[Help] Creating Animated Seaweed

maxonadmin

Thank you for taking the time to report your issue with this Cineversity tutorial.
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Playback problem. If so, please refer to the FAQ: FAQ: Video's Aren't Working Correctly.
Tutorial workflow problem or clarification.
Version compatibility problem/UI changes.
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Please include a timestamp (where in the video the problem occurs) if applicable.

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HeyPaul

Hello! I've been moving through the tutorials step by step, but cannot get the seaweed to perfectly loop for the life of me despite replicating the settings in the latest version of C4D. I've ensured I'm at 30FPS, and entered the same value (10/3) into the frequency of the wind modifier. The end result is a jarring skip in the animation each time it plays through. Any points as to what could be going wrong, or has some update overwritten a setting somewhere that is default for this tutorial?

Dr. Sassi

Hi HeyPaul,

As mentioned above:
Please include a timestamp (where in the video the problem occurs) if applicable.
I assume it is the content around 09:10.

Set the Turbulence to 0%. This was in the past problem when it didn't work.
https://www.cineversity.com/forums/viewthread/5279/#21248

I have set up a demo. You will find a copy with a Point Cache to ensure that you see exactly what I saw.

CV4_2023_drs_23_ANlp_01.c4d

Please note that frame 90 is the wrong setting, as that would be the same as frame zero. So for a perfect loop, 0-89 is the key.

Let me know if that works for you. If not, please share a c4d file similar to the one above, so I can explore what happens.

Cheers

HeyPaul

For what it's worth the image restrictions on this forum are also so tiny one cannot simply take a screenshot or record a video to upload the problem. So I've duplicated the settings from the tutorial and set the frequency to (10/3 - 3.33) for the wind modifier and replicated the object settings. The result is still a 'jump' in animation at the 90F mark when it cycles back

Side note: In the tutorial the instructor sets the frequency to 10 creating a perfect loop; it does not do this for me either. When I set the frequency to 10 I still get the animation skip/jump/tear (whatever you care to call it). I'm not sure if that'll help diagnose, but my frame rate is at 30fps, so in theory it should be looping

HeyPaul

@Dr-Sassi Thank you so much for the response, I'll get right on trying this!

HeyPaul

Ok, I so I went through and sure enough, my timeline was wrong, but there was a secondary component beyond the turbulence. The fx & fy had values at 0.53 (I must have tried tinkering with them at some point and left them thereafter). Until they were set to '1' the animation didn't loop appropriately! So add that to the archive of events that can possibly go wrong.

Again, thank you so much for the help as I'm loving the tutorial!

Dr. Sassi

Thanks a lot, HeyPaul, for the feedback.

Yes, these values, if used, follow the same "10 idea"

I had written this text already, so for what it is worth for future questions, I post it anyway.
Would you mind rendering a preview and seeing if that loops? Again, frame 90 should be equal to frame zero, so the perfect loop is 0-89. (0-90 equals 91 Frames!) What I did is to have frames 0 and 90 as a comparison with the "Go to Start" and Got To End" keys in the timeline.

About the image resolution, I take part of the blame for that, as I have seen in the past two decades supporting Cinema 4D artists that images, more often than not, do not tell the full story.
Project files can do a lot more. What they can't do, is replicate the hardware, which is mostly the trigger for me to suggest tech support, as they have a nice variety of hardware to test things. I do not have that.

I'm happy to test a demo file of yours. The forum accepts small ".c4d" files (No zipped files)

Enjoy

HeyPaul

@Dr-Sassi I have it looping perfectly now; and thanks again for your time and patience in helping! I'm really committed to learning this program and knowing this resource exists is a huge bonus.

I also fully understand your point of view now and will attach the c4d file and time stamp in the future. Whatever aids in diagnosis!

Thanks again happy dances

Dr. Sassi

Thank you again, HeyPaul!

I'm certainly happy to support your exploration. I keep my impression of learning a new app fresh by constantly starting to learn something new. It helps me to improve and helps to avoid forgetting how each new exploration feels. I hope that allows you to ask without any hesitation.

Thanks for understanding my focus on the project files; this is great.

My best wishes

CINEVERSITY

[Help] Creating Animated Seaweed