janheylen

Yes, but without the second target I cant use both a minimum and a maximum value as far as I know.

Or is this possible?

Thx Jed!

That solved it.

I don't think it can be a priority issue. In my little example scene there are only two objects.

When I use the constraint tag to limit the distance to another object with a min or max value it works well. (cube A in my example file)

But when I use both a min and a max value there is a little bounce. For some reason the tag doesn't constrain the distance to the exact value. (cube B in my example file)

Does anyone know why it behaves this way and how to solve it?

min max constraint.c4d

Agree 100%, this filename scrambling is a major step backwards.

'The Content Browser has been deprecated and removed. A new menu option in the Asset Browser allows users to choose a lib4d and convert to assets.'

I don't like the way the new asset browser copies and renames all files so they can only be accessed within the C4D application.

I think a lot of users use the legacy content browser as part of their workflow. Why remove the option?

Not only does R25 add no new features but it actually removes functionality?

I don't now much about dynamics besides that it's hard to get realistic results.

But your question reminded me of this tweet:

E.J. Hassenfratz on Twitter: "How many times have you tried to get a specific animation trying to wrangle #C4D Dynamics when hand keyframing can be faster & gives you the ultimate control for the EXACT animation you want + the ability to exaggerate movements" / Twitter

Maybe the best way is to find some good reference and just hand keyframe it?

6 minutes ago, DasFrodo said:

There basically two possibilities because I 100% guarantee you that everybody is thinking about AI stuff at the moment that either:

a) It works but needs more time in the oven

b) Doesn't work with current NN tech for whatever reason

A general purpose retopo algorithm might be still too hard. No doubt you are right that many companies working in 3D are trying to solve this.

But an algorithm built specifically for Volume Meshes seems like a much smaller problem to solve. The topology that's generated by the Volume mesher is clean and uniform. The topology of a good quad model we would like as output can also be based on some general rules. 

1 hour ago, Matches said:

I've experimented with the "Remesh" and found the results to be very unimpressive, especially compared to the auto-topo solutions from Zbrush, 3dcoat, mudbox, the Exoside plugin, and even blender.

The topology of C4D's Remesher is pretty bad. I can recommend Exoside's Quadmesher plugin. I use it mostly to remesh Volume and Boolean models and for this it gives pretty good results. I'm happy to have a good plugin that provides this functionality but I feel it's an essential feature that Maxon should provide. Sculpting, Volumes and Booleans are three artist friendly ways of generating models and they all need autoretopo to live up to their potential.

Could an autoretopo algorithm for Volume meshes not be trained using machine learning?

Start with a database of models with perfect quad topology.

Remesh the models using the Volume Builder and Mesher.

Train a neural network by using the remeshed models as input and comparing the output with the original models.

Shouldn't this be possible?

53 minutes ago, Cairyn said:

 

I had recently programmed a plugin for symmetrical modelling (within the boundaries that the API currently offers), but it sold a mere four times. The project told me two things: 1. The current API makes it fairly difficult to put a symmetry module on top of the core system, and 2. While people are often calling for symmetry in modeling, the actual need is very, very low.

 

I just guess the symmetry object is the top of what people actually require, and anything else would be a spritz of sweet cream on top of it. I understand why Maxon isn't in a hurry to implement that.

The basic functionality that C4D is missing is the ability to have part of a model symmetrical and a part not. For instance when making a head you could like to have the mouth asymmetrical while the rest stays symmetric. It's about workflow. Now we are in a situation where you can have a fully symmetrical model with the symmetry object. But once you make it editable to be able to make an asymmetrical change you loose the ability to still change the parts that you want to keep symmetrical. It's how symmetry works in the sculpting system. It's something you can turn on or off depending on your need. It shouldn't even require similar topology on both sides but make the symmetric changes based on the distance from the plane of symmetry.

This is something that I'm sure many people would find very useful, which is why it's returning for over ten years now in these feature wish lists.

The new Asset Browser works great to manage the assets that MAXON provides.

To manage your own assets you need to create a database that will copy, rename and reorder all your files.

