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Controlling Cloned Lights
I’m going insane trying to figure this out! I’m fairly new to C4D and not at all familiar with effectors so any responses will have to be be in total noob language, thanks.
The scene I’m trying to create is of one lightbulb in the centre/top of the screen coming on, then more coming on in a grid stretching away from the camera, in a wave going down, but with some randomness.
So, I’ve set up a clone of a bulb in a 20×20 grid. I’ve also set up a clone of a light in a 20×20 grid and it looks great – illuminating the bulb and casting light onto a ceiling plane.
But I can’t figure out how to animate them coming on.
I know I have to use an effector, but I can’t get my head around how they work. I thought a Plain effector was the best option – ticking the ‘visibility’box in the parameters to make the light clones disappear. But it doesn’t work. I can alter the scale and position, but not the visibility. Any idea why?
Any other options?
I have downloaded a sample file that sort of does what I want using a shader effector, but I can’t work out how that works.
The important thing is to have only one bulb come on at first, then the rest come on in succession. -
6 Replies
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There a whole of ways to do this type of thing. However I have a set up posted here:https://rootvisuals.com/wordpress/?page_id=82 that has an ON/ OFF function that you can play with an see if it works for you. It does not “fade on” its on or off.
/Randy
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If you us a plain effector you can turn off position, rotation and scale on the parameter tab. Click on the Visibility checkbox at the bottom of the parameter tab.
On the effector tab you can adjust the maximum and animate the falloff. I set my Max to 3% and set my falloff to box and animated the falloff scaling. you might need to check the invert checkbox on falloff to get the effect you are looking for.
Let me know if that makes sense. Just starting my coffee intake for the day.
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Tim Shetz
c4dtraining.com -
Thanks for those replies.
Randy’s is a great project – but my brain is too tiny to figure that out!!
I’ll think I’ll go for the plain effector as I (vaguely) understand it – even though I’ve already tried it with no luck. Does the size of the effector – the actual physical dimensions – of the, say, box matter – does it only affect things it overlaps?
If it does, can I animate its scale over time? That way I could switch the first light on then, as it expands, it would sweep out across the rest of the bulbs.
OR – is it the falloff that would do this?Just doing a big AFX render so I’ll try it out once that’s completed.
Thanks, everyone.
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Hey Chris –
The plain effector will effect your clones based on the falloff.
It defaults to infinite. You’ll need to switch it to box or linear and change the size to fit your needs. You can animate its scale to make the lights turn on from the center out, or you can animate its position to have them turn on in rows…
Either way, it is the falloff you’ll need to animate in some way.
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Tim Shetz
c4dtraining.com -
Got it.
Thanks for the help, Tim. I’m still not entirely clear on what I’ve done, but it’s worked, and with the addition of a random effector, the lights switch on, moving away from the camera, but randomly too.
Now to render the damn thing…
Thanks again.
Chris
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