Cerbera

Interesting. In my version of R25 unselected objects are black by default... I don't think there is a button to revert it though (though you can reset the whole lot to default) - indeed the only change in the controls for that are that the selected object / bounding box controls, which used to be in View Settings have been moved to Preferences / Viewport Display, and that the custom colours are now grouped more logically, also in Prefs. Under Scheme colors, the things you need are in the Viewport Section: Selected Object and Shaded Wire. CBR

Smoothing deformer does not apply to splines. Instead, in the Tracer settings, change the type from Linear to something else, and then add some intermediate points value greater than 1 to allow curvature. CBR

If you hide it using that option it gets queued for deletion, but don't think you can do it directly. CBR

Do you have a moderation options drop-down at the top of your post ? Normally the delete option is in there. I can't remember if Registered members get that box or not... CBR

The SDS weight tool does have its own icon, and it is sometimes helpful to set fixed values via its controls, so I tend not to use the full stop / period key and just have it in my interface... CBR

Wow - he's looking a lot older these days, but then again, he has been around and in that game for quite some time ! Used to watch him demoing all the Spitfire virtual instruments back when I was first transitioning to orchestral writing, and he uses Cubase like I do, so always interesting to see his workflows, which are usually quite different to mine ! 🙂 Not surprised he is doing projects at this level - he is quite well known and prolific over here in the UK. CBR

Edges or points, though the use cases for it on points are rather more limited... And SDS has to be active, or the weight tag itself selected to see the changes you make. Couple of other general notes on this workflow: Important to remember that whilst edge weighting is a viable alternative to control loops, it is rarely so exclusively. An additional level of SDS is usually required when edge weighting is involved, so typical to see meshes at SDS L4 or even 5 when Edge weighting is dominant. The tightness of results you get from it are indeed dependent mostly on SDS level where base mesh poly density is low. Be wary of using this too much when UVs are involved; sometimes it is better to have a control loops workflow for texturing reasons so that you avoid any unpleasant 'SDS stretching' (which is different from regular UV polygon distortion). You have to watch your phong angles and breaks much more closely when using edge weighting. Edge weighting is sometimes difficult to convincingly 'fade off', especially in its interaction with a fixed angle phong threshold, meaning widening control loops are sometimes preferable It should be avoided on borders where edge flow changes are close by; it can lead to pinching and tearing OpenSubDiv will produce subtly different result to Catmull Clark when Edge weighting is used, and sometimes that is superior. However, in an integration error that seems diametrically opposed to its primary aims (which is cross platform / app SDS identicality), the former remains unusable because it still irreparably distorts UV mapped objects. When using Edge weighting, it is usually helpful to store that selection, in case you want to change the weighting later, and so that you can re-use them as phong breaks if necessary. The ideal circumstances for when to use edge weighting as an alternative to SDS control loops is shown in the example below. By using weighting here I have kept this insert section razor tight without have to run the control loops that would be necessary to hold the corners out into all the curving areas (and either run those all the way around the mesh, or solve them down on the nearest flat area) adjacent to it, yet in other places control loops remain, where it was easy for them to do so. So here I am using weighting at its best, when it is not doing too much heavy lifting, rather merely allowing me to add extra sharpening to smaller detail areas yet still continue to work with less polys at the wider level... CBR

Well my New Year's resolution was 4K 😉 CBR

But more action on this - nearly finished the riser now... CBR

Did fruit and vegetables upset you somehow as a child ? Only I have noticed a recurring theme in your artworks involving various unpleasant things happening to them - I still remember the lobotomised banana, and now these carrots have to run for their lives too ! As usual, very tight, nicely controlled SDS action there - I especially enjoyed the belt and clothing, but am I seeing a bit of straight line creasing in the finger joints ? Also, where's the bloody wireframes goddammit ?! 😉 CBR

No, that was ready to simulate. I applied cloth / soft body tag shortly after that, and set force driven mix animation to 20. Some balloon inflation helped get a bulgier shape, but wasn't necessary I found and in the end I preferred it with that off, and fairly minimal soft body cross constraints. I actually like your joints rig plan for the angular way it folds, hopefully that will work in much the same way as the bend did with mix animation. CBR

Yep, so it's this kind of thing... nice even squares at just enough resolution to support the buttons and zip section, whilst remaining very even everywhere else. I have used 70% edge weighting on the perimeter loops so I can avoid adding thin control loops thereby affecting dynamic responsiveness, and before I simulate this I will apply 1 level of SDS to take account of this and nail it into the mesh ready for simulation. a further, L1-2 SDS would remain live, getting you your final ultra smooth mesh. So what you end up simulating is something along these lines... To roll this up, you can use the classic 'bend deformer offset angle' trick, thusly... ...or spline wrap if you want to deform it more unevenly like your reference above The wrinkles and bulges and whatnot will occur naturally once you are simulating, presuming you are using the new cloth engine... btw - please update profile to show which version that is ! CBR

