• Maxon Cinema 4D

  Questions about Animating a DNA Model

  Posted by Maggie Nielsen on February 13, 2015 at 11:27 pm

  Apologies in advance for what is probably a ridiculous and long-winded question, I’m unfortunately very new to C4D in general. But hopefully you guys can help!

  I’ve linked a screenshot with the hierarchy of my DNA strand (you may notice, it’s derived entirely from those UToronto tutorials floating around). My rungs are made with a Cloner and the ladder sides, with a Helix and Rectangle Sweep. Pretty straightforward.

  Ultimately I would like to be able to “unwind” (hypothetically speaking, reduce the end angle of) just a section of this model. The rest of the strand remains wound in the configuration that you see. The affected area should then travel down the strand; in essence, “rewinding” the parts of the strand behind it that are no longer affected.

  Is this even possible? I thought that maybe the plain effector could generate this kind of “area” effect (maybe two? one to open and one to close?), but I’m not even sure where to begin with this.

  Then, to further complicate things: right now the “rungs” of the DNA are created by cloning a single cylinder object. Technically, each rung should be comprised of two half-rungs; when the strand unwinds, the half-rungs separate.

  Is there any way to make this work with what I have? I know there are already a lot of DNA tutorials out there, but the strand has to be consistent with some key features (double helices have a major groove and minor groove; the rungs aren’t located directly in the center axis.)

  Any advice you have would be appreciated so much — even if it’s “that’s impossible”! Thanks so much for reading all this.

  Maggie Nielsen replied 11 years, 7 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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