Cineversity

I’m working on a South Park style spoof for my company and I’m working on figuring out how to best animate the mouth.  Seeing as how the SP-style shows just simple textures on flat polys, I’m deciding between actually building multiple simple polys in C4D and using a visibility tag with Xpresso/Pose Morph to switch between them, or a single poly with multiple textures and driving which texture to display via XPresso and/or Pose Morph.  I found this suggestion on the web: http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-296996.html which suggests that using Xpresso to flip between textures/materials is something I should look into.

Anyone here have any better suggestions - including any scripts, tools, or plugins that might make that easier/faster?  Otherwise I’ll try this approach and see how it goes…

Thanks!

Hi Ryan,

The one answering there was just developing the MoGraph module at that time, I guess ;o) A little bit later and he might had an simpler answer. Which I can give you now.

In MoGraph we can place objects under a Cloner object and use “Sort” for example to select only one of these with an Effector set to “Modify Clone”.

based on that, a linear falloff could help or even the slider by itself. Sound could be the trigger, or other influences. IF you use it for a single polygon-object, or the complete figure each time, is perhaps a question what fits to you.

Another way would be to just change the gray-value of that polygon (editor color) and use the Multi-Shader for that, set to brightness.

There are certainly many more options, but you asked for the simplest to operate.

A Layer shader might be possible, etc.

Let me know if you need an example file for something that sounds appealing to you.

In the User Data, you can even set up an pulldown menu, to have each expression named accordingly, which is very simple to set up. If you trigger the Multi-Shader with it, e.g., the Color Blue value only, then connect the Object color with the pull down menu. Doable in a few minutes.

Wow Dr Sassi - that’s pretty slick.  I got sidetracked with kids since I wrote that so I haven’t yet delved into any work.  Very glad that I didn’t - your solution sounds MUCH more elegant.  I love XPresso and all of that, but if I can do something without scripting or “behind the scenes magic”, I find that preferable for “scene readability” later - kind of like writing code.

My preference is a slider in this case - something I can put on the User Data of the controller object that’s sitting at the root level of my figure.  I’m already storing some other user data there for blinking and probably more later on.  If you have an example file of what you’re talking about here, that would be really helpful as I think I understand what you’re saying, but with the devil in the details, having a live example would help me figure out exactly what you mean.

Thanks again for the help!

Here are two version of the Multi-Shader. The polygon, could be as well a selection on an object (with a projection and/or selection.

Please have a look to the HUD. I have a percent based and a pulldown version. I would prefer the pulldown version as the labeling is easier to use.

Note to set the Keyframes to step, so you get a real switch, otherwise you might run into danger to dial through all images between the previous and the wanted.

I have set the HUD to permanent, you might change that and call them up again after changes, it seems here not to update easily.

The values of the blue channel here is always divided by the number of images in the Multi-shader. You might place some dummies/proxies extra to it, to have some extra room for later added expressions. In that way you do not have to adjust the values of all keyframes set previously. I try to stress this point, if you add e.g., four images to 10 existing images, the animation done so far is screwed up. So add white images as placeholders seems the way to go.

Good luck!

Here is a method to color the object with the Fracture Object, some placeholders, etc. The color could be as well be changed with a Plain Effector (Fracture then set to black). If the Plain Effector is set to Linear Falloff you can pull that effector in the scene and set up teh expression as well interactively, but without any XPresso ;o) ... just a though.

The file does not contain the Plain Effector. Just the RED channel (see image) as “slider”

Dr Sassi - VERY much appreciated.  I’m creating textures now and I’ll check this out shortly and let you know if I have questions.  Every time I visit the forum the cineversity subscription pays for itself.

The first example I understand - very cool and JEEZ I don’t know much about the power of MoGraph - it’s always popping up as the solution.   The second one I don’t quite “get”.  I set up a Plain Effector and I see it changing a bit but I don’t understand how that’s actually working.  So given that I can understand the first approach, looks like that’s the better solution.  Very cool, too.  Looks like I can also set up the alpha channel in the same way, using the same blue channel (or whatever).  Very cool!

One thought on the “step keyframe” thing you mentioned.  Easy enough to do via UI and just select all the keyframes for a track and make them step instead of linear or spline-based, but is there a way to designate an entire track as step-only or step by default so I don’t have to go in and fix those by hand after adding new keyframes?  That would be helpful for what I’ll be doing here…

Ryan,

You’re welcome.

The first one is as “complicated” as the second one, but perhaps I’m biased. I would like to introduce you of course to both—so you can pick from a different level. (I will shortly attach a scene file.)

The way C4D sets the keyframes is by default to spline, but not “hard wired”. You can change that. Go to the Edit>Project Settings…>Keyframes. This affects only new Keyframes while they are created, if you switch later on to something else, existing key-frames will not change (just to put any doubt out of your mind :o) 
If you have keyframes that you like to change, go to the timeline, select all key (key- or f-curve mode) and change the interpolation method in the Attribute manger.

So, check out the file, just to give you this option with the Plain-Effector (It uses here only color)  I mentioned also to use the Plain-Effector for many Cloner object-childs, there you get only one clone, and switch among the child objects via Effector.

Best :o)

Here is the second file, with the Plain Effector. It works with Fracture as well with Cloner Object. Each time the color in one of these two needs to be set to black.

I think I notice the problem (perhaps) which makes it not intuitive—the fall off reacts to the objects axis, not to the face. I hope the example clears that.

The P.Y. parameter of the Plain Falloff can be set via Xpresso/User Data as well, but then I would place everything below a Null object and use the values locally (not global) which make moving the objects easier.

Let me know if there are other questions. :o)

Dr Sassi - I haven’t looked at the plain effector falloff approach yet but it’s on my list, that said, the other approach you gave me worked really really well.  Thanks much for the help!  I’ve got my simple model rigged and XPresso’d up, so I’m going to try to sync to voice tonight.  We’ll see how it goes.  I have another question with which I’ll start a new thread - different topic.

Thanks for the feedback, very nice of you.

Good luck with the project!

P.S.: ... here the “Quicktab Radio” button (can be selected instead of the pull down for exampe - same set up, perhaps more convenient)