Can a feather object be animated with forces?
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Thanks a lot for your help, Dr. Sassi!
That works perfectly. So basically I understand that I should convert the feather object into a hair object in order to get the dynamics working, correct?
I see that certain settings in the hair object are not editable, like the Roots Count and the Hairs Count. I suppose those are fixed during the transformation from feather to hair. -
Actually, I have another question related to this "haired feather" object, @Dr-Sassi !
I tried to clone the "haired feather" object, since I'd like a several copies of them in my scene, and they seem to be not clonable.
Is it not possible to clone a hair object? -
I tried to drop my file here, but it looks like this interface doesn't accept the c4d file. How should I upload my c4d file?
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Hi video-resource,
Place the Spline under a Cloner and the Cloner under the Feather object. Yes, if that is made editable, you get the amount of object that was set as clones. I'm unaware you can have Cloned from Hair with individual reactions to Forces.
You can also clone the Splines, make that editable, select all resulting splines and Use the Object Manager> Object> Connect and Delete. This multi Segment Spline can be placed under a Feather and, if needed, made editable.
The Feather has an Adaptive mode; here, you set the configuration of the Feather.
Files here work as long as they are 1MB. I was told that they could be larger, but my experience shows that 1MB is the size that works every time. (No zip files).
Based on the number of security problems, I limit myself to opening files from Dropbox, Google, Wetransfer, Apple, and Adobe cloud services. Thank you.My best wishes
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Hi @Dr-Sassi!
Thank you for your suggestions. I have tested both approaches and they both were able to clone the Feather object as I had desired, but as you pointed out, the resulting clones do not have individual reactions to Forces. That's too bad as that's what I had been aiming for...
I didn't understand what the Feather's Adaptive mode (for the Spacing, if I understood correctly) has to do with all this though.
Anyway, thanks for your help. I guess I will try to create individual feathers and convert them to hair object manually, and see if they have separate reactions to Forces. -
Hi video-resource,
Please have a look here.
https://stcineversityprod02.blob.core.windows.net/$web/Cineversity_Forum_Support/2023_PROJECTS_DRS/20230418_CV4_2023_drs_23_HAfe_11.c4d.zipThe key might be to utilize Fields In the Wind Object. For good differentiation, use the Noise Field, and set a larger scale (or smaller) to affect your scene accordingly. To be able to compare the states, cache the hair object.
The Adaptive/Fixed will change how the spacing is done. I have set the Feathers up in the file above with different Spline Length. The group that is disabled (red x in the group, etc.) Make it visible and active, switch between the two modes, and see what parameters become active.
https://help.maxon.net/c4d/2023/en-us/Default.htm#html/OHAIRFEATHER-ID_OBJECTPROPERTIES.html#FEATHER_OBJECT_SPACINGAll the best
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Hi @Dr-Sassi!
Thank you for your suggestion of using the field for the Wind Object. I have set up a Random Field set to Noise, and that seems good enough; some noise types worked better than others (Sema works well in my scene). However, since I have 200 feather objects (converted to hair) in my scene, it's very slow to simulate. I'm caching all the hair objects at the moment and crossing my fingers that the C4D will not crash.
I would very appreciate if you could take a look at my set up to see if I'm doing this properly. Is there a way to share my file, like you did in your previous post? It's 35MB, so I cannot drop it in this post.... -
Hi Video-recourse,
There is an option to have a 2GB Dropbox for free. Which is exactly what I use for my own projects.
To keep it save, I will leave this here only a few hours. It is an upload link.
(Link removed.)Cheers
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Thank you @Dr-Sassi ! I've just uploaded my file to the provided link in Dropbox.
The file is my project to model a feather-worm (a marine animal), like the ones you see here:
https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-yzgoj/images/stencil/500x659/products/1726482/4190747/apixogp2q__72548.1627143743.jpg?c=2
https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-yzgoj/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/1725709/4448318/apirnzdr0__21768.1627144073.jpg?c=2My main concern is to know if the way I've set up the 200 feather objects is acceptable (I don't know what is a typical usage and scale of feather/hair objects in a scene; is it in 100s, 1000s, 10000s etc.?). Does it make sense to have the dynamics enabled for all of them? I was not able to cache the "haired" feathers; C4D was taking forever so I had to kill the process.
Also is the way I've set up the "cloned" feathers along the matrix object aligned along the helix correct? I'm not sure if there's a better way to do this.
Also I would like to gradually scale down the size of the feathers in the center (matrix positions 0 through 20, for example), but it seems that scaling down a hair object messes up the geometry. I am stuck in that respect, so I would really really appreciate any feedback you could provide. Thank you! -
Hi video-resource,
Thanks for the upload, video-recourse; I will look at it.
Quite frankly, feathers come up on average every two years, going by the past two decades mentoring people. I would not have anything with a "statistical significance" to offer.
With many feathers, the question would be (at least for me) what can be seen based on the camera. Could the whole setup maybe be based on other options?
Like using hair as Generate> Flat and placing a short video clip while having several groups with different videos or stills.
Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with the URL you posted, and I can't just click on things for security reasons. Sorry.
Cheers
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Hi video-resource,
Based on your file, perhaps try the following.
• Set up one Hair (Feather) with Wind and Turbulence, etc., and cache this single element with 400 frames (more than you need!). Leave your materials as they are.
• Select all the parts that belong to the Hair/Feather. (Not the Forces, lights, or camera.)
• Export this as Animation and RS Proxy. Selected only. Again it would be best to have more frames than the video requires.
• Now import this back via the Redshift> Object> Proxy. Set the animation.
• If that single Proxy works lovely (different frames, different movements), then copy the Redshift Proxy Object with the Proxy inside and change a little bit Offset (negative), so you get different results for the same frame (now the more frames make sense)
• Perhaps create a few Proxy Objects with different (time) Offsets.
• Now call up a Matrix S
hCatter, and in the provided Redshift Tag, set the Particles to Custom Object. Drag all the Redshift Proxies into it.• Set up the Matrix as you did with the Cloner in your scene.
I can't think of anything faster while keeping the quality high.
All the best
P.S.: perhaps change a little bit the geometry and create variations with wind, and export those as proxy.
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Dear @Dr-Sassi,
These are some great tips!!! I didn't know about Redshift Proxy! My initial test shows that C4D is so much faster using this trick. Thank you for your suggestions. I like your idea of offsetting the animations and varying some geometry/forces and creating several different proxies.Just a question: For the step using a "Matrix Shatter", do you mean Matrix Scatter? I am not familiar with either of them, but my quick search shows that there exists Matrix Scatter but not Shatter (cool name though).
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Thanks a lot, video-resource!
Yes, Scatter would be the correct name—no idea how that happened.
Should I blame my text correction, hehe? No, it was certain me: So sorry about the time you wasted.
The Matrix-Scatter is a comfortable way, a mixture of Matrix and RS-Tag (Redshift Object Tag).I'm super glad it helps to cut down render times.
My best wishes for your project
