CR4 & MoGraph Help (Building blocks falling into a shape)

[Tim Shetz]

You could use a spline mask (using a spline of the United States) with a grid cloner, then use an effector to cause them to fly away…then just animate the falloff to cause them to fly in instead of away.

Just a thought.

[James Nannen]

Thank you so much. That method was a thousand times easier than what I tried and still failed. I just approached the project completely the wrong way. I now have the map exactly how I want it. All I have to do is figure out how I want it animated.

I do not know what you mean exactly by
“then just animate the falloff to cause them to fly in instead of away.”

Just use an effecter to have them fly away but reverse it?

[Tim Shetz]

I’ve set up a little file so you can see how to use the effectors. Check it out and then read the rest of this:

https://www.c4dtraining.com/Tutorials/boxesDrop.c4d

I’ve applied 3 effectors to the cloner. First in the list is the random effector. It’s not set to transform any property, but the weight transform is set to about 50%. Next in line is the shader effector, effecting just one direction for position. It’s falloff is set to linear and then rotated so it is facing up. Animating the falloff will cause the cubes to fly away, or return…then I added a delay effector to add a little bounce at the end…otherwise it’s a little to linear….

Let me know if that helps…

Tim

[James Nannen]

Thank you for spending the time of creating that example for me.

The effect I am trying to go for is illustrated here
https://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m310/JamesNannen/blocks.png

It is like Tetris but with only single cubes that come from above, below, left and right. The cubes “fall” towards the center, “falling” 360 degrees until its complete. Blocks never intersect. Preferably, the blocks only move on a single axis and not both.

Changing the size of the cloner object’s grid array from large to small, is a good example of how I want the cubes to come together. But wanting the cubes to come in randomly, from 4 directions, not intersect, and for a each cube to only move on a single axis does not seem possible.

I believe I am asking to much and that it is not possible. At the very least I need this effect that I described or the one you showed above to still be random “falling” blocks but have a feeling of the center starting first and then it radiating out.

The least important effect is the cubes moving on a single axis. So if everything else is possible, it is fine that the cubes move on two axes at the same time.

[James Nannen]

I have been experimenting with different ways to achieve the effect I want.

I uploaded a test here (sorry for the bad file hosting)
https://www.mediafire.com/file/fyfnrjyigzh/CubeTest01.c4d

This is almost what I am looking for. I have the random effector fill up the shape by animating the Sample Distance in the Falloff tab. The biggest problem is I want the shape to be filled from the center and radiate out. This will remove other problems such as the cubes intersecting through one another. I can tell that the effecter is filling up the shape based on the perimeter first and that is not what I want.

[Tim Shetz]

Cool…so I took off the INVERT checkbox, and when you reverse the keyframes, I think it does what you want??

[James Nannen]

I inverted it and flipped the keyframes. It is very close now, but the major problems are that cubes intersect each other, by starting on one side and sliding through the finished object before it gets to its final potion. And it is very easy to see that it builds up line by line instead of it being more random and organic.

[Tim Shetz]

if you don’t want them to intersect, you would probably have to use dynamics for collision detection. If you have 11.5 MoGraph2 is awesome…otherwise it’s a little more difficult.

[James Nannen]

Sadly, I do not currently have the latest and greatest from Cinema 4D. I am working in version 10.

I believe I was asking for too much to be automated. In the file I linked, I manually did more things to get the desired effect.

I uploaded a test here (sorry for the bad file hosting again)
https://www.mediafire.com/file/rycmqoozloz/4WayCubeTest01.c4d

By using 4 different grid clones, I was able to create cubes “fall” from 4 different directions, randomly, and each cube moving only on a single axis. Some cubes do intersect but it does not look as bad in it’s current state.

Now the current and major problem is, I can no longer have it turn into a shape instead of a square. The original idea of using a spline mask to create a shape will not work. At first it was perfect and easy to do. The problem is that everything outside of the mask is not visible so the animation of the cubes falling into the shape is lost. Especially when it comes to the edges of the shape, the cubes would just pop in.

So I do not know what to do now. I need it to end with the cubes filling up a shape but still be able to show the cubes animation beyond the edges of the shape.

[Tim Shetz]

Good idea using the multiple cloners…

Hmmm, I don’t have Cinema open right now, but what if you set the cloner mode to object and used the spline you were using as a mask in the object field?