Need Emergency Mograph Help, Please!

[sneather 1]

Hey,

I just purchased mograph for a project, and I'm attempting to create a morph between some Illustrator .eps based spline letters. I'm using the mograph cloner tool along with an effector, and most of the letters are working great. However, I have a problem with the "a" because the hole isn't knocking out when added to an extrusion. I thought I was crafty, and found a solution by way of first using the mograph spline mask...but alas, the little hole isn't appearing.

I've attached just the part of the project I'm referring to, and I hope one of you experts might be able to get my straightened out.

Thanks!

[3DKiwi 517]

Think what I would do is trace around the imported splines with a bezier spline. The shape is pretty basic and should be easy to recreate.

3DKiwi

[sneather 1]

Good idea...but the imported eps / splines (which create morph effect) from Illustrator have 120 iterations! Not even sure where I'd start with that.

[3DKiwi 517]

I've obviously misunderstood things. I thought you just wanted to get the letter A extruded. I'm travelling away from home and can only snatch a few minutes here and there. Perhaps you're not using the right Illustrator export settings? Try doing a search as exporting from Illustrator to C4D has been asked and answered many times and solutions to variations of the problem encountered in C4D usually supplied.

3DKiwi

[sneather 1]

Sorry. I'm definitely not describing things well enough. What I have going on, is a morph, from one "a" to the next. I created all the outlines in Illustrator, using the morph tool. This was something I saw on one of Dr. Sassi's Cineversity Tutorials. I imported all 120 iterations, and then applied them to the Mograph Cloner. Then, by adding an effector, and an extrude nurbs I was able to animate the morph in 3D. However, because the letter "a" has the hole in the middle, the extrude nurbs doesn't know how to resolve this (due to the mograph effect, I suppose).

So that's where my problem is? Does that make any more sense? It's not a simple matter of just getting illustrator outlines to work in C4D - that's a breeze, thankfully.

[3DKiwi 517]

Ok got ya. Rather than a Spline Mask object just use a regular boolean object. Here's your scene modified. Is this what you want?

3DKiwi

[Rantin Al 1]

The two splines used in the 'a' need to be connected and used as a single spline for the Extude to work properly and knock out the hole.

Stages included in the fix file.

Cheers, Alan.

[sneather 1]

Thanks Kiwi & Al. I'm just getting going for the day, and I'll open both your projects in just a minute.

Thanks, as always, for being so generous with your time.

[sneather 1]

Hey Al, I just opened your file, but now the morph between my two "a"s isn't working. Did you see what I was trying to accomplish in my original file? Maybe I'm not turning something on or off, properly, in your project?

Thanks.

...and Kiwi, I wish I could just use a boolean effect, but I'm adding fillet caps with the extrude nurbs, so that would look different in that area of the letter.

[Rantin Al 1]

I have only included a single compound 'a' to fix the hole issue. I didn't put it into your project set up.

Cheers, Alan.

[3DKiwi 517]

You know the morphing isn't all that complex. I reckon you could just move a few points around to achieve pretty much the same effect. i.e. PLA.

3DKiwi

[sneather 1]

Yeah, I think I may head that way if I don't totally scrap the morph idea, altogether. Although, then I'm back to the same PLA issues I posted about a week ago, where I can't get the kind of subtle speed (F-Curve) controls which I'd prefer.

I'm still curious to try and find a way to make that compound spline effect work, along with the mograph morph trick. I think that's such a cool feature, and once set-up, you can make changes quite easily (unlike PLA).

I'll post info on my progress.

Thanks for all the help guys!