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Shaking object – with Xpresso slider ?
Hi all,
I’m working on a piece which is being closely cut to a breakbeat audio soundtrack.
There are parts where the audio track builds up intensity. For these parts i’d like to have an object scale, move, rotate and generally randomly “shake”.
I’d like to have a setup whereby I have the object shaking violently controlled from “stationary” to random by a null sliders position. (i.e posy 0 – still thru posy 100 – going crazy !!
Any ideas how I might achieve this ? My Xpresso knowledge is quite limited. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Andy -
5 Replies
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I suggest you skip Xpresso for this–IMO it’s unnecessary. Parent your object to a null (located at world center–important) and give the null a vibrate tag. Animate the inensity of the vibrate tag.
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It’s really easy with the noise node. Basically create a null. On this null, create a user slider set to use ‘percent’. On the null create an Xpresso tag. In Xpresso, Drag the null object into the Xpresso window twice. Put one on the left and one on the right. From the one on the left, Click the output port, goto user data and select your slider you created. From the one on the right, click the input port and add what you want to modify. I would at least think the 3 position channels (X Y Z).
Create a time node, a noise node, a range mapper node, and 2 math nodes.
Basically you want the time output to go to the time input of the noise node. BUT pass it through a math node first set to multiply. Whatever you set your multiplication value to increases the FREQUENCY of the noise. Now pipe the output of the noise node into another math node set to multiply. This second multiplier will change the AMPLITUDE of your noise. Now pipe the output of this into the 3 inputs of your Null positions you made. This is simple at first, but you will eventually want to do this x3 (meaning a noise node for each thing) but set the seed to the noise node different on each so they aren’t equal.
Now what you want to do with the range mapper is basically pipe the output of your user slider into it and have it map 1 – 100 to a useful number to pipe into the 2 math node’s second input.
So once you tweak all of this, one slider say called “Shake!” will make a null go from still to more violent. Then all you do is parent your object to this null so it takes on the qualities of it.
But eventually you may want extra sliders called “Amplitude_MAX” and “Freq_MAX”. So that say you key frame this SHake slider perfectly, but you realize you don’t like how fast or extreme the effect is, your 2 other sliders are master controls to temper the effect without having to rekey. These Max sliders will basically set 2 more math nodes (set to multiply) so they can scale the effect.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Here you go:
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com/C4Dobjects.zip
I added a few other of my objects.
The one for you is called ‘CS_Shake!’.
Unzip these and put them in your Cinema4D/Library/Objects folder. Then in C4D just go to the object library pulldown menu and you’ll see them.
CS_KinoTube is just an Area light set as a cylinder and rescaled to be like a Kinoflo tube used a lot in lighting.
My fav: Last night I made ‘CS_KinoSquare’
It is made for quick artistic lighting for motion graphics. Try making a scene. Create a floor, create a torus and some extruded and fillet’d text. Add CS_KinoSquare from the object library. Throw a semi reflective material on the floor and objects you made.
Render. You’ll see it already has a specific look. The sliders are self explanatory. ‘Intensity’ sets the overall intensity. ‘Rim level’ sets the relative intensity of the rim light to the the rest of the lights. ‘Fill level’ sets the intensity of the 2 side fill tubes. ‘Height’ simply moves the whole rig in the Y so you don’t have to zoom out of your shot or switch cams to mess with moving it up or down. ‘Rotate’ rotates the whole light rig so you can quickly spin it to get the lighting angles you want. ‘Size’ adjusts the distance and scale of the tubes, so in one slider it can go from a small square of tubes to a large square of tubes. This is good obviously for larger scenes, but even for small scenes especially with a floor object, increasing the size takes light of the floor and keeps it more on the objects. ‘KeyBias’ animates the front key light tube left or right relative to the rig so that you can get more modeled lighting.
‘seen in reflections’ and ‘seen in render’ are just handy switches that trigger the same settings on all 4 tubes.
None of KiniSquare is rocket science, but it allows you to light stuff incredibly quickly and very artistically.
enjoy.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Hi Chris,
Wow !! What can I say. Firstly it was great to read the long detailed explanation in your first email which I was just starting to get my head around.
Then I return after the weekend to find that you have actually gone and done it !! It’s very kind of you. Not to mention the other really cool / useful presets. I’m sure i’ll have hours of fun experimenting with them.
Thx alot for sharing these.
Cheers,
Andy -
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