A new version of Cineversity has been launched. This legacy site and its tutorials will remain accessible for a limited transition period

Visit the New Cineversity
   
 
Approach to a Mograph Org Chart
Posted: 27 August 2014 06:27 PM   [ Ignore ]  
Total Posts:  41
Joined  2011-05-31

Hi Folks;

I have been trying to come up with a somewhat automated way to create a 10 second org chart that draws on the scene. (Probably about 14 boxes) I can easily create the boxes but how would you suggest I add the names and possible photos. I am thinking there must be a way to do this with a multi shader and create the graphics in Illustrator and import them as jpgs. They should affix to the individuals clones, no ?

Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Steve

Profile
 
 
Posted: 27 August 2014 06:37 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]  
Administrator
Avatar
Total Posts:  12043
Joined  2011-03-04

Hi Steve,

Images might be simple (or not at all, depends on your scene and the expected workflow), perhaps you share your standard scene-file for that here.

Images can be supplied per folder or movie file, if many images are there, but I fear there is some manual work to do, to sort the Multi-Shader in the way you need them.

Text is always a little bit more difficult, and without providing such things here, but Python seems the way for such. This is more a developer question, nothing that I can answer.

The only direct idea that I have is via Strings, but that is kind of limited.

However, I will have a look into your file. Perhaps there is a way that each image has the same size and is extended to have the name in an extra field already, so it is just all image based, portrait and name. With that, it would be even thinkable to place them in a tex folder and replace only the text folder to set up a new scene. (Brainstorming…)

All the best

Sassi

 Signature 

Dr. Sassi V. Sassmannshausen Ph.D.
Cinema 4D Mentor since 2004
Maxon Master Trainer, VES, DCS

Photography For C4D Artists: 200 Free Tutorials.
https://www.youtube.com/user/DrSassiLA/playlists

NEW:

NEW: Cineversity [CV4]

Profile
 
 
Posted: 27 August 2014 07:05 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]  
Total Posts:  41
Joined  2011-05-31

Hey Dr. Sassi

Thanks for the speedy reply. I really don’t have a scene file as I haven’t started yet. I’ve done a lot of thought design though and the least work option to me would be to create the name and photo into a graphic and load them into a multi shader individually and then assign them to a clone.

This is actually not for a client so the names are all fictional and I might not even add photos.. would a string automate the work flow if I didn’t use photos, just text?

Cheers
Steve

Profile
 
 
Posted: 27 August 2014 07:57 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 3 ]  
Administrator
Avatar
Total Posts:  12043
Joined  2011-03-04

Steve, the String option is certainly not as comfortable as a Python script. It is more of a hack.

Strings need to be read out (numerical start point and length, etc). If you like to copy and paste them in a single step, they would need some preparation.

The idea would be to assume a max length of the names. To make it simple lets say 18 letters. We need two numbers to specify the length of the names. (We have no separation options in Strings other than position, so no comfortable data base, etc)

If the 18+2 would work, we could set up an XPresso (See attached file), that reads out first the two numbers, then “knows” how many letters it should take.

Well that sounds all complicated and funnily enough doesn’t allow for empty spaces. Which means, I like to share another option here, just with a User Data field. Click as in the first one on the XPresso tag one time to get the user Data field in the Attribute manager. You might see by then already how I did this.

I hope all of that leads to some further ideas…

Again, this is a work for Python, as you can access then text files from your disk to fill the scene.

My best wishes

Sassi

File Attachments
CV2_r15_drs_14_XPst_01.c4d.zip  (File Size: 78KB - Downloads: 161)
 Signature 

Dr. Sassi V. Sassmannshausen Ph.D.
Cinema 4D Mentor since 2004
Maxon Master Trainer, VES, DCS

Photography For C4D Artists: 200 Free Tutorials.
https://www.youtube.com/user/DrSassiLA/playlists

NEW:

NEW: Cineversity [CV4]

Profile
 
 
Posted: 27 August 2014 08:54 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 4 ]  
Total Posts:  41
Joined  2011-05-31

Very nice Dr. Sassi this should work really well ! Thank you for taking the time to create it, very generous of you.

Python is on my list of things to learn for this very reason.

Cheers
Steve

Profile
 
 
Posted: 27 August 2014 09:10 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 5 ]  
Administrator
Avatar
Total Posts:  12043
Joined  2011-03-04

Thanks for the feedback, Steve, very nice of you.

I hope this will give you some ideas, to get closer to what you like to have.

Python is certainly the coding language of VFX, certainly worth it, especially for such pipeline work (information transfer). My best wishes for it.

All the best

Sassi

P.S.: the Python approach would be via User Data Link. Then the structure of the document needs to be clear to read in the data, into a list or tuple etc. From there you could feed the same Userdata Lists as I have shown above. I have a “truncated” (copyright) image from the C4D208 course over at FXPHD, class ten. Doesn’t look too complex, right? ;o)

 Signature 

Dr. Sassi V. Sassmannshausen Ph.D.
Cinema 4D Mentor since 2004
Maxon Master Trainer, VES, DCS

Photography For C4D Artists: 200 Free Tutorials.
https://www.youtube.com/user/DrSassiLA/playlists

NEW:

NEW: Cineversity [CV4]

Profile