rasputin

On 4/27/2020 at 9:53 PM, Cerbera said:

I will just say, that since the introduction of the new spline pen, smooth and sketch tools I don't know why anyone is still using Illustrator to do their splines - it's actually not that great creating them there... I much prefer Cinemas spline toolset these days.

 

CBR

I use Illustrator CC 2017...   and have it tricked out with all my favorite plugins,  which allow me to tweak shapes with more precision;  I also,  for whatever reason,   like to envision my splines in a flat 2D atmosphere before sending them to C4D.

Thank you all so much.

I was totally unaware of Cineversity ArtSmart 'til now.    I am going to give it a try.

Hey guys,

Have any of you encountered this?      If you choose to draw a vector  shape in Adobe Illustrator for later merging into C4D as a spline,    you have to Save your Illustrator project in Illustrator 8 edition format.    Otherwise,  your spline,  merged in,   simply will not appear in C4D at all.    Thus,  any shape saved in Illustrator CC format  (or anything after 8,  in fact  ) will not be recognized by C4D.     

Illustrator 8 was a long,  long time ago by now,  no?    

I'm just curious as to why this anomaly should be so.   Any theories?

Thanks,   ras

Success,  y'all!   Thank you!

Well,  let me give it another go...

Yes.  Attached here is a picture of what the splines look like,  prior to extrusion.    Also attached here is my C4D project file.   I had merged flat the whole thing first in Adobe Illustrator.

happy birthday extrusion.c4d

Hey guys,

I'm sure you will immediately recognize this familiar problem:   When you try to extrude some text (that has been converted to splines),    some splines will be recognized for extrusion,   while others won't.     In this particular set of text splines,     some of the "eyes" of the letters will not be recognized.   Like the inner "eyes" of my "B",  "P",  "Y",  "D"   and "O".     Needless to say,    this situation makes for an unusable model.

I realize that this loopy,  cursive font is not the best candidate for extrusion....      blocky/squarish fonts do much better.     Still,  I'm wondering if I can make this work...     Is there a workaround to having all my spline-loops be recognized in an Extrude?       I've tried twiddling with the different spline types and their properties.   Is there a way I can first optimize this spline group in Adobe Illustrator?   Some other trick?

Thanks,  ras

Yes:  Volumetric sculpting like in 3DCoat.    Where your sculpting does not warp and misshape your UV's.

Here's one you should watch also:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-are-the-principles-of-art-definition-examples.html

It sounds like you just need to jump in to making imagery with 3D...  Hopefully MAXON Cinema4D.       We like to say that artistic ability is an inborn gift,  but that's not altogether true:   there are many,  many artistic ideas that you can grasp just from reading and studying about them.

So I say:   go dive in to studying both art theory while you learn the technical aspects of doing 3D...  They go hand-in-hand.

There's that saying by L'ao-Tsu:   "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."    I suggest that,  every day,   you make a 3D render,  however simple and humble it may be,   in which you try to learn one or more artistic principles.

You are lucky in that the Internet now provides you will loads and loads of instructional material,  in the form of free instructional videos.

Bear in mind that learning a software as deep and complex as Cinema4D will take some time.   As in:   years.

So the only task left is to jump into the swimming pool and get wet.

Whoa-- amazing!    It was only when camera dollied back that I perceived what you had achieved.    Amazing and very tricky to do.     Is that a phi  (golden ratio) spiral?

Yes,  but to actively work on that hair--   brush it,  etc.--    don't you have to select it active? 

Good god.  Absolutely amazing.   I saw the movie three times over the Thanksgiving holiday,   and not once did I twig on that there might be some digital trickery going on with their faces.   The illusion was seamless.  I'm guessing ILM possesses some extremely powerful computers;   anything less would make this process a nightmare. Wow.  And I guess ILM has enough money and power to completely commission a new dedicated proprietary  software expressly for their purposes from code programmers.

Somehow,  at the end of the day,  they had to construct a mesh for the actors' faces,  that they could then play with.   And that mesh is surprisingly low-poly,  yet flawlessly topologized and rigged with custom morphs.  Maybe the three-headed camera did a kind of photogrammetry?  Even still,  I'll bet they still couldn't fully automate this process;  ie.,  they still had to do a lot of frame-by-frame editing.

