Stuggz

Thanks all. I'll give that a try @Bentraje. Another related, sorta equivalent feature is the 'auto computer shutdown on complete' within Adobe Media Encoder... but not C4d it seems! I'm guessing there's not a reliable way to get AME to use the c4d render location as a 'watch' folder and then shut down when it no longer updates. But we can dream.

Hi all, I'm on a laptop and obviously dislike it when windows sleeps/powers off causing my renders to stall, overnight for instance. So I change my windows settings to not power down or sleep, but am worried I'm nackering my hardware and the planet by doing so. Is there a way I can make C4d (or after effects, for that matter) keep Windows 'active' so that it'll go to sleep AFTER the render completes, but not before? Surely there's a simple solution? Pardon me if I'm missing something obvious. Thanks in advance, Stuggz

That sounds like it could really help - thanks @Vizn... I'm gonna try and add two tags to an object, then can presumably enable/disable them differently per take - would that work? I guess I'll find out shortly...

SOLVED! It was as MJV stated in tool settings, the 'modelling axis', and the 'Axis' dropdown was set to 'root'.... thanks dude. I had in the meantime done what Igor suggested and that worked, but to be honest it's happened before and was a bit of a PIA workaround to do that every time, and having to re-do render/project settings etc. So I'm glad I got to the root of it, thanks for both your help!

Hi there, I no C4d expert, and can't get my head around something: My project is stylised in a certain way where I need to render a flat-colour Sketch and Toon export using only luminance channels on all materials. This is effectively a line-drawing layer. But then I need to render a volumetric torch-light which points out various bits on the SnT model, with light bouncing off the object to make light and shadow areas, like you would in a colour channel (as opposed to luminance. I've attached an example frame. Currently I'm rendering the SnT layer, then changing loads of settings, re-texturing everything with ONLY a colour channel, and rendering without SnT, and combining these in After Effects using a blending mode. I can't believe this is the most efficient method, and all the fiddling between renders inevitably introduces errors! I'm having to do this on loads of models and getting lots of little changes that end up in lots of (pairs of!) renders - please help! Thanks in advance! S

HI all, Here's my problem - if I create a cube object within the root of my project , move it around a bit, make it editable and then enter point/edge/poly mode, the axis gizmo appears way off to one side of the object. This despite the gizmo being central when in model mode. Very annoying for example when scaling point groups on modelled objects. I can manually (or possibly using the 'mesh>axis center' menu re-centralise the gizmo but shouldn't have to, right? Is there perhaps a setting I've accidentally triggered? Note that it works fine in a new project, ie the gizmo doesn't move when entering edge mode. So it's presumably a project setting as opposed to app preferences... but for various reasons I'd really rather stay in this project as opposed to copy out of it! Thanks in advance. S

Hi @Abyss, thanks for your suggestions! By 'fields', you mean like using a plain effector to selectively smash it like in this tutorial? Thing is I've no problem selecting where/how to fracture my object, it's just that having it within a Voronoi fracture object at all means that it's technically fractured from the start, even if dynamics don't kick in til later though right? So SnT picks up on that fact and draws the lines in pre-break... Cel renderer is quicker yeah but very inflexible and doesn't give the right look for our project. We're aiming for hand-drawn... I had thought about revealing the SnT lines in AE and I'll probably go back to planning for that, I was just hoping for a less manual way of doing it! Especially since I'll probably be doing similar work on more complex objects/animations in the near future. Thanks, S

Ah okay, thanks both of you, I'll give that opacity map technique a go. - but surely people have wanted outlined renders of things smashing before, right? Is there a better combo that you'd recommend? (Actually it kinda has to be S&T since that's the look we've gone for in everythign else...) Attached is a simplified project file. So bear in mind I'm after a cylinder that cracks a bit at the bottom first, but mainly stays together, then it smashes entirely once it hits the floor. S SmashTube.c4d

Hi all, I'm pretty new to C4d but learning! I'm trying to make a structure crack a bit, then smash completely when it hits the ground. Trouble is I'm using Sketch and Toon (for outlines) with a voronoi fracture plus fixed connector, and so the fracture lines show up from the first frame, kinda giving away the ending...! My first thought was to start from only a small 'point amount' value under the point generator source and then ramping it up when it hits the ground, but that sends the dynamics crazy at the transition point. plus the lines don't show up int he same place so some cracks 'heal' when it breaks into smaller pieces... Then I've tried using an animated spline as the source, same problems... How would you experienced folk do it? Basically have a Voronoi fracture on an object while not having all the cracks show up until the pieces are forced apart... Thanks in advance, S

Hi all, I'm fairly new to C4D so please bear with me! I've got this scene, where I'm showing a multi-storey building, and how the pillars punched through the roof concrete, eventually making the roof fall down, and then in a domino effect the floors below collapse under the impact. It's not going for full realism or anything, just a simple school classroom demo standard. However, I've fiddled around with it for days now and can't get it anything other than a mess, and can't work out why! The pillars jump around wildly (I haven't connected them to anything but figured it'd be good enough if the whole structure was just stacked up using gravity... oh and bounce is off, friction is high) and the floors explode in all directions. Also the playthrough looks quite different every time I play it, is that normal with dynamics, even with the collision noise down to 0%? Sometimes it looks just aobut okay but I'm worried when I render I'll get one of the bad takes, and I render with Sketch and Toon so it takes a long time! I'm using voronoi fracture for the floors, and manually cut the holes in the top floor that the pillars supposedly made. I made some changes to the project dynamics settings as well as the individual tags, but nothing seems to get much better than in the files attached! So... anyone fancy a little look at the project and suggest what I should do to fix? Thanks in advance, Stuggz. CB_cafesender_v8.c4d

Right, cool, will do. Thanks for your help! I guess my instinct was to keep everything parametric for as long as possible... S

Hi Cerbera, thanks for your response. Yeah I've watched some S&T tutorials, and get some nice stuff but this one problem has grown really annoying! I'm starting to think I'll rebuild the roads with 3d objects as they'll be easier to work with....? Anyway I've attached that last file as a jpeg and a simplified project file now. Hope that helps! S junction.c4d

Hi all, I'm fairly new to C4d and have found a problem that googling hasn't been able to solve thus far. I've made a simple road junction using two thin planes that intersect at the exact same height. Ultimately I want the Sketch & Toon render to show the outline only, and not any interior lines. No matter what I try, I can't get them to merge, and provide a render, in a way that doesn't either show no lines, or fill in the interior lines as well... as attached. In that case, the S&T material is applying strokes only to the outline, supposedly.... so that must mean my objects are still actually separate. How would you recommend I fuse them so their outline is only outside the road shape? Thanks!