Thank you for your rapid reply. Your example file helped quite a bit. The use of reference materials was helpful. When I used it, I still had trouble with the fact that one material had a different projection than the other. This then reminded me of an older shader-graph method for showcasing stickers/decals/etc. I ended up using a UV Projection Node between the displacement texture and the Displacement node. Then I combined them in the Displacement Blender. While it doesn't appear to mix as easily as Color Layers do, the result did allow me to indent into the leather.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/118gFWWNXKMOW3_0CAiQxnxyHrZ_d2Bbp/view?usp=sharing
Thank you again.

Dr. Sassi,
I have been working through Elly Wade’s Tutorial on rendering Redshift Basketball. My intention is to add a team logo, and change the ball’s logo to Wilson to match our High School’s ball. My challenge is that I cannot properly stack the materials’ displacement when my logo is Projection-Flat and the Basketball’s displacement is UVW Mapping. It appears to do one or the other. I have tried to create a UVW from projection, but when I apply it to a Displacement Node, the surface textures become flat as well.

In my shared file, I have placed 2 duplicates of the same ball. The left one has proper UVW displacement in the leather (from the Basketball Material) but the Logo appears simply painted on, with no indentation. The one on the right, has displacement, so we can see the depth (displacement is in the right-most material "RS Wilson Logo Gold Trim"), but the general displacement of the leather is from a frontal projection. This is visible from above where there is the displacement stops.

How can I make the ball look like the example on the left for the leather, but have the impression/indentation like the basketball on the right?
File:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11YosFlTy8D8539zshf4m-lxi_v6g9OXE/view?usp=sharing

@Dr-Sassi Thank you so much for you swift reply. I will investigate these suggestions. I am also pleased to see that the Maxon Developer's Cafe is a thing. I did not know there was such a thing. Thank you again. (Have you checked your drone for new firmware? My DJI Mavic 2 Pro supposedly has a new Remote ID firmware)

Is there a way to programmatically fill the string of text within the “Text Object (previously MoText)” Text Spline attribute. Specifically, I am needing to make a matrix object’s mograph selection ID(+1) to drive the string value found in the Text Spline attribute. I have created this with a single number in the Text Spline attribute, but can’t figure out how to programmatically change this value. In the end, I am trying to create a 20 sided die.

D20.c4d

I completely understand about the post. I am glad that you are able to take days off. I have been flooded teaching Drone flying this week, trying to get a unit in before our DJI drones here in the USA are grounded because of RemoteID.
I added a camera, but still had the same issue. I made a screen recording of the issue while using an RS Camera. Perhaps you could look one more time?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sAP0R4U9oREkVyyy4NvIWQklka0zUqUU/view?usp=drive_link

Thank you sir.

I was able to follow along with this tutorial until I wanted to cache and view the results.
I had a very odd problem when I cached the simulation. The cached files are about 20% the size (not file size, but viewport size) of the viewport when compared to the RS renderview. They were the same while not cached, but the moment after creating the cache, the RS renderview shows the exact simulation, but it is 1/5 the size.
Here are my project files:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vxDKDBvrmZrWDTuEtbY34Isncz3gl_oV?usp=sharing

Here is a screenshot of the difference RS Renderview/Viewport:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OU9thFDUGfLWfemVB-DfmpxekS4ZReHG/view?usp=drive_link

I am still not able to wrap my head around the vast visual changes to Pyro in C4D 2023.2.2. The pyro appears completely different, and I believe it has something to do with the changes to the Noise section in Pyro. I was able to alter some settings to begin to get the same wispy nature of Noseman, rather than the blockiness of the 2023.2.2 system.

Working on a Macbook Pro M1 Max 64, Ventura 13.5.

I posted this on the tutorial questions page, but got no response in 12 days. I assume it is because caching the render is not a part of the tutorial so I need to post in the QA forum.

I was able to follow along with this tutorial until I wanted to cache and view the results.
I had a very odd problem when I cached the simulation. The cached files are about 20% the size (not file size, but viewport size) of the viewport when compared to the RS renderview. They were the same while not cached, but the moment after creating the cache, the RS renderview shows the exact simulation, but it is 1/5 the size.
Here are my project files:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vxDKDBvrmZrWDTuEtbY34Isncz3gl_oV?usp=sharing

Here is a screenshot of the difference RS Renderview/Viewport:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OU9thFDUGfLWfemVB-DfmpxekS4ZReHG/view?usp=drive_link

I am still not able to wrap my head around the vast visual changes to Pyro in C4D 2023.2.2. The pyro appears completely different, and I believe it has something to do with the changes to the Noise section in Pyro. I was able to alter some settings to begin to get the same wispy nature of Noseman, rather than the blockiness of the 2023.2.2 system.

Working on a Macbook Pro M1 Max 64, Ventura 13.5.

@Dr-Sassi Thanks again for working through this problem. I want so much to expand our use of the Cineversity Tutorials in my program at school. I discussed with Tech support, and they said they were reporting the variations between older versions and the new versions as a bug to tackle. They appreciated the inclusion of a scene file and detailed descriptions. Pyro is the most exciting tool I have used in a quite a while.

I was able to get the 2023.2.1 working on one of the other Mac Studios in the lab. It is also running RS 3.5.15. I pulled in your example project. I really appreciate the help, but I still struggle to see that the explosion resembles the tutorial. The viscous and rippling nature of the tutorial's pyro (even at 2:30 in) is just so much more natural.
There is now a controllable Noise category which defines the shape of the emission's source. Previously this may have been handled (I assume) "under the hood" meaning that the noise was setup with some parameters by default. Can I set the new noise parameters to the previously (internal) settings so as to match behavior? Can I know what those settings were so as to not only recreate the previous behavior, but understand how the controls affect the system now?

Were you able to get the example file from Aaron?

Thanks for sending it over. I was waiting to upgrade to 2023.2.1, because I had gone through quite a bit to a get a 3rd party plugin, HOT4D to build and was worried it would break it. I will see if I can update an extra computer and check this out. Please allow me to respond again.

I couldn't upload a large enough file here, but there are no wispy tendrals, just boxes of fire and boxes of smoke.
These are both after the 2:30 mark, with no changes in the tutorial other than C4D version.

Thanks for the awesome tutorial. However, since upgrading to 2023.2.0, I have a completely different result when creating even the most basic explosions. Following exactly on my M1 mac Studio (Monterrey), I was just around the 2:30 mark in the tutorial when my pyro looks completely different. Very boxy, not resembling the explosion at all. Indeed, on older versions, I think Pyro was very similar to Aharon's results.

This certainly worked. Thank you for the quick reply. Was this a planned behavior change or was it just a bug? I am trying to integrate some of the tension effect with “Revealing a Logo By Burning” (another Noseman Tutorial) and wonder if the freezing will interfere with the way Noseman does the freeze radius expansion about 4:15 into the lesson “Revealing a Logo by Burning.” You don’t have to reply about that technique, just wondering if the change in my original post to the way the vertex map was planned.

Tutorial workflow problem / Version Compatibility

Thank you for the tutorial. At around the 5:40 mark, Noseman makes the sphere dynamic, and the vertex map causes a rubber band style collapse just beneath the sphere as the cloth falls. In C4D 2023.1.3, the cloth just drops through the tension, and no rubber band effect happens. It is as though the vertex map circular ring does not stick to the cloth after initial state. I noticed that in the Vertex Map's Basic Tab, there is no option for "Generators 5" like Noseman, but a similar item is in the Cloth Tag's basic tab. Could this be where the process changed from version to version? If so, what do I alter to make the vertex map stay on the cloth as it falls?
-James