Flying Paper

[Steve Bentley]

Hi Rafi,
That image link is broken. Can you re upload?
Couple of things about paper vs cloth. If you want it to look like real paper keep in mind Paper can only curl in one direction at a time, while cloth can fold in any direction and then fold in another at the same time. So you can stiffen the cloth simulation but it will still behave like a woven material.
One of the ways we have animated flying paper is to make a spline path with loop-de-loops and all sorts of turns and curves. Then attach the paper object spline and have it follow along the spline and be deforemed by the spline. If you animate the time component so that it doesn’t travel at the same speed along the spline it will look very convincing. (you coud also render a constant speed in C4d at a much higher frame rate and then do time warps in AE to get the timing right)

Wind can work but it’s hard to get right ( you will need some turbulence in there too). If you go that route an attractor might work better than gravity.

[Rafi Pakarti]

Hi thx for reply, and sorry, idk how to upload image on this forum actually, ok i’ll upload it via imgur

https://i.imgur.com/GVFhinS.jpg

ok, after i using cloth method, actually i try using spline path, and i also attach the paper using align to spline tag, anyway using this method is almost work, but idk how to make the paper curved/deformed along the path, so do you have any suggestion how to do that? and also if i using the spline method, on the 3rd scene how to make the paper hit the text?

and another question about your statement that if i go to wind method, attractor might work better than gravity. is it really can? using wind force with attractor?

View post on imgur.com

[Steve Bentley]

Answering in reverse:
The forces in c4d are just that forces – c4d doesn’t care which one you use or how many you combine, it just takes directional cues (vectors) and intensity (vectors again) from the forces you add and combines them to get the overall.. you guessed it… vector for the motion.
So a gravity force in the downward direction will combine with a sideways wind force to give you a slanting motion.

Gravity in C4d is an overall direction – so all objects no matter how close to the gravity object will all travel parallel to each other in one direction. Same goes for the wind (excluding turbulence)
Attractor can act like gravity but to a single point. So getting the wind to blow your paper to a specific spot might be hard to aim