Cineversity

Weird title, I know, but I don’t know what else to call this.  We received a file from a client which employs simple use of a star spline, extruded and placed into null and then a Cloner.  There are Step Effectors driving part of the animation, and keys on the null child of the Extrude driving the other part.  What we need to do, in order to get this file into our Realtime engine, is bake out the animation, and make all the generated objects (extrude, and cloner) into polygons.

First thing I did was make a MoGraph Cache tag on the cloner.  This worked in as much as it prevented us from needing the effectors.  But then, anytime we try making the Extrude or the Cloner editable it changes the animation.  I have tried a point cache on the extruded spline, as well as baking the keyframned null in the timeline.  Despite any of this, we still find the animation changes when any of the objects are made editable.  The coordinates relative to the parent don’t seem to change… its all very odd. 

I have attached the file below in its original state as it was delivered to us in the hopes that you can help shed some light onto what’s going on. 

At the end, I hope to simply have 10 polygonal stars arranged and animated as they presently are with no effectors, cloners, or extrude nurbs in play.

Thanks in advance.

- Will

Hi Will,

In the moment you “make it editable” (it =start) you lose with this kind of set up the keyframes. To be honest, to animate the spline and then place it into the Extrude is not what I would suggest to do anyway.

The idea is here to get a “SINGLE!” polygon animated with the “Star Null” which has the animation. The polygon center needs to be where the Star-center is (visually). For the next step any other element that is a spline or polygon/segment object has to leave! All of that goes under the “Connect Object” to combine any animation produced in this set up: harvesting.

This is used in a new set up to get a clean animation of clones. To go a step ahead, I enabled even a group of ten Stars to be animated by this “clean Cloner Object animation”. So you have all options available.

This is a fast set up—a sketch—to explain the steps. It might not be precisely what was given, but that is certain not my job here. Most of these steps—I have explained in detail in my “Animation for Teams”. E.G., baking the “singles out with “Cappucino”

Good luck

Sassi

Hi Dr Sassi,

  yeah, I knew the setup was, for lack of a better term, ‘wonky’.  The challenge is, the client wants the movement to be precisely as it is in the provided file, which as you discovered is not an easy thing to with the set up that is already in place combined with what our needs asset wise here are.  I was hoping there would be some combination of bakes I could do to compensate for the less than ideal setup.  I told my co-worker who was given this file and is tasked with its implementation that ultimately, the scene probably needs to be built in a better way, which is what you’ve done here, so thank you for that.

  Thank you too for confirming my suspicions that this was just the result of a faulty set-up.  My biggest challenge is that we are juggling a HUGEW workload right now, and these client assets need to be plug and play as much as possible.  I will explain to my co-worker all that you have told me here, and we will decide if it is better to try and build it out ourselves or to kick it back to the client and ask for a re-done file.

  I do have a question though regarding the file you posted.  In it, I see there are 2 different setups.  One that employs the use of XPresso, and one that does not.  I deleted the XPresso setup to see if the hidden cloner.1 would work without it and it appears to, unless I have missed something.  Was this just presented as an alternate approach?

  Again, many thanks.
    - Will

Thanks for the feedback, Will.

The thing that I do not get tired to say is: As long as everyone is only concerned about his/her little island of work, any pipeline/workflow might be not as optimal as it could be. As I learn since 1987 the feature film pipeline (analog first then transitioned to digital) I think I have a good idea where things can go down. If it is a Game pipeline, it might have similarities. So, having said that, back to the problem case.

The submitted scene works, and I guess things like that are in many places just standard. Because the next step in the pipeline is just ignored, or imagined that it will work as it works right now on the screen. This is first and foremost a communication problem. From both sides!

The solution that you got from me was certainly very close to what they delivered and I challenge them to say where the difference is when rendered out. But again, I eyeballed it. The make editable with the Extrude placed “somewhere” made no good result. I had to bring back the axis into the middle center, all un-nnessarily work to be honest, and it could have been done all with the same amount of work in the first place, if they would care what you need.

So, the XPresso version, as I mentioned, builds up on the (new) Cloner Object solution. It wouldn’t work without the new set up. The ten stars can be baked with Cappocino and you would have your result. If you think you are better of with the Cloner Effector solution, ignore the XPresso idea of course.

In the moment you harvest the motion via Polygons (it excludes SCALE!) then you have all data for position and rotation.

My suggestion, get in contact with the provider of such files, and make certain that you get something that works for you. Without that meeting, which might take an hour or two, you will invest in each scene a lot of time and money for no added value.

All the best

Sassi

I went into that file again. I was interested in a precise way of harvesting the motion, to have the option to work very quickly with a second set of stars, without mixed animations.

It took me two minutes (not included the first examination), if they always deliver in that way, this would be my prep-work. (The newly introduced objects have no “Layer-Color”.

1.chache the Cloner Object.
2.set a single polygon (~12x12cm) directly under the Star Null (as child) and “Reset PSR” (it’s a standard command that I have placed in my interface), so it has exactly the same position (see image) Tools>Arrange Objects>Transfer works as well, but in this case not as fast. ;o)
3.group the whole set up under a Connect object. (The LEFT null is child of it)
4.take the Star Spline as a copy (CTRL/CMD drag) and “Reset PSR”, place a new Extrude as parent to it and set the Z “movement” to 0.7
5.The Extrude -> make editable and Mesh>Commands>Optimize it (no double points!)
6.Place this (point 5) under a new Cloner object, set the Mode>Object, and drag (3.) the Connect Object in the field “Object”

—-

To have even the single objects, please refer to the file above with the XPresso. Each of the ten Stars can be “baked” with the Cappucino option or a Motion Clip can take over>>see Animation for Teams—for details.

As I wrote, 1-6 was a simple after we got clear what was needed.

All of that does not supply or retrieve any scale informations!

If I’m not mistaken, the artist who worked on this file might come from (LW or) Modo, perhaps a little bit of chit-chat about C4D-options, and the world runs smoothly for the both of you.
All the best

Sassi