It also looks like they made meshes out of the surrounding walls and furniture... I guess they had to do that to keep perspective and focal length correct?

Kinda wild that DeNiro still remembered his monologue from GOODFELLAS,  25 years on;   do all movie actors do that?

Hvala na ovom videu, Igore!

Hey you Hair wizards,

Is there any way to turn off the visibility of my Hair guides...     while leaving visible my Preview Hair Polygons?     ie.,   in my Viewport,  not during final render.

See my screencap?     I want to temporarily turn off visibility of my blue guide lines,     while leaving visible only the hair preview  itself  (shown at 25% visibility).    This is because,  of course,   I have dialed in curly waves into my C4D Hair Material,   which appear quite differently than the straight guides do.     The blue guides are preventing me from seeing well the actual Hair preview.

Thanks,  ras

....and here's an even better starting attempt,  I think you'll agree.    I'm really beginning to see the beauty and logic of Sub-D modeling!  If you do it right,  your mesh is always pretty and logical,  and has not a single polygon too many.    Thank you for your help here,  Cerbera!

Cerbera,

Is THIS the idea?    I started with a cube primitive,  elongated it,   and applied a SUB-D SURFACE to it,    shown here subdivided 2X.     So it's a process of applying appropriate cuts--  avoiding triangulation--     then gradually moving your points closer to your ideal?

Thanks,  cerbera!   Would you believe I've never modeled in the Sub-D approach before?    This looks like a good time to learn it.

I had been trying to do this shoe first using the Loft-ing of splines...  pretty tricky.    Then i got the wild idea to place a sphere primitive around my (Poser) foot mesh,  then do a Cloth Sim 'til it hugs the foot tightly.     Both of these methods yield a ghastly topology which is tricky to then refine using the Mesh Brush tool.    I keep thinkin' there's GOT to be an easier way.

I so appreciate your help here!

Thanks,  ras

Hey guys,

I'm curious:  How would YOU go about modeling this shoe?    My Poser figure is supposed to wear them.   My results have been...  barely passable,  not that good at all.    I've been using the Poser figure's foot mesh  to serve  as a possible "shoe last",  ya might say...

The difficulty,  of course,  is that the shape is VERY organic...   hardly a straight line on the whole shoe.    And as you can imagine,  I end up with polys wildly angled everywhere,  and in very diverse sizes...  ie.,   lousy topology.

Don't worry about the heel,   the little bow or the decorative perforations--   I'm just concerned with modeling the basic shape of the "chassis".    Is there an especially "clean",  efficient  or elegant way to go about modeling this shoe?

Thanks,  ras

Excellent,  thanks.

Thanks so much,  cerbera!    Your erudition and counsel  here on the Cafe is a godsend.    Where can I obtain a Hexasphere,  just for visual comparison?

Hey guys,

I'm wondering:    Is there a proper 3D word for this thing,  this phenomenon,  on any 3D mesh?    That is,    where your polys converge on one point of a curved mesh?     (Usually,   UV-wise,   you don't  want to see your texturing converge at one of these points,   hence the workaround of the Triplanar UV distribution).



Thanks,  ras
 

UPDATE!!  I seemto have fixed it,  by manually switching (in the second view) from my Corona Camera to "default scene camera".  Still not entirely sure what I did,  but I'll pay closer attention next time.

Thank you so much for your help,  though.

Playing with SOLO  and UN-SOLO on those two windows  has no effect on this linking.   They remain linked.   I've never (consciously) used that Solo button view ever in my C4D history.

The only thing I've done in this particular project...     is to introduce a single instance of the Corona Camera and set the first window to that view.

Hey guys,

Here's a pesky problem I get myself into  now and then:    Two of my four basic camera window views get linked with each other,   and I don't know how to un-link them!     Whatever view I set my upper-left window to,     the upper-right one follows suit!      When what I want is to have the top leftmost window show PERSPECTIVE  view,   and the top right window to show TOP camera view.

Questions:
 

1. How can I unlink them,   and
2. What did I do to make this pesky thing start happening---   what did I do to inadvertently link them?   (so I don't do it again)?
    

Many thanks,    ras