@appointment-insect
the fix to these types of Spline orientation problems is to use a Rail Spline, BUT creating one for this sort of setup will not be easy because of the "erratic" motion of the Cylinders.

I settled for a Scene Nodes Spline that creates a line that connects the same point on each cylinder and uses that to "stabilize" the setup BUT if you look at your cylinders, some are rotating so much they spin the tentacle ...
If you manage to make the Cylinders NOT rotate too much on impact with the sphere, this setup will give you very decent results.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vtwi0beq1gzfqih3q0znw/C4DTentacleSwimming-simplified-Noseman-01A.c4d?rlkey=vkn028fh448imr59tppyqeamq&dl=0

@entry-newspaper
I'm glad you found a solution!

@appointment-insect
he, I would appreciate if you can simplify the project to a single tentacle and a single material so I can take a look...

@entry-newspaper
can you please share a simplified project and tell me what your expectation is?

Unfortunately the Scatter Object internally uses Render instances and, apparently, can't be used as a source for a cloner...
Let me ask around to see if someone knows of a workaround, and in the meantime please report this as a bug/idea from inside Cinema 4D.

Here are a few suggestions.

1. To create colorful traces you don't need splines. You can use this technique:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0LfxbzmYnk

2. Use a Fracture Object on the Sweep and colorize each swept spline like you do with any mograph object
   https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/u9n3apgbydfnhc3t3qko8/SwirlStrokes-Noseman-Fracture.c4d?rlkey=n4fyy0f2tc5daiqldvoytgyuc&dl=0

3. The Alembic export has a huge (known) limitation. If the first frame is empty, nothing exports. To trick it, you need to add at least a single point. In this scene I added a polygon primitive with 0 size under the Connect Object. It's a very ugly workaround, but it works.
   https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0fmlgj4fbjdb6yvqsakav/SwirlStrokes-for-Alembic.c4d?rlkey=u7v4vpb560w77mv2ohcpt3v9m&dl=0

here's a project:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6l3zq9ntf0bx1eeaxhm9e/object-surface-cloning.c4d?rlkey=s5kqmmxbaozl6q3pyc5ug095x&dl=0

Cloner in Object Mode. Drag the surface you want to clone onto in the "Object" link and that's it.
Please share a scene as this should be very straightforward.

You shouldn't have any problems that don't have some sort of workaround. Whenever you have a scene that has issues, simplify it and post a link here and I can take a look...

@wing-bend

.. It doesn’t seem like a complex task...

I learned never to say that to a developer
It's better if you report it as an idea.

@wing-bend
in the "Help" menu at the bottom -> "Report Bug/idea"

@hat-county

• Baking as a Alembic = If it's gracious enough to work at all, it explodes as soon as you change its hierarchy.

Do you have a sample of this?
Alembic should work as long as you put the Cloner under a Connect Object

@signature-view

...What I want is an object position pass that treats all the objects as one.

May I ask why? If you have a simplified example scene please share and let me know what you're trying to do with the "position pass"

@wing-bend
no option as far as I know, but you could save each object type as a preset with XYZ selected.
Here's how to do it:

1. Add a cube, or a mesh object or any other type of object in your scene.
2. Set Order to XYZ
3. Right Click on "Rotation Order" and "Save Selected As Preet..."
4. Name it appropriately
5. Find that preset in your Asset Browser and add it to your UI or a palette.
6. Save your layout or palette

From now on you can select any of the presets instead of the default objects.
You could also make your custom layout with your new objects instead of the default ones.

@hat-county

Is there truly no way to simply press a button and have the cloner turn into individual keyframed objects?

unfortunately not...

The "Invert ACES 1.0 SDR-video" is only a last resort to embed brand colors in ACES Color managed renders and cannot guarantee 100% color consistency.
My question is "why are you using ACES Color management when you're doing an sRGB "brand" visual? This is a recipe for headaches.
To guarantee brand colors (99.9% of them are in sRGB Color space), just use a traditional linear sRGB workflow.
If your client requires you to work in ACES Color, then try to add the background and other brand colors in Post.

If you think the behavior is inconsistent, please contact customer support.

You're very welcome!

Go to this link and find two setups in the "confetti" folder. Hope they help you get started:
https://maxonvfx.com/c4d_quicktips_projects

Select all the objects you ant to reset the Axis and open the "Axis Center" Tool from the "Tools" Menu.
Deactivate "Center" and activate "Alignment".
Set Axis to "All" and "Alignment" to "World"

@hope-series

...but the bogies and the tracks will be fine.

Those are all I need, but if you send some better models it will make things look better

No rush

@hope-series
also, please let me know if you got it to work with the spline adjustment.

If I were to make a tutorial about rigging trains and roller coasters, could I use your models for that? I won't share anything, just show them on-screen.
There's absolutely no issue if you don't want to