Assuming the object to be blended this way is quite large - i.e. lots of polygons with a significant material applied - would it execute faster in a render than if I moved a single object with the Min-Max method?

Works great!

Two questions: First, when the field driver tag is applied, the keyframes for that motion disappear from the dopesheet. Is there a way the keyframes can be adjusted after the fact?

Second, while adjusting the Parameter Min/Max values, it seems inconsistent in how it provides feedback. Sometimes I can see the field reference frames as I adjust the values, and other times I can't. Very much like shooting in the dark as to where endpoints are. That was by far the most difficult aspect.

I have a simple assembly coming together driven by a plain effector. I have cloned this assembly 6 times. Now I would like to trigger the assembly animation using a field - presumably from a plain effector. I used to know how to do this (thanks to EJ) but his method doesn't work with fields.

I think I also made it more complicated than it probably needs to be. I have not tried using the layers function inside of the fields tab - mastery of which might eliminate some of the manual setups I have included (i.e. fracture inside of fracture).

Project attached.

Generic Lane RS OPT Cloner Cineversity.c4d

I installed C4D on my second machine (a PC) and was able to open the C4D files and export the STLs without any artifacts. My primary machine is a 2016 iMac which has exceeded it's OS parameters - can't update beyond OS 12.7.1. I get frequent warnings from Adobe saying that it can't guarantee performance unless I update. My bet is there's something at the OS level that's flaking out causing the corrupted files. I'm going to keep testing it, but so far everything seems to be working as expected on the newer machine.

Back again

I did an experiment involving these three files:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WpjTKl59Hycuv6I8WgWK4shmMYxI61FI?usp=sharing

Scapula Model.c4d
This is the source file. Looks good. Seems to work OK in all respects.

Scapula Model.stl
This is the STL file exported from C4D. Immediately after export the file preview looks normal - as expected.

Scapula Model_STL Import.c4d
This is the same STL file re-imported back into C4D. Now it has spikes.

I have exhausted all troubleshooting I know how to do and can't come up with a reason why the STL file becomes corrupted with extra polygons minutes after it has been exported. Intially, the preview looks clean. But come back to it a few minutes later and it won't preview. Which is a sure sign that it's corrupted.

I have exported dozens of STL files for printing and have not had this problem before. Now - like in the last few weeks - I can't get any clean exports. I installed the latest version of C4D and I thought that might have fixed it, but the next batch out was corrupted same as the first.

If you can export a clean STL with no extra polygons, then there must be something flaky with my particular machine - a buggy operating system or some such thing. Have you seen a glitch of this sort before?

Thank you! Your clean up technique worked perfectly.

However, I'm still having issues with C4D exporting clean STL files without weird polygons. Here's an example file:

Scapula Mesh Clean_PolyRdc Exporter.c4d

And here's an STL exported from it:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_-CgjXRuLn9sg9faIolB6gpxfCHVKEuE/view?usp=sharing

The example file has a Remesh generator applied - which doesn't seem to be working. At least I don't get any results after 20 minutes of waiting. I assume there are glitches in the mesh that it doesn't like. Probably the same ones that are showing up in the STL.

It's very odd because I have been exporting meshes to ShapeWays without issue, but to my associate in COMSOL, they are non-operative. I wonder if my copy of C4D has developed a bug and needs to be re-installed. The STL export thing is just too consistent to be buggy meshes.

Via private link maybe? The models are proprietary.

Thank you. I had noticed the discrepancies in the coordinate manager but could not figure out how to reset them. The workaround resolved it perfectly.

The STL was created in Cinema, not COMSOL. I have several other examples of STLs with wildly splayed vertices. My guess is the problem originates somewhere inside Volume Mesher/Builder. The models are "normal" size when they go in, but become exponentially deranged when I export "current state to model." Is it possible that a deformer or mograph operator within the hierarchy inside VM might be generating an artifact that the VM thinks is geometry, and so tries to incorporate it?

I am exporting a prototype model as an STL file for engineering testing and evaluation in COMSOL. But the engineer involved is not able to consistently open the files. Some work, some don't. Some display one minute, but don't the next - same file. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason.

I work on a Mac, so everything originates in Mac World. COMSOL is PC (I believe).

Sample non-functioning STL export here:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ao8UWwLJPdXjmkvKTIIIcw7AMp4i?e=ZPFRnv

(BTW: I was able to open this file in C4D but it came in very very small. There appear to be a couple of polygon artifacts that are making the model almost infinite in size. )

We hit on using Microsoft 3D Viewer as a common test bed that I could preview the files ahead of time, before sending them on (files that open in Microsoft viewer also open in COMSOL). But even Microsoft Viewer can't display some files.

I downloaded STL files of the same model that I had successfully printed at ShapeWays and tried these out in Microsoft 3D Viewer and they displayed flawlessly. Could ShapeWays be "cleaning up" the files to make them more accessible?

I have never had an issue with STL exports until bumping into COMSOL.

Pair Cloner.c4d

I have a roller conveyor model that I want to duplicate into right and left versions using the symmetry object. Then I want to clone the resulting pair of conveyors 6 times. This model is a simplification of the assembly (which is too large to send).

If I leave the all the cloners set to Instance, then the cloned symmetry objects don't work right - the clones get out of alignment. If I set the top level cloner to Multi Instance, then the symmetry works better, but the clones are offset.

I also have a configuration (not repeated here) where the roller clones just disappear. They appear normally in the symmetry object, but when I clone the symmetry object, the rollers are gone.

I have tried multiple variations of Instance/Render Instance/Multi Instance with all the cloners and get variations of unsatisfactory results.

I had this problem before and you fixed it for me, but when I went back to look up the solution, I discovered I couldn't access that exchange. I think it was in the old Cineversity. So maybe its lost forever