queens House in London for Bombay Sapphire via Ultrascope in the UK.

Jellyfish

Spent a few weeks with the lovely people over at MTV Networks Australia working on their promo for the Aria’s. Worked on a typography and infographic based animation for another great client who I cannot mention yet (shhhhh!)  Soon I’m off to spend some time working with the talented crew over at Umeric for another exciting new project.

Pollution!

In between all of this creative mayhem, I’ve been planning and recording my next set of training. You are gonna love this! Release 12 saw the addition of some exciting new Dynamic features, possible one of the greatest additions to the application for a long time. Lucky for me, I was involved throughout the development process helping to beta test the new features along with the other members of the Maxon Beta team. During this period I managed to develop some awesome tips, tricks and techniques for working with Dynamics and I thought it would make an ideal subject for my next training series. This new set of training will be based around several complete projects that cover many of the aspects of Dynamics. From the initial creation of simple rigid bodies, through soft bodies, connectors, springs, motors and of course plenty of Xpresso to compliment the toolset. We start with an empty scene and develop an animation using Dynamics from start to finish. Not only is the dynamics toolset covered in detail, but I also discuss workflow, materials and shaders, tons of mograph, caching and rendering the projects.

I’m in the process of proofing all of the new tutorials and will be sending out a few teasers soon. I have a huge free tutorial recorded and set to go live as a taster of what to expect in the new training. So follow me on Twitter for updates and don’t forget to check back here regularly.

In the mean time I have been digging about in my hard drive to find some interesting presets to share… I posted this Thinking Particles preset earlier today and I’ll be posting more in the coming weeks.

Have fun!

R12 Splash Screen

Well it’s that time of year again. The new release of Cinema4D has been announced. What an amazing release it is too. I have been fortunate enough to be part of the beta team and have been testing the new features for a while now. It is difficult to know where to start, but the most important update for me has to be the new dynamics module.

Restructured GUI - Dynamics Menu

Dynamics is incredible! The old dynamics module was slow, unreliable and quite honestly an unpleasant experience to work with. The new dynamics is an absolute joy to work with. In fact work can quite easily become play!

Those of you familiar with MoDynamics, introduced with r11, will be pleased to hear that the new dynamics is a huge extension beyond this. Maxon have taken Dynamics to a whole new level. Instead of being restricted to rigid bodies that only will work with MoGraph objects, we now have have the addition of Soft Bodies, Springs, Joints (hinges, etc) and Motors. They all work together, and even better they all work with or without the MoGraph module. If you want a stand alone dynamics simulation you can easily create this, but if you want to then duplicate it 500 times, drop it in a Cloner and away you go.

Rigid and Soft Bodies working together - click for movie

Dynamics will function as a fantastic feature in it’s own right, it will also work with MoGraph if you desire. For instance you can create a Soft Body, but you can also create a Soft Body of clones. Imagine virtual springs between all your cloned objects. You can link Soft and Rigid bodies together with the huge number of connector objects, these allow you to create hinges, cardon joints, ragdoll, sliders, the list goes on. Springs can be linear, radial or both, expect to see a lot of bouncing around in your scenes when you get hold of this.

Rigid Bodies, Soft Bodies and Hinges in action - click for movie

All you Xpresso heads will be pleased to hear that Dynamics comes with some new Xpresso nodes, so you can link Dynamics to other elements in your scene, such as Thinking Particles, allowing you to create particles upon collision and plenty more besides.

All in all Dynamics has finally received the upgrade we have all been waiting for. To be honest, I’ve just touched upon the features, you should really check out the Maxon webpage for full details of the new featureset.

Alongside Dynamics there are plenty of other improvements to be in awe of. We have now got a bundle of new deformers and a new morphing system. The new Pose Morph is a hybrid of Pose to Pose and Morph. So you can mix and match between position, scale, rotation and point level morphing. On top of the obvious morph parameters, Pose Morph supports UVs, Maps, Hierarchy, Parameters and User Data. Yes! I did say UVs, now you can morph your UV maps as well as geometry.  How awesome is that?

New Deformers

The Camera Deformer allows you to deform objects from the Camera viewpoint, some crazy stuff is going to come from this deformer alone. You set the grid resolution and then you can drag and keyframe points on the grid looking straight out onto your scene (and it has falloff built in too). If you link Pose Morph up to Camera Deformer with some Displacement and Cloth in between, then you can start to understand the power that can be harnessed.

Mesh Deformer is another new deformer. Take a low poly cage and use it control a high poly version. Something I know a lot of users have been asking for. You can even set your low poly mesh deformer work as a Dynamic Soft Body and as the low poly cage deforms, it then passes that deformation on to the high poly mesh.

I cannot finish this without mentioning Linear Workflow. Cinema4D now has the option to include Linear Workflow in your projects. Those of you who have been using DeGamma will be glad to see LWF as part of the core application. The new openGL (which is a fantastic improvement) supports Linear Workflow, so you see an accurate preview of your lighting and materials in the editor. We can use Colour Profiles for input and output now. This means we finally have the ability to work in Linear, and use Colour Management.

An alternative use for the new MoSpline L-System - click for movie

Well I really have only touched on the new features. I haven’t mentioned the new Render Queue, Smoothing Deformer, Correction Deformer, Surface Deformer, GUI enhancements, Freeze Transformations, IES lighting, Weight Manager, L-System (OMG!), Python…

I love this release, it is huge and I am sure you will all love it too. Check out the Maxon website for the full details and visit Cineversity for all the video highlights.

As for learning those new features. Watch this space, helloluxx will soon be updating our tutorials, to offer you an intensive and comprehensive collection of training that will cover many of the new features in depth. Something you definitely won’t want to miss out on.