Cineversity

Hi there

I’m setting up a sequence in C4D using lights to send on to AE where I use them as empty nulls to be able to attach Layers to them. But somehow the Camera in C4D and in AE do not match and the lights, which in C4D stick perfectly to an object (i.e. the hockey club) are somewhere else in AE. I’ve tried baking the Cameramovement to keyframes because I thought it might have something to do with the ‘Align to Spline’ Tag on the Camera in C4D, but that didn’t help.

I also noticed, that the characters I use (i.e. the volleyballplayer) are in the correct place when I put the C4D file in the AE sequence where the rendered png-sequences from C4D are, but the balls do not (the volleyball in the cineware layer goes to the left, the volleyball in the rendered PNG sequence goes to the right…) Very interesting.

And one thing else: Any idea where those stray lines come from in the picture with the flooball bats? I’m using x-particles and tracing them to get some comical movement lines, but that does not seem to be the problem.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1bycn4qc36xkpba/CAM_to_AE.c4d?dl=0

Thanks for the help!

Steve

Ha! I just found out that I forgot to bake out the keyframes for the signal plugin I used! Now everything makes sense again!

Everything but those funky lines I’m getting in the final Renders (in the viewport render everything looks great).

Thanks!

Steve

Hi Steve,

I’m glad you found the solution already for the Signal [plug in] based problems.

I do not have X-Particles here available (I do not qualify for the edu version), and I can’t see where it was in the scene.

Can you share more information? When I render a preview, I can’t see the floor-ball elements at all. The scene had no textures.

I can’t find the bats in the scene, and the lights are static. Even if I place a Tracer under the camera, and the lights of the FloorBall Track into it, I do not get the pattern.

https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/transfer_psr_of_procedurally_generated_objects_to_ae_using_cineware

All the best

Hi Dr Sassi

Thanks for the help!

Here’s a link to the original C4D file:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bawl0v87v7nnjas/C4D_to_AE_Cam.zip?dl=0

I’m still wondering why those lights don’t line up.

Cheers

Steve

Thanks Steve,

I have reduced the scene to the needed parts. (The light color and the naming [1_, 2_] was changed for my “sanity”, not needed for any function!)

The Parent Constrain Tags were set in a mixed way. Some with Use Frozen Values, some were not.

So, after repositioning the Lights, unfreeze and freeze them, as well set all Constrain Tags to Use Frozen, things seems to work, of course, that is for you to decide if that is true.

Scene file:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/0Kr0oVCSHDfQ1aJE62J2G1S25D6AUIic4IUf8hyzkhY
Let me know if that helped.

Enjoy your project

Hi Dr. Sassi

I tried out the C4D file you sent me. Thanks for checking it out. The lights follow the bats nicely in C4D, but when I import the C4D file into AE the lights now have no keyframes and do not move at all. And when I bake the C4D lights with the ‘bake objects’ command in the dope sheet, I get keyframes in C4D, but they are in the ‘Freeze Transformation’ Tab of the Attributes Manager. In AE that results in no keyframes aswell. To my understanding the keyframes that get baked should be in the ‘normal’ Coordinates Tag of the Attributes Menu in oder to be taken over to AE.  So I took one light (1_light.3), changed the Constraint there to ‘PSR’ and used the Offset part to move it to somewhere else along the bat. Now the Coordinates change, so I baked that out ot keyframes. In AE, I now have a keyframed light, but it doesn’t align at all with the bat. I made two screenshots attached below.

I also deleted all cameras but one to see if the problem is there. But that doesn’t help aswell.

Cheers,

Steve

Another thing I just noticed:

I’ve been testing around a bit with a static Camera. If I compare the Coordinates of the Camera in AE and Cinema, they differ sometimes in plus an minus. And if I compare the keyframed light in C4D and AE at the exact same frame, there too I have a difference in plus and minus (in C4D the y value is 72.169, in AE it’s -72.169). Seems like the Camera and the Keyframed light get’s flipped somehow when imported to AE….Have I got some export settings wrong?

AND: when I make a brand new C4D file and do exactly the same workflow with baking the light movement and so on everything lines up perfectly in AE. Somehow the other file seem to be corrupt or I do actually have some export settings wrong. ..

Cheers

Steve

Hi Steve,

Sorry that it took so long, but rendering each and every option with Sketch ‘n’ Toons, as well as checking each version in Ae CC takes a while.

Is there a specific reason for your set up to begin with? What is the need to freeze these Lights?

However: Please add to any of the lights the External Compositing Tag, that works here. (Take the Freeze stuff out. Parent Constrains out)

Normally I would say: The Coordinates in Ae are based on its origins back in the day to be a 2D application. The plus and minus are part of the needed translation, if I interpret your findings correctly. But I would suggest to use the set up that I suggest below, if nothings else speaks against it.

One question, would it be possible for your set up to just place Nulls on the floor-ball-bat as child objects? No Freeze, no Constrains, just simple child objects with an External Compositing Tag?
I have set up a scene with both, using your names of the lights but using Nulls. I placed them newly to have a different space to observe those.
Scene file:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/wgwV9BUppg23eIfsTgEftLTWLjbv2oPVVI3zSTryOjW

The settings in the Sketch ‘n’ Toons Render Setting panel might cause the unwanted strokes, un check the Motion option and they should be gone.

Let me know how that worked

The baked keyframes are based on the settings one chose in the Parent Constrain. Use Frozen is suggested as it leaves the normal position untouched. In that way the Baking is taking place there. If the Use Frozen is unchecked, then the Coordinates are used. Yes, this has an influence, AFAIK, the Frozen values are used for the Anchor values in AeCC and teh Coordinates are used for Position, for example.

All the best

Hi there

Thanks for the testing!

I tried out you AE file first: Everything works the way it should: lights and null stick to the floorballbats just like they do in C4D!

But when I import your C4D file to AE and extract the Data myself, same thing as always: the lights are totally somewhere else, the nulls are close, but don’t stick to the bats.

I’m confused!

Regarding my workflow: Nulls or Lights doesn’t really matter. Just need the 3D info to attach Layers in AE.

I’ll try out the settings in Sketch and Toon to get rid of the stray lines.

Thanks a bunch!

Cheers

Steve

Just did a test with nulls as children of the bat and then using the external compositing tag. Looks like that works as it should! Will do it this way from now on!

Thanks a bunch.

Steve

Mmmmhhhh. Now the Nulls stick nicely to the bats in AE. But when I parent another Layer to that Null and zero out the Coordinates to place that Layer where the Null is, the Layer ends up in the bottom left corner of the Null, although a Null shouldn’t actually have a bottom left corner at all! In the external compositing tab in C4D the Anchor Point is set to center.

This might be the same issue as before. Maybe Layers are somehow imported with other Anchor Points?

Cheers

Steve

Hi Steve,

If you explore something, I can’t see that, so please share the c4d and the ae files, so I can take a look at it.
When you say zero out, which parameter: all? Anchor, Position, not to nit pick here, but it is kind of hard to follow without seeing anything. Yes, I can imagine a set up, but files speak a much clearer language.

Left upper, all I can “see” without your file, is that you have set the “zero out position” to the Solid’s zero coordinates point, but you want to have it where the Anchor-point is.

Please have a look at the files below. I parented the Yellow solid to the blue and changed the Position/Rotation of the second Yellow square in the screen capture, both behave the same.
With the second yellow Solid, I option clicked the Position and pick-whipped the position to the blue, as well as for all three rotation values.

The solids starts in the left upper, but the size and anchor point needs to be seen together if one “parent/zero” something. (I use the pick-whip for that with the position, parenting for zero out something - I don’t use, but it is possible) Yes, the rotation needs to be done as well. Parenting is faster in that regard.

Here is a C4D file, an Ae file and a screen capture, showing both (parent and pick-whipping Pos+Rot:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/ofIGsunyVtp4jf47lhf8mHvGWkD90k3FKnYjm0MpCGr

Of course, I have to mention it: If you select a Layer in the “timeline”, then hold down Option/Alt, you can drag from the “Project” panel a single image/fottage/solid, etc and drag it on the selected layer (to the layer name) and it will be replaced, no parenting and not extra content in the timeline.

Cheers

P.S.: I checked all ideas of how to transfer data, but I can’t get a something that isn’t matching up. IF you have a file combination (c4d and ae) please share.

The difference in results, based on a Parent Constrain while values are mixed in Coordinates and Freeze.

This is either completely simple or complex, given the perspective one has to it. I will try to share my “angle” on it, in the hope it makes sense. I haven’t found anything that would allow me to just link to it, so here we go.

The first idea about it, is the common suggestion, to have a clear place to work with. This is typically done by placing a child object (e.g., a joint) in a hierarchy and place all the value (PSR) in the “Freezer”, so we can, if oriented well, perhaps only a single rotation value to get the result that we are after, bending an arm for example, instead of three (HPB) rotation values. If we mess up, those coordinates are set to zero (or one for the scale) and things are ready to work with again, also known as “zero’d out” or Freeze.

Anything else, might be more complex.

In Cinema 4D we have three main measurements of how to place objects in the Cinema 4D work space, or World Coordinates. I guess everyone is aware of the X,Y,Z 0,0,0 point: the world origin. We place an object in this system and that is pretty much a child of the world system. IF we place a child now under that object, the parent object is the world for this child, and the relation to the parent is called, Relative Position, but that is not really equal all the time the value that we place (or produce) into the Attribute Manager> Coordinates. The object could have been “zero’d out”. It might be far away from the parent, but all values show no real distance. The missing information is then in the Freeze Transformation. While the position values might be an easily to summarize, the rotational values are not. Set in the coordinates for the rotation some random values, and then the same value but in negative (or positive if they were negative before). The object will show a different state. So we can’t just balance out those rotations, which has to do with the order of rotation, which might hit us, if we have to balance those for some reasons.

More importantly is the situation with the same rotational value, one set in the coordinates, one time in the freeze, same value, and sometimes we get the same results, sometimes not, in terms of object orientation. So bear with me, this is kind of virtual and has no visual reference in Cinema 4D. Call up a cube. Set the Pos.Y in the coordinates to 500. Copy it. Now set the Rot.P in the coordinates to 45º, and in the other one the Freeze Rot.P to 45º. A large difference. It seems as if the Freeze value uses a rotational point 500 units below the cube. The other one rotates around its middle point instead. If the cube that had the Rot.P value in the Freeze and would have also the Freeze Pos.Y set to 500, and the coordinates back to zero, both cubes would rotate equally.

In other words, to mix wildly the values in Coordinates and Freeze, might result in some differences, and that is pretty much one of the problems of this project here. The Constrain Tag set to Parent and sometimes to Use Freeze and sometime not was the first problem. But sometimes it is better to find the shortest flow of information, as in having the information for After Effects as child object directly given, instead of constraining them. Most of the things in Cinema 4D are just cases of Information Flow, as I get not tired to mention, and shorter the communication, the better of course. Yes, I ignored this initially, as I do often when a better solution will work, and when the problems are solved, the thread can have more attention to dive into deeper explanations.

The Parenting set the Freeze point to its own, roughly said, so as the manual states, that’s the way the Constrain needs it. hence my long explanation.

I hope the little example were clear, as I was searching this afternoon how to share that in the simplest way, with a minimum of set up, I hope it worked for you.

Cheers

Hi there Dr. Sassi

Thanks for the input! I’ll try out those steps in C4D tomorrow!

I thought I’d still send you the C4D and the AE file I’m using. Basically the exact same ones you sent me, but as I mentioned: when I extract the C4D file in AE myself, the lights are totally wrong (see the pic I’ve attached). The nulls however match up perfectly.

All the best

Steve

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7a07d6dvd1mknpw/files.zip?dl=0

oh and yes, I did eventually use the alt drag and drop to replace the nulls with the footage I wanted in that same place.

Hi Steve,

The CamForAe camera comes into AeCC via aec and Cineware completely different, and I can’t always reproduce it with a new camera. I had first the three key frames for the camera in suspicion, as one is enough to give, focal length, the field of view isn’t needed then. But even after taking this out, no luck. Like with the plus minus, I can’t reproduce it with a fresh new file. I need more time to reproduce it (fingers crossed), then I hope to be able to file a report. Anyway, use the aec and ignore the Cineware Extract for now for this project.

That would be a case for the support.

The file you have shared in the last post, doesn’t show any keyframes for the lights. I have not found a way so far to have lights “extracted” that were animated via anything but keyframes. So, if you experience any further problems, and do not mentioning the way you create the keyframes (or even better include those) then I have nothing else to work with.

Just to be sure we use the same workflow if not baked, e.g., as Melange.
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/transfer_psr_of_procedurally_generated_objects_to_ae_using_cineware

My best wishes for the project

Hi Steve,

In the last three days I have tried to find out what causes the effect that the aec file works and why the extraction values for the Cineware do not match those results. Let me put it that way, I have submitted a report and I expect to get either embarrassed that I missed something or that there is a problem.  If there is a problem, thanks for your patience and persistence. If I missed something, I will post new realizations.   However, using Ae since 1996, I’m not really certain that I missed something, but well…

Edit: I added two more hours testing this. What I can see and confirm with absolute clarity, the Freeze part isn’t really working with Cineware> Extract. Period! So, until this can be handled, don’t use it. (Use aec!)  Since the Parent Constrain rely on it, as I tried to explain the need in the Freeze part above, the Parent Constrain can’t be used to extract data,via Cineware, for now./edit.

Fingers crossed, you can finish your work with the suggestions I have made above.

All the best