Great. Thanks, as always, Dr. Sassi. I'll run through your notes, and your new scene, to see whether I can get a handle on the situation. Ultimately, I may just have to forge ahead, and just deal with masking the problem areas in AE, given the deadlines on the work. Then, I can try to learn more about this, after.

Thanks, Dr. Sassi. I see what you did, and that might otherwise work. However, in the actual scene in my project, the camera is trained at the sphere, so I can't quite get away with just blowing those unwanted particles to the left.
It seems like they're getting "captured" inside the collider object. So, I'm still trying to figure out what's causing that to happen.

Good morning!

I've attached a simplified scene, with a basic (C4D) particles simulation.
I'm having a devil of a time, preventing the particles from "collecting" on my collider object (sphere) at the end of the animation, when the sphere accelerates. The attached screen caps highlight those errant particles.
As it stands, I have the "collision iterations" in the collide modifier set to 10. I also have the scene "substeps" set to 10.
But those settings don't seem to be preventing the issue. Further, when I grossly exaggerate those settings, for instance, 20 units for each parameter, it still doesn't seem to help. But it sure does choke down there performance of the sim, to an unacceptable level.

So, are there other settings that which I'm unaware, that might help solve this? Or some other modifier trick, that will simply work around that?

Thanks!

particles issue.c4d

Thanks, as always, Dr. Sassi.
I rather figured there wasn't a (at least as of yet) direct way to do this sort of effect.
Noseman's example you reference, certainly is interesting. However, by the time I would rig everything up in my actual project, it's like the same amount of labor as what I'm currently doing: Emitting from the vertex map, caching, then reverse time mapping the alembic file.
I did experiment with some splines, to direct the motion, but ultimately those only deal with the distant particles. But I need great fidelity at the point that which those particles "land" on the surface of the object, as those have to perfectly match the vertex map - which is also controlling the RS shader material and displacement.

Hi,

I'm wondering whether there is any combination of (new) C4D Particles tools / modifiers, which might allow particles emitted from a separate source, to be attracted to the mesh of an object, based on a vertex map?
I know the technique for generating particles, with a mesh emitter, and using the vertex map to control the location of the emission. But there doesn't appear to be any (obvious) method to do the reverse.

My attached scene is set up with what would seem like the basics, and the minimum number of controls; but the closest I get is to just attract / stick the emitted particles to the object mesh, but with no regard for where precisely. The Surface Attract and Stick external modifiers have no provision to input a vertex map or polygon selection. So it's clearly something which would have to involve more complex math or conditional modifiers...even it is even possible at all.

Thanks!

Attract to Vertex Map.c4d

Great, thanks. I'll test those options, further. I initally did try to employ the Simulation Scene, because it seemed logical. But for some reason, my results still seemed off. But I'm sure it's because I was just rushing to test things, and didn't pay close enough attention.

The model, or at least that part, was obviously exported with very coarse tessellation. You could always re-mesh (not remodel) something simple like that. But that's not realistic, if your complete model is very complex. Nor will re-meshing necessarily remove those "steps" in the geometry; mostly, that will just soften the vertices between those faces.
Do you have a communication channel, with the person who generated the original CAD file, or whomever exported that .OBJ file? Because your best bet, by a mile, would be to either ask for a STEP file, and take care of the .OBJ creation, yourself. Or, at the very least, ask for another export, with finer mesh settings.

Good luck!

Hi!

I have a simple scene (attached) whereby I have a simulation of a ball bouncing on a floor.
Secondarily, I used a vertex map to drive some particles, emitting from where the ball impacts.
However, the forces / effects I wish to apply to the particles are also affecting the ball simulation; which I don't want.
How does one go about excluding or separating forces, in a project like this?

Thanks!

ball bounce test.c4d

Thanks, so much, Dr. Sassi. I'll run through your example project, and your detailed notes to understand the options.

Cheers.

Hey, thanks. Sorry, for being a little vague. What I meant by "know" is more along the lines of being aware that selected objects can be baked, or materials can be baked.
I guess I'm just looking for something more turnkey, which can take a more complex, multi-part and multi-textured object, and spit-out a single object and single texture - in one click. Fantasy world stuff, I guess.

