Cerbera

Another way to get a fully adjustable Parametric Saddle shape is via 2 simple bend deformers on a plane, both occupying half width and set to Unlimited Mode, so they apply to both sides. Or you could do an Arc spline in a (radial) cloner under a Loft. Or, for better control of the things that matter, a similar setup, but using MoSpline and symmetry under the cloner and using another MoSpline to clone along instead of doing it radially. CBR

Hey Jens, welcome to the Core 🙂 Yeah, what's happened there would be that you have handed control of the cylinder generation and scaling to Spline Wrap, which means it is not within the reach of mograph effectors anymore because the cylinders are not individually addressable (other than by the hair object) when spline wrap is generating them per spline segment. Spline wrap is not a related / unified system of the cloner and its effectors. But if we clone to hair that doesn't clone a single object along it, it clones multiple objects along the length of each hair segment, which isn't what you want either. And if you use any other type of spline-based hair object generation (other than spline, like for example 'circle'), you hand control of the 'extrusion' (not the correct term but you get the point) to the length parameter of the hair material - again not what you need, although it does offer its own variation controls within the length settings - again not addressable by effectors... There is a MoExtrude object, which does allow control of extrusion via effectors, and along splines, in theory, which you could apply to cloned disc objects, but I can't think how you'd get the resulting extrude steps to do them along individual spline segments in the hair.; I think that is designed to make each extruded polygon follow a single spline not a massively complex array of spline segments. I'll have a think about what you could do instead and get back to you if anything brilliant occurs to me ! CBR

Yes, just in another folder. Some people are very hesitant to do this so end up overwriting current installs, which can be hard to revert, but not you I see... In so many installs, what's another one ?! CBR

Might be because you're a limited member ? CBR

Lols - yeah I just recreated a setup too, and as long as my random effector is under the target one in the cloner, all works as epxected... target and random CBR 01.c4d CBR

There have been a lot of FBX improvements / fixes since 2025. I hardly ever use Xrefs though, so I haven't tested this myself. Why not do a parallel installation ? Then you can try it with no risk to original 2024.5.1... CBR

Glad you got it sorted. I have to agree with you that this method of getting smaller details into a model can save some time if you're lucky, but I am always struggling to make it as controllable and predictable as I wish it was, which often leads us to going back to tried-and-trusted UV / displacement methods. CBR

It would help us understand more if you could link us up to the tutorial or include your file so we're not starting from scratch ! CBR

I suspect it is not actually stiffness you want so much as a shit-ton of drag ! Here is a rope made from a helix with just 8 points (Uniform, 8 interpolation) falling from horizontal to vertical very slowly and without stretching. Rope Unfurl CBR 01.c4d The key settings here are: Very few points in the source spline gives ropes that don't stretch so much. Scene / simulation / Substeps also affects this, so mine is bumped up to 40 or so. Other than that it's mainly high drag value in the rope tag itself that chills this out enough to make it fall slowly and smoothly with that unbending motion you mentioned. If you want it even slower, that can go up more, as can the global drag in Scene / Simulation settings, though note these settings are cumulative so it is easy to overdo it. Thereafter you can get some wind or turbulence forces in there to make it swing once it is hanging vertically. CBR

The symmetrize command works BY duplicating your target side to the opposite one, so anything that is on that side is going to get mirrored. And that seems to be exactly what happens in your file. SO it does follow the Blender workflow to an extent, whereby it sets things up so you are ready to make further changes to one side, but using the Symmetry MODE rather than the object. If you then want to use the Symmetry OBJECT instead of the mode then you still have to manually delete one side to provide the Symmetry object with what it wants to work correctly. So not so much user-error as having incorrect expectations set by the way another software works ? CBR

I am unable to replicate this in 2025 1.3 - works perfectly every time for me. So we'll be needing your scene file please, to see what might be different. CBR

It's weird where help comes from and strange coincidences in life isn't it ? I am by no means any sort of XP expert, and would normally consider this thread best left to people that actually know XP really well, yet by sheer chance I took on a client job just before the weekend that required me to get XP control of the enabled parameter of a parametric object, I also found the ON port before I found the ENABLED one, and it also broke for me, forcing me to go find the answer very much out of my wheelhouse ! Anyway, glad our timings were coincident and it could help someone else, because it drove me properly nuts for a good hour when it happened to me on a deadline ! CBR

Ok, I figured out the 'why' ! If there is an unconnected ON port in the Xpresso node for that object it breaks the 'enabled' port for some reason (I imagine that might be a bug so will report it for you). But at least that is a mystery solved ! 🙂 CBR

OK, that was weird. I think I fixed it in this version. All I did was delete the sphere object out of the Xpresso rig, and then dragged it in again, re-got the enabled port and connected it and now it works ! Very unsure about why though ! disable sphere CBR.c4d CBR

I'll guess AI because it's very much the flavour of the month at the moment and everyone is trying to shoehorn it in everywhere 🙂 CBR

Good news ! I might be exactly the right person for this project ! I actually have some experience building various shipyard components for another client, in addition to 25 years+ general modelling XP. I also very much appreciate the value of a highly organised scene structure, so we have that in common too. Lastly, although I do consider myself a C4D generalist, my main focus and expertise has always been in modelling / UV, so I tend to gravitate towards projects that let me focus on that alone, like this one ! 🙂 Only thing is I have 2 jobs ahead of this in my queue at the moment, which will tie me up until the end of next week I imagine. But if you think that could work for you, pls do PM me any additional information you may have, and hopefully we can sort something out to start around 24th Feb ? Many thanks CBR

I believe Maxon are aware of this one, and hopefully it should be addressed fairly soon. CBR

You shouldn't have to grab that specifically - clicking anywhere in free space with the move tool should move it freely, right ? CBR

For me it does what I presume you want if I just lose the pin material tag ! What does that do for you ? CBR

Is it possible in your situation to lose the actual thickness, do the displacement as a child of the mesh, but then put the whole lot under a thicken generator ? That should get you somewhere ? CBR

Yes I think that that is why beta guys offer some value to Maxon above most customers in that regard - unlike your report, which was atypically thorough, and any @HappyPolygon makes (which seem to be on a whole new level in terms of detail and frequency), regular customer reports are usually limited to 1-liner 'this doesn't work - sort it out!' kind of thing, which is about 5% as helpful as they need reports to be, and there is a much greater incidence of user error in their findings. This is why I have my doubts about Maxon potentially doing fully public betas, because it is impossible to discipline any large (unpaid) crowd into writing the sort of reports they can usefully act upon, and if you allow reports to flood in from those sorts of numbers there will be a lot of white noise and wasted time in there, from people, who through no fault of their own, and despite their best intentions, won't always know what they are doing, or how to do it well ! It will no doubt be appreciated that you have taken the time to provide the info you did, even though it was in rather aggravating (for you) circumstances. And although I have absolutely no influence over these things, it would be nice if support were in a position to offer people additional subs time when they are forced into a corner like you have been... CBR

They sort of have that already with the beta program, but even if you're in that you have to be pretty active, and in the top tier of contributors to be earning free subs. No disrespect intended, and not to minimise the effort involved in you documenting yours, but finding and reporting one bug, even if you were very thorough about it, is a fart in a hurricane with software as evolving, and complex as Cinema is; with such wide-ranging scope and functionality, where the amount of creative possibilities and combinations of systems is practically endless, even with the diligent and attentive QA / beta testers and systems they have, some bugs are bound to get through... I think I found 7 over the xmas break alone, by way of comparison, reported 3 of them there and then, and investigations continue on the others before I do those too ! Some bugs are mercifully identifiable, reproduceable, and understandable / explicable fairly quickly when you find them, but others can take hours, days, weeks or even months of continued monitoring / circumstance recreation before you can produce a report that demonstrates a distinct and consistent issue and is detailed enough to be helpful. It is quite a lot of extra work to be a good bug hunter, but it is the sort of work I like, find interesting and have time for, and I am grateful that Maxon values and rewards this for people prepared to put in a sustained effort. Perhaps you could apply if that sort of commitment interests you ? However I am unsure who you would ask about that ! Presumably Captain McGavran can advise ? 🙂 CBR

Before I start, I should say that I advise here not because I think I am the right person for this job (animation / rigging not really my thing) but because you don't seem to be getting much in the way of replies, and I can help with the modelling advice, which I attempt to do thusly now I have seen the topology you have going on in your other post on the subject... Mainly I am confirming that what you have there is OK, topologically speaking, for the base mesh, IF the movement is limited to what you describe. For full walk / run cycles etc you'd probably need more loops around the leg joints, but if it's just standing there looking about then what you have is fine, in that it is all-quads, will subdivide and hopefully bake well (UVs also look decent, though could maybe do with a relax or 2) and there is no polygon flow that will get in the way of your plans that I can see. So that's all good ! As for breathing animations, these are best handled via pose morphs on the base mesh rather than in the rig. Hope that helps to some degree... CBR

In your version you need to be in the Sculpt layout, and then the bake function is here... Cool model btw - sort of like a cross between a Thestral and what you might see a White Walker riding ! CBR

And don't forget the often unacknowledged command 'Polygon Islands to Objects', which can do it without additional generators... CBR