Hi Dr. Sassi,

Thanks so much for your detailed summary and for continuing to clarify things from your side — I really appreciate it!

I want to apologize for not providing clearer and more complete information earlier. You’re absolutely right — the details have been coming in bit by bit, and I understand how that can lead to confusion. Sorry if that caused any frustration.

What seemed obvious to me, clearly didn’t come across the way I intended. My bad!

Thanks as well for walking me through the manual, art-directed approach. It all makes a lot of sense, and I really appreciate the suggestions like converting tracers to splines and using MoSpline for more control. Your points about object priority and perspective alignment are also valuable cues!

Also, big thanks for the new suggestions and variations. The platonic object works perfectly — it totally solved the issue with the swoosh smoothness, and I’m really happy with the look.

Thanks again for your patience and all the valuable input. I’m learning a lot throughout this process, and I’ll definitely keep everything in mind for my next question.

Best regards!

Hi Dr. Sassi,

Thanks again for reaching out and sharing your thoughts.
I’m not quite sure if I was able to clearly communicate my intentions and goal. It all seems a lot more complex than I initially thought.

I believe there’s no need for camera mapping — the only things that really matter are the same size/radius and position at the start and end. Nothing more.
In the main file, I have 8 cameras with different images. I only uploaded one example since I assumed the specific image wasn’t relevant. The spline is duplicated for each setup, so the start and end points are always the same across all versions.

With the traced N-Side setup, this works perfectly — I can simply keyframe the size of the N-Side and match it at the end on the right. But as mentioned, it’s just not as smooth as the particle-based version.

So I guess that’s the deal: I have a working and okay-ish solution, but I’d really love to have the same level of control with the particle setup that I currently have with the N-Side.

To help visualize what I mean... That's all, just the same size at the start and end, as in this screenshot.

https://imgur.com/a/fsGjmGo

or here in dropbox

https://www.dropbox.com/t/kWFPcCW1OY134bBQ

Thanks again, and sorry for the troubles!

Forgot to mention: the file contains both of my setups – the one using N-Sides and the one using the particle system, with the latter being my preferred setup. The first one with the N-Sides is my backup solution. It would be acceptable, but I’m not completely satisfied with the smoothness of the swooshes compared to the particle-based version.

Hi Dr. Sassi,

I'm really sorry for the late reply and the sparse information I initially provided.

"I can't help but feel that you can visualize the whole setup in your mind, but the text doesn't define it for me."

After working on this for hours, I forgot that, of course, others have no idea what my thoughts are. : D Very, sorry.

I’ve saved the scene with an example image of a building similar to the ones being used and an example of how they are gonna be displayed later

https://www.dropbox.com/t/6whFCIoX9rSdGgNB

I hope this makes things a bit clearer.

I set the spline to show how I would like to interact with the building—growing and shrinking in size while changing directions. The "swoosh/lines" need to be exactly the same size at the start and end, as the images will be displayed very close to each other on websites... So there needs to be a seamless transition between the pictures.

Thank you for your new input, I`ll have a look right now and get back to you!
All the best

Okay, looks like I was too optimistic. Still can‘t get the end radius/thickness to match the start.

Hi Dr. Sassi,

thank you so much for looking into this and providing so much useful information!

Unfortunately, I was not able to get the desired result with your setup. I played with all the settings you mentioned, but couldn't get it quite right.
The problem is, I have some visuals which all have different objects in it. I need to draw the spline manually across the images to get the right interactions with the objects.
Also, I need to control the radius of the splines where there are corners and bendings.

Using the particles' setup, I have the most organic looking streams and curves, which I would love to have.
I also found a workaround with an N-Side that runs along the drawn spline and variates in size, while being traced.
It's okayish, but also not so organic as desired.

Then I remembered the modifiers for the particle system and played with the flock modifier.
And there it is. I can start with a 1cm emitter radius and then use the flock system to push them apart and also bring them together at the end.

Could have done this sooner, and I'm sorry for the time you invested.

Thanks again for all your help, very appreciated as always!

Have a nice weekend!
All the best

Hi there,

I have a question regarding a particle setup with a "follow spline object " and a tracer.

So I created a setup where I have a simple spline, an emitter, a tracer, a follow spline object and a turbulence.
Now I want to controll the start and endpoint size of the emittet particles so the"tubes" are always the same size at start and end.

I have different visuals which are presented in a row, so the same height/position woulb be crucial for a seamless transition between them.

Between the start and end point I would like to have variation in the different pictures, so I played with all the follow spline settings and turbulence. Setting the Emitter size really low helps of course, then I need the turbulence to break it up and spread it out. This results in the end point completly different than the start.

Do you have an idea and could point me in a direction where to look closer?

Thanks a ton!

The scene file is here

https://www.dropbox.com/t/GXcl6CYcYZWblOBr

https://ibb.co/RGy60F3M

https://ibb.co/2TFwgMp

Sorry for the late reply!

Thank you so much, this is just awesome. I tweaked it and experimented a lot and I'm really happy with it.
The material setup also is gold. Very very helpful.

Thanks again, you are always so helpful. I can't comprehend how you are able to know probably everything
about C4D.

Cheers

Hi there,

I have a question regarding setting up a scene to get results as shown in the picture above.

I want to have a flexible setup as I need to customize these and later animate them.

I tried setting up a particle system with a tracer but couldn't get the "curtain" effect with the more transparent spots. Then I tried with splines inside a sweep object and a translucent material but there's not enough randomisation. Also tried with a plane and a cloth tag which gives a nice look but also not really what I'm after. I also tried with sweeping splines and setting up a fresnel shader but also couldn't get the desired look.

Maybe you can point in some direction where I could look to get this going?

Thanks a ton in advance

Hi Dr. Sassi,

thanks for your reply.

@Dr-Sassi said in Help with creating a honeycomb ornament:

I assume you aware of "Current State To Object", and other options.

Yes, thank you. Unfortunately, this didn't get the desired results.

I don't mind some extra work! Your workaround sounds really promising, and I'll definitely try it out.

Thanks for looking even further and helping me!

Best wishes

Wow, thank you so much for your help and effort,
they all look awesome!

Glad that you had some fun with it also

What would be the best way to make this as one single object with good topology? I put it in a volume builder and did some smoothing, but the amount of polys needed to make it look smooth is way too high. Also, I lose a lot of edge detail, unfortunately. The end object is going to have a glass material, so it would be nice to have a single one.

Do you have an idea how to achieve this?

Thanks a ton again!

Hi there,

Sorry for the rather unusual question, feel free to delete if it's not fitting!

I'm trying to recreate a christmas ornament and got stuck.

Is there an easy way to recreate the parts where it splits into two in the middle section?
The basic shape was no problem, just a path, extrude and then a cloner.

Thanks a ton in advance

@Dr-Sassi

Hi there, thank you so much for explaining and going the extra mile with the video.

I think I get it know.

For the solution I now just used the label itself as a displacement and built everything else on that. Worked like a charm and I can change the thickness as I want.

Thanks again for always helping out so quickly and detailed, very appreciated.

Best wishes

I want the render on the right to look like the geometry on the left. Without the gap all around. Hope this makes more sense.
Thanks for reaching out!

Hi Dr. Sassi,

thanks so much for the fast feedback. Sorry for not beeing more specific about the use.

You are right, it's for single use. My goal was to get a label which has thickness for using it on a bottle. The alpha is used for getting the exact label size.
The problem also occures with the opacity, as I don't want 2 sides which are not connected.

Hi there,

I stumbled upon a problem and I can't get it to work as I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

So I tried to make a bottle label, selected the polygons from the bottle and splitted it. Then UV Unwrapped it and put it in a thicken operator. Now as soon as I want to cut out the label section with the sprite node and the alpha texture the label is split with a gap in between.

It would be awesome if you could take a look at the scene and point me in a direction as I'm completly lost.

Thanks a ton in advance!

https://www.dropbox.com/t/6xUPFICiP8KpkJwy

Hi, here‘s the scene file if it helps. Thanks a ton!

https://www.dropbox.com/t/K7vmnBBmBtkZ4qWu

Hi there,

probably a pretty simple task, but I’m struggling a lot of setting this up.

I have a rolling ball which leaves a trail through a plane with a vertex map.

Is there an effector which can spread the trail behind the sphere a bit?

Thanks a lot, I can also upload the scene file if that‘s more convenient.

All the best

Hi there,

I guess this is rather a simple question, but I could not find anything regarding this topic.
Is there a possibility to get the same endless scrolling/zooming as in windows?

If you scale something or move the camera around in windows you're not stopped by the window borders and can scroll/pan around endlessly.

On my iMac at work it's always restricted to the window size your cursor is in.

Thanks in advance,
Mitch

Hi Dr. Sassi,

no no, no worries at all. That's what life is like, I guess. Haha. It's so great to have someone with that kind of knowledge to help and I don't mind workarounds! So thanks again and have a great week!