Cineversity

Hi.

I’m wanting to randomize the animated tree growth in this file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9e8874p81phcfdp/tree growth.zip?dl=0

In the online tutorials I’ve seen online, they say to just change the Time Offset in the Random effector to get that.

I’m clearly missing something, because it’s not randomizing.

Thanks in advance.

Hi tomvr,

If you have set the Cloner to Multi Instances, it will give you only one clone-size if there is only one clone under the Cloner, even while an animation might be available. The animation will work for all in sync.

The simples version would be to forget about the animation and use fields.
Your file as it is, but with a procedural grow, instead of a keyframe animated. Multi Instances can work.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/ETlUJYYiy7t29yjxZlRBAACUvWnrKi2AeisqveMQ0Hn

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An alternative would be to split this up (and allow so for the FFD cage to work for each step of the grow. Not included in the example)

Please have a look here: (Example file with cubes, if I use your tree model with many instances I get way over a GB of data.)
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/zUpbN5bgWmxWRjUGEPfrUWy1636ZN1xMbtkkszXm2LP

I have set up a prep cloner; after that, I used then the Current State to Object to get 24 copies. These were then placed under the Original Cloner (20x20) and utilized the Sort option/Modify Clones.
The Random Field Starts the grow, and the Linear field finishes it. I used a Sphere Mask here to show the difference.

An example file with cubes, fields, as in the first example.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/mg5IvZIh6nsDntiRLoLkwFivLSB0S8xGnIZTuNOEAHe
There are other options with fields, but I think this is the simplest with the most intuitive approach. Black and white stand for no-growth and full-grown. The noise is here the needed intermediate state. We blend from black to the noise, this means only the white areas in the noise grow. After the while, all values turn more and more to white.

Let me know if that works for you.

Cheers

Updated 21:19 PSD

Hi Dr. Sassi.

Thanks for these.

They are all fine, if I wasn’t after a very specific kind of motion: a tree growing and coming to an eased out stop that then transfers that inertia to its branches.

Also, since I’m building a 360 video for a VR experience, it occurred to me that it would be more dramatic to have the trees grow from the distance up toward the camera.

So I ended up using a Plain object with a time offset, within a Cylinder Field. (and for the record, I’m not even approximately as good as most folks on this forum. it was a lot of trial and error)

But here’s the thing that I found wasn’t working: I have PLA animation for the FFD to get the tree branches to do that inertia thing. Thing is, I have a time track for the easing of the up and down of the branches for naturalistic motion, which did not stay on the Mograph clones. All the other animation was there, just not the PLA Time Track.

I ended up baking the tree’s tracks, PLA included. It seems to be rendering OK. (baked file’s huge: 3GB)

Here is the link to the project file, pre-bake, if you want to take a look. It has stand-in trees, sans the PLA. The actual tree is also in the file, with PLA, if you want to see the issue with the not-cloning Time Track.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4en1egnabxti3jd/tree grow layer 2 v4.zip?dl=0

Thanks, as always.

Ok, I take that back.

Frames back from the farm, are black. The baking didn’t work, at least for farm rendering.

Any suggestions about how to get the Time Track on the PLA to clone in Mograph, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4en1egnabxti3jd/tree grow layer 2 v4.zip?dl=0

Hi tomvr,

The first thing that stands out in the file is that it uses Instances instead of Multi Instances. As mentioned above, the use of Instances allows for time-based individual clones. However, the render time will be multiple times higher with instances.

The key question is, since you do not move the camera at all, why the trees farther away from the camera need to be in 3d? It could be an image sequence instead. It would require a lot of pre-rendering and organization, as the light direction, as well as the random rotation of the trees, needs to be addressed. So that is not practical. I tried it this morning.

The option that I presented with child-object-sequence can have that twig movement. So the Modify Clone parameter is used 0-90 % for the grow, and then 91-100% is used for the motion, which means it goes up to 100 then down to 91% again and cycles from there. This would be the way I would suggest it.