The great news is that this is pretty easy to model, and there are only a few goals in mind, which are: 1. Have enough poly resolution to accurately depict all the the details in the reference 2. Have extremely even topology so that simulation can work to best effect 3. Is 'watertight' so that inflation and softbody's can work properly 4. Will probably use mix animation to control the dynamic 'rolling' effect. I'll pop back and show you the topology you need if I get time later... CBR

Yes, turn isoline editing off in View Settings. Usually this should kept on though, and you should use shortcut Q to flick between SD and regular mesh points. I note there is also a bug in a few recent versions where isoline editing shows full wireframe in vp despite isolines selected in display menu (points mode only). I think it got fixed in 2023.2.0.

I am - I hit 50 the other day, and I know I am old because Discord annoys me 🙂 Maybe we should have a 'Core Crusty's Corner' for all the people who value actual skills and proper learning ?! Nice to see some of the 'old' crowd back though, regardless of age ! CBR

Absolutely stunning solution ! Very imaginative thinking, like your other few recent replies ! Great job, and good to have you here ! CBR

That is a very cool plugin, and extra helpful here in that not only does it show how much time is saved using it, but also gives some insight into what you'd need to do to make dynamic versions of your models. But we should also mention that some basic dynamic mixing is available to pre-animated characters via use of the forces tab in Bullet Dynamic, and Mix Animation paramters in new cloth, softbody and rope dynamics. CBR

I need to pop back to this thread (originally hidden by author, once he had received the help he needed) to warn the community that Christoph Voorn apparently does not pay his bills to fellow artists that he hires to help him. I would like to record here that I was engaged to complete what would turn out to be over 6 hours of work, which was completed on the day he requested it. Although I had never worked with him before he did send a small initial payment of £175 at which point I provided the file. He then made it clear that he wanted a series of details refined and additional changes made, which I clarified with him over skype would also be chargable at my normal rate and that I work on an hourly basis, to which he agreed. So once I had completed the additional work I chose to trust him, and gave him the new file, so he could look round it more thoroughly, and issued a new invoice. At this point he ghosted me, did not pay his final invoice, despite 5 reminders in the following month and has 'done a runner' like a disreputable little thief. I warn you all - this man is not trustworthy, and has stolen £210 worth of work time from me. Whilst this amount is too small to consider pursuing via legal channels I do feel duty bound to warn you all that working for him comes with a considerable risk of not getting paid, and I advise you to not release ANY files to him until the balance is received in full. Needless to say, he is on my blacklist now, and I won't be working for or helping him again. CBR

I take it you have tried the relief object ? CBR

Got a decent start on this the other day... Wil post again when I have finished that bit ! CBR

I don't think there is... if I ever need to do that I just chamfer the points first... CBR

I suspect that is actually a very simple setup. A Cloner is cloning a null, which looks like it's being animated via a random effector in Noise or Gaussian Mode. A MoGraph Tracer (unclear which mode, though I suspect 'connect all nodes') then presumably takes the output null(s) from that, generates connecting splines between them and feeds that to the Volume Builder where dilate / erode and SDF Smooth are used to thicken and smooth the animating spline into the sort of shape you see above. The disadvantage to that sort of setup is that the movement is not very art directable, based, as it seems to be, on random movement where the only control we have is animation speed and position parameter being randomised. Of course that would be circumnavigable by just manually keying the animation of nulls yourself.... Here's a quick starter file in which you can change cloner numbers / modes and play with volume builder effects... VB Tracer.c4d CBR

Oh that's a shame you're done without telling us what you used in Houdini !! CBR

Interesting. I hate the orange boxes so have turned them off, and therefore have never run into this problem myself. That sounds like it might feasibly be the case, but I don't know, and of course I defer to any Maxonites who will have superior input ! In order to report it as a bug though we do need to be able to repeatably reproduce the situation, and have a rather precise idea of which modes / functions prevent it working. Have you come to any firm conclusions in that regard so far ? CBR

Seems like a reasonable way to go. In my version I am holding all the 'fruit' in a dynamic collider box (static mesh) and using a moderate strength wind with some turbulence to float them all up to start with. However, before they reach the top of the containing box a linear field attenuates the wind, making them fall languorously yet chaotically back down, depending on what you do with wind strength... By keyframing that strength you should be able to either fade off the wind, or turn it off abruptly, making them all fully susceptible to gravity again quite quickly. tossing fruit.c4d CBR