I've got a weird, but terribly relevant (for me) question:
Is there any method to create a fully-baked, ultra-low poly iteration of an existing materialized object, inside Cinema 4D?
If they "Moves" phone app can generate a not-so-terrible copy of a real-world object; shouldn't be even easier to do the same, right inside C4D?
I realize, there are numerous ways to bake objects, remesh objects, etc. But I don't know of a single way to just do everything, in one single action. My final goal, is to convert (relatively) dense client products, into ultra-efficient glTF files.

In any event, I was curious whether I've been overlooking something.

Thank you.

Hey,

I'm trying to set up an effect, where I have two Mograph objects; one being effected by the other.
I want to have every single instance receive some strong random rotation, and a subtle amount of random position.
The issue I run into, however, is that if I add the random effect to the "Big" MoG object, then the results are very undesirable.
And if I only apply the random effect to the "Small" MoG object, then the random pattern will obviously repeat, within the larger "Big" parent. The attached project will hopefully explain things better.

What's the best approach to solve something like this?

Thank you!

MoGraph Random Help.c4d

Edit: P.S. I'm also wondering whether this kind of operation is better suited to something like RS Matrix Scatter...?

Fantastic. Thank you, Dr. Sassi.

Greetings,

I'm working on learning the fundamentals for the new C4D particles system, and I've encountered a roadblock.
I'm trying to learn how to do something (seemingly) simple like scale the size of the particles, over their life. But I'm not getting even remotely the expected results. (Please see attached scene file.)

I was watching Sketchy Visuals' Beginners Guide to Basic Particles... where he demonstrates how to control particle size (radius) over time (age) with the Data Mapper. But right away, I notice a few small discrepancies, between his controls, and mine. I'm running 2025.1.2 - but not sure if his was a slightly older version of 2025? Regardless, I followed his instructions as best I could, but my results are nothing remotely like his; which is what I'm after.

Can someone please take a look at what I have set up, and see what I'm doing incorrectly? I'm looking for my particles to smoothly scale up and down, during their lifetime.

Thanks!

Particles Radius by Age.c4d

Thanks, Dr. Sassi. I'll read through your links. I think half my issue, relates to (surprise) poor AI related Google searches, for the use of Pyro. That's where I was seeing the wording about "emission rate" controls.

Hey all:
I'm attempting to use pyro, in R2025.1.2.
However, for the life of me, I can't figure out how to animate the effect in and out.
I'm looking at the Pyro tag, and no where do I see anything related to an emission rate.
Can someone please point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

Thanks, Dr Sassi.
I'm still just barely getting things going, but I did test out a client product on the M4, and holy cow it's fast! Between the new hardware, and the newest version of C4D / RS, it feels like a totally different experience, when compared with the M1 Ultra and the older version of RS I'm still running.

Great, thanks. While I have you here I'm reading up on how to add a second seat to my existing Maxon One subscription. But when I follow Maxon's instructions, in the Maxon app, there is no way to do that. Instead, it seems to prompt me back to the website.
So...if I go through the "buy" process, will that simply "add" that second seat to my existing account? I'd like to keep things clean, in terms of billing, etc. Rather than just having two totally separate Maxon One subscriptions. Does that make sense?

Edit: Never mind! I just found the location inside my account, on Maxon's site, where I was able to add a second seat to my existing license. It wasn't as obvious, as I would have hoped, but got there anyway.

Will do, thanks!
I have a quick follow-up question. Now that Redshift is the default renderer for Cinema, does that change how updates are done?
Does RS still need to be updated, independently of the C4D updates?
Thanks!
P.S. I didn't forget about your kind offer to help with the glTF exporting...from weeks back. But now that I have a new machine, I'll have the newest version of Cinema installed, so I can run those tests myself.

I just purchased a new M4 MBP, and will be purchasing / renting a second Maxon One license.
What is the best method for a ground-up installation of Cinema & Redshift? Should I go through the Maxon App, once I install that? Or is it better to download the installer from the Maxon site?

It's been a few years, since I went through all this on my M1 Ultra, with R2023; so I forget the best protocols.

Thank you!