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Question about PolyFX


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Hi, I´m new to C4D and experimenting with different things as they pop in my head. One of them is the object in the image, a cone which polygons rotate outwards, as if they are opening. The problem is they rotate from the center of the poly (expected that as it´s stated in the help). So I have a couple of question and was wondering if yo could help me.

Is there a way to change the rotation axis of the polys  while using PolyFX?

How can I make it editable with all the polys being differents objects? selecting them and choosing disconnect doesn´t do the trick

Is there a way to do it other than creating it from clones of a single poly?

 

Thanks in advance and hope all this makes any sense 🙂

 

polyx.png

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1 hour ago, bababuy said:

selecting them and choosing disconnect doesn´t do the trick

It does if you get the settings right 😉 You need to hit the cog icon next to that and untick preserve groups. Then it will disconnect every polygon.

 

However, there your luck ends, because polyFX does not allow you to move the axis of rotation to the base, so therefore it is not a suitable approach if that is where you want to rotate from.

But of course there are other ways, one of which is what you suggested. However I would recommend a compromise between the 2 approaches. I would do the Disconnect then I would delete all but 1 polygon from each radial loop, align its axis to its base using Axis Centre, and then clone that radially so you have a cloner per loop, so 6 in total, but now they can all rotate from the right place and you shouldn't get any overlaps during that rotation. As all cloners can use the same effectors and fields this is barely less efficient than doing it all in one Cloner, or Fracture Object, which would be another way explode the cone into individual objects.

 

CBR

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Thank you so much for taking your time to reply.

Ah, the cog. I always forget about that menu.  It almost do it. I can now move the anchor point while in polygon mode but only temporarily, as soon as I change to another mode, it resets.

Now I´m wondering if there is a way to make each poygon of the cone a separate object after disconnecting all of them.

Thanks again!

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23 minutes ago, bababuy said:

I can now move the anchor point while in polygon mode but only temporarily, as soon as I change to another mode, it resets.

 

Yep, you need to move the Object axis, not the temporary modelling axis, 😉 which is what you are accessing in any of the component modes (points polys, edges etc).

And of course that won't work until all the disconnected polys are their own objects. So you need to pop the disconnected cone under a Fracture Object set to Explode segments, and then make that editable (C), which will give you individual objects per face. Then you can use the Axis Centre Tool to move the axes of all objects to Y minimum in one go.

 

However that will only partially move the axes where you want them - they'll be down at the base end, which is right, but not aligned with the edge they need to 'hinge' or rotate from, which isn't.

 

And that's why I suggested deleting all but one poly from each radial loop because that way you won't have to reset the axis on ALL the polys, but just on one from each row if you see what I mean....

 

CBR

 

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32 minutes ago, Cerbera said:

 

Yep, you need to move the Object axis, not the temporary modelling axis, 😉 which is what you are accessing in any of the component modes (points polys, edges etc).

And of course that won't work until all the disconnected polys are their own objects. So you need to pop the disconnected cone under a Fracture Object set to Explode segments, and then make that editable (C), which will give you individual objects per face. Then you can use the Axis Centre Tool to move the axes of all objects to Y minimum in one go.

 

However that will only partially move the axes where you want them - they'll be down at the base end, which is right, but not aligned with the edge they need to 'hinge' or rotate from, which isn't.

 

And that's why I suggested deleting all but one poly from each radial loop because that way you won't have to reset the axis on ALL the polys, but just on one from each row if you see what I mean....

 

CBR

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply again, really apreciate it, it´s been very usefull 🙂

Im getting closer to what I got in mind thanks to all your advices. The only problem is that the polygons seems to be a little off when i clone them, like they need a fine tune to properly adjust to the original diameter of the cone, don´t know it that makes any sense the way I´m explaining it. Anyways, it´s a minor problem.

Thank you one more time 🙂

 

Edit: Maybe cloning them along a spline do the trick. I´m testing it, but end up with the same problem, some missalignement when reducing the diameter of the cloner. I think it may be caused by not perfectly adjusting the anchor point of the poly before cloning it.

 

2021.04.14-13.01.png

Edited by bababuy
Another approach (see edit history)
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You're welcome 🙂 Yes, there may be some small adjustment to be done - if so that'll be to do with non-precision axis placement 🙂 In this quick example I had placed my axes largely by eye using axis mode (was in something of a hurry !), but if you took the extra care to set the axis position and alignment to selected edge for each polygon (via the axis centre dialogue), then it should be spot on, and any discrepancy remaining should only need adjustment to the height of each cloner (which should be equally spaced) and the radial sizes (which are not).

 

1850403589_Unfoldcone.thumb.gif.cf1c4fd15a2551bbba25c764ed66d427.gif

 

CBR

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What a nice first contact with this community 🙂

Yeah, that fine tuning is driving me crazy. I can´t get my head around how it behaves like that xD

But I dont want to bother you with this any longer. You have been of great help already. Thanks a lot!

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