Why everything is black in the frame is not clear to me, since I do not have any data from the render-farm. I have only a limited system here, considering your set up, and it runs out of memory (32GB) quickly with your scene, so I have to reduce the clones already to get anything done. The Render Settings> Options >Ray Depth was set to 6 in the provided file, which is certainly way too low.
However, at least the trees close to the camera should have shown some texture, as the first six layers would be fine. That might be half a tree or so. That everything is black, might indicate that not all data was available.

I have had switched the FFD off as it looked not OK. The trunk moves up and down. You can fix that with a Restriction Tag and a Selection. So the trunk stays on the floor.

The Time Track is working. However, as your project time advances, the effect of the Time Track advances as well. The offset in Plain Effector is given as a constant. Then the Falloff takes that offset away and shows the animation. See example:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/KfW05cI4qPBy2ThahCA2G4Edm0dJz1x1Bsb6ajurWjP
I consider the time 96 to 192 as the main time for the project.

You might want to set the offset to 196 frames. The effect will be similar but sharper. At the moment, the time moves forward, the animation changes, and the effect of the Plain Effector, while the time moves back to “normal” will be stronger. Set the offset to 48, and it might become clear.
I will try differently. The Offset change, the project time, as well as the animation time of the PLA itself, are a combination. The further the time-slider moves, the faster the effect of the Falloff to eliminate the offset.

I stick with the Multiple Child sequence suggestion as to the workable way while using the 0-90 forward; 91 to 100cycle idea.

All the best

P.S.:

I took the whole tree apart and started over. The key idea here was that the cloning, as well growing, should be possible while keeping the Multi Instances working.
So please have a look first on file …_01.c4d. It is without twigs moving in the wind.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/Cc0TBX5gc0ofnEJTl22DapWNGwMTcGcCzQmdyYXairS

Then have first a look at …_11.c4d and explore the formula, perhaps just using the f-slider carefully. The key in the formula is the py/1200 part. In this way, the upper twigs get more motion as it should. If all moves, in the same way, it is not really a forest.
Then have a look into …_02.c4d, where I have combined both files/ideas.

I saw that you had 19x19 clones, which puts a tree in the center. So I used 20x20. To have the camera as well as a tree in the center: could that be the reason for the black render–a camera in the tree?

This scene is efficient, grows, waves with the twigs and renders faster than any previous set ups. The timing is all in the size of the Sphere Field.

ENJOY

Ha! I thought about that, the camera being inside one of the clones! (it was a memory issue on Pixel Plow, our render farm)

Thank you for drilling back into this. I’m in production meetings this morning, and will get to this ASAP.

If you’re interested, here is the VR Experience this is being made for:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vS6slRu2c7J8CcoxgVgAWvMmNvyJ7adlxc8hzSaYHjG8bV_1mUosZQmI6kG16l_6Jw5nO3g9aVXoA_O/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.p

Our soft open is in 2 weeks, in Portland. These renders are in the 360 part in the beginning. Most of the experience is 6DoF, and all shared. First of its kind: no tethers and guests use their actual hands in the experience. They also can see each other.

Hi tomvr, thanks for the reply.

Memory, with taking the tree apart, I have no problems anymore with that. Since the single twig is a Multi-Instance now, the load is greatly reduced.

Thanks for the Google Docs. Looks great and I hope one day to see it. This is part of what I had envisioned in 1993, creating my final work to get my MOFA. It is wonderful to see that projects like this are created and accessible to an audience.

I have explored more last night, building upon the single twig idea, but to get the timing right with the simples adjustment seems to need more R&D time

However, the file …02.c4d from the last post is pretty close already.

My best wishes for your meetings.

P.S.: Here is the latest example. The timing with the twigs and the trunk was tricky. So I fragmented the trunk as well. Not it grows more as I would like to see it. It is, after all, a simplified version.

File:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/VFezvGeYldhrNodhejqfJIedDKWpia0aNeGssmogNIq

Update 22:50 PSD 
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/yLAUqOVKCvmz6VKcFZ1IO6lhXcY2CYMHNrhmxMFZOId

Enjoy