The file structure is not human readable anymore outside the asset browser, in Windows file explorer it looks like this:

All C4D file are named 'asset' as you can see above. Image files are renamed too.

I hope MAXON can provide a tool that can rename the files in the database to the name they have in the asset browser and strips the database of all unnecessary metadata and folder structure.

The old (to be retired) content browser had the option to just use it as a file browser in C4D that shows the content as it is organized inside Windows file explorer. I hope MAXON can bring this functionality back to the asset browser.

Besides this wish list I have a question:

How can you change an image file after it's added to the Asset browser?

Normally you go to the image file in the Attribute editor and press Edit Image or Locate Image but this doesn't work.

Is this a bug or is there another way to do this?

The psd file has an alpha channel that you can use to delete the background.

As far as I know there is no way to render a .psd with the background allready transparent.

I can't tell what's wrong in your setup, but here's a file that works. Maybe you can find out the problem this way.

Maybe it's the shadow type in your infinite light?

cell shadow.c4d

That's true, the C-shape will always have horizontal lines in the shading.

If you are trying to shade this C-shape with vertical lines you should think about it and understand it's impossible because of the geometry.

I can't download your scenefile, you need permission.

An infinite light should work.

Just try opening a new scenefile, add an object and a light and turn on Sketch and toon in the render settings.

Rotating the light will change the shading direction.

The solution I mentioned before is for using the cell shader in a material, but I don't think this is what you are doing. 

The default is to light the cell shader from the orientation of the camera.

To change this select your material.

In the attribute manager click on the Cell shader (normally you should load the cell shader in the luminance channel)

Here you can choose 'Lights' (see screenshot)

Add a light to your scene and you can use it to control the shading direction.

Thx for the tip, Mike.

Working in greyscale with lines is something I will also try.

Thx!

This Preview Illumination Adjustment solved the issue.

I'm trying out redshift.

The material previews don't update with the renderview running. I understand there's some technical limitation behind this but it doesn't really give a great first impression of a well integrated first party renderer.

When using redshift lights and materials the gouraud shading in the C4D viewport looks totally blown out. Is there a way to get a somewhat close approximation of the colours and lightning?

In the screenshots below you can see a simple scene with a dome light and an area light.

The gouraud shading in the viewport just looks very bad.

I would prefer to work in quick shading but quick shading with lines turns everything black?!

Which display mode/settings do you use in the viewport when working with Redshift?

A twitter user posted an amazing technique to smoothly join separate pieces of intersecting geometry.

I understand he uses a Houdini Digital Asset (HDA) inside C4D to somehow blend the normals.

Can anyone provide some more insight into this? I cannot find more information on it.

https://twitter.com/yamadadaikida/status/1275055594043437056

I think you can use a bump or normal map for this look because I don't really see any deformation of the contour shape.

It will also render faster and should fix the problem with the distortion of the round edges.

If you use a 3D noise you don't even need UV's.

I'm trying to constrain a sphere object (a hand) to an spline point (the end of an arm).

I put a point selection in the target field of the clamp constrain.

But the sphere sticks to spline itself instead of the spline point.

I added three screenshots.

1. The clamp constrain tag settings.

2. The sphere follows the spline point like it should.

3. The sphere doesnt follow the spline point but sticks to the spline

I think I must have some wrong settings in the constrain tag.

Anybody know how to do this?

Ok I found a solution:

releasing the license in my MAXON account did the trick.

Anybody else run into this license server problem? (see screenshot)

I can log into my MAXON user account online but for whatever reason when I start up C4D

I can not use the program I paid for because of some license server problem.

I only installed C4D on 1 machine.

In a new scene the IRR fuctions again.

I also tried copying the objects from the scene with the broken IRR to a new scene and in this new scene the IRR works again.

So that's a workaround but the problem returns quite fast.

For example when i'm changing the color of a material the IRR wil sometimes update and sometimes just turn black and not render anything.

It seems to be mainly a problem when you change a parameter with a slider.

When I enter a numeric value and press enter or change a node connection the IRR will be more responsive (but still not always)