Cineversity

There are a ton of ways to do this and I’m wondering what would be the most efficient for my needs.

The problem: I have 4 separate lines of titles, each line has about 2 to 4 words. The words are attached/embedded on a cube backing(driven by an extruded spline) that fits to the bounding box of each word.

Right now I’m doing this manually but it would be great if I could just type in a word and the spline automatically updated and adjusted to fit the bounding box of my type plus a few centimeters of padding.

I found this link on the web(http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/topic/56264-how-to-use-the-size-of-an-object-to-set-the-size-of-another-object-non-primitive/) which looks like it would be the right direction but not sure on what kind of user data to create, I’m not used to getting in and out of xpresso on a daily basis so any help would be great. Thanks!

Here is a link to what I have started as a base for tweaking if anyone wants to get a better idea of what I’m working with.

Made in R15
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6545302/Bob_Davidson_v001.c4d

Hi phloptik,

Please test this simple idea. I think it is easy to set up.
If the background object that is created are not perfectly aligned, got to the MoText>Letters>Axis, and adjust what you need, if at all.

My best wishes

Sassi

P.S.: to go from Cineversity to the text you have had provided, I adjusted the cube high (Y) to get the space among the lines.

Just tested one more, and I wanted to have the Axis image here. The change was done, with typing, in a few seconds. Should work ;o)

Nice, super easy and elegant - I’m trying to throw everything into a null after this(quickly) and need the absolute center of the cloner but can’t seem to grab it with axis center. Is there another tool that I can quickly use(hotkey) to find the center and place under a null. I have to do this for each word so I want to minimize the keystrokes.

Thanks again!

You’re welcome, phloptik.

I’m not sure I get your problem with the Null and the center.

• To get the “cubes” aligned, MoText>Letters>Axis
• To move the Background Object in any direction, use the Plain Effector>Parameter. This will create a relationship to the letters. It can’t be moved with the Cloner Object alone.
• To move everything, you can place all or only the MoText object under a Null or move it.
• To change the size of the background object, you can just adjust the cube object.
•    Alternative to the cube, you can have more than one Plain Effector with specific settings. Shut all off—except the one that has your needed setting.

All the best

Sassi

The reason I need the absolute center of the text is because the top null holds all of the animation which is mostly rotation based and needs to be dead center.

When the motext object is parametric, it seems like the center point is not dead center but is located at the baseline of the text instead of horizontal center which is what I need for clean rotation animation.

The quickest way I found to get the center is to duplicate and collapse the cloner and then put all of the clones under a null, and then I would take that null out and use it for the centerpoint for the entire word, this seems a little to tedious and I’m wondering if there is an easier way without collapsing objects.

I understand everything else just fine and it all works great, just looking for an easy way to drop everything under a null and then have that nulls axis centered in the middle of the parametric text.

Here is a really awful screenshot below

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6545302/center_null.PNG

Please have a look to the attached file. Perhaps a little bit faster than “making things editable”. Not much, but perhaps it helps. Instructions are included.

Yeah I think this is the fastest way, I dig the example haha, thanks Sassi, your the man!

You’re welcome, phloptik.

Very nice of you, thanks for the feedback. During Dinner I had an idea, so here it is.

It is a little bit more of a streamlined version. I placed a HUD element on the screen This needs to be adjusted until the circle touches roughly both ends. The Top Null stays in place and will not change your animation.
While you “measure” the scene with the circle, the text moves and get in position. I hope that is closer to your idea of an fast workflow…I hope. Crossing the fingers here :o)

(As the bounding box node works only with Polygon objects, this would be the fastest way.)

Enjoy

Sassi

This is really interesting and looks like I may have to add a Y control in there, I can get X dead center(I’m using middle aligned text) but I’m having trouble with Y. I was wondering how the connect object comes into play, I can’t seem to find how it is being used.

Also a big plus is that a constant is Text size, so I’m wondering if I can make a control that grabs the X position from the Motext object and then adds 100 or so centimeters in Y and then generates a Null with that position data, I could prob just type it in the Y at this point which wouldn’t be bad as well.

It is odd that Cinema doesn’t have a tool for finding the centerpoint for parametric object however, I wonder if this is the case for other programs as well.

I’m just babbling at this point, thanks for the info and help sassi -

How about—selecting the P.Y parameter from the “Move” null and “ctrl” click to get the fly out menu and select there the “Add to HUD”

Then go to the active window with the HUD, click on the HUD and let it show Allways. Move the mouse over the value to adjust the Y.

Would that work for you?

It does find the size of the object, in the Coordinates window, and the size is half the center-point ;o) No idea why this can’t be used in XPresso. I might miss something.

You’re welcome and I hope we found two HUD options that work for you. To place the MoText-text field there as well, might be overkill. ;o)

Have a good one

Sassi

P.S.: you might also have a look here:

http://www.cineversity.com/forums/viewthread/1515/#5437