• Maxon Cinema 4D

  Transparent “broken” objects / attract and destroy

  Posted by Brian Murphy on February 25, 2015 at 3:45 pm

  Hey all,

  I’ve finally come to a couple challenges that would only bring me to keyframe and apply a lot of post work to get them done…unless someone else has some ideas…maybe this requires some Xpresso?

  I have a medical scene that involves removing pieces broken from a transparent object. The pieces are broken off and sucked away from forming it’s original shape up to a tool that, when contacting the tool, breaks the piece apart. This “breaking” can be simulated by a simple visible shrinking of the piece down to nothing.

  As you know, taking a mesh and breaking it into pieces but still maintaining it’s master shape and giving it a transparent material would show the cracks of where the pieces are when you render it so I was able to conquer this by using Nitroblast which has a transparent feature after it breaks the pieces…it hides the cracks. Brilliant! HOWEVER, when the tool sucks the pieces up (using dynamics, an attractor and collisions) and each piece contacts the tool, I have no control over how to shrink the piece – I lose it with Nitroblast. This has to be done procedurally, meaning I’m not looking to have keyframes set, it will be based on the collision between the piece and the tool and I want to move the tool where ever and have this reaction happen.

  So if I do not use Nitroblast, to regain control of my pieces and keyframe this simulation, how do I hide the cracks without doing a bunch of post work?

  Thanks all.
  Brian

  Brian Jones replied 11 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Brian Jones

  February 25, 2015 at 5:35 pm

  can you use a plain effector as a child of the tool with a linear falloff (or some shape – depends on where the tool is in relation to the pieces before they are supposed to get small) set so they shrink when they reach the appropriate place?
• 

  Brian Murphy

  February 25, 2015 at 6:37 pm

  Thanks Brian.

  These Nitroblast objects are not MoGraph objects so effectors won’t work on them, is that correct? I’ve set up a test based on your post, can’t get the effector to do anything.
• 

  Brian Jones

  February 25, 2015 at 7:19 pm

  I don’t have NitroBlast, I have Thrausi but he has the same transparency fix there too… in Thrausi he uses a Fracture object to contain all the chunks and you can use a Plain effector on that *but* by default it’s turned off so it has to be turned on for the effector to function.
• 

  Brian Murphy

  February 26, 2015 at 10:13 pm

  Hi Brian,

  Is there something that won’t allow C4D to use both effectors and dynamics at the same time? I have a winning combination set up but the dynamics of the pieces take priority over the effectors which end up not working.

  Thanks.
• 

  Brian Jones

  February 27, 2015 at 4:31 am

  dynamics doesn’t move the origin of the objects it’s moving (select all the pieces in the OM and play the timeline – all the origins stay still) so if you apply an Effector there (in the original spot) they will work but that’s probably not going to be the effect you want. I don’t know if there’s an alternate method… deformers will affect a dynamics moved object but I don’t know if your setup could use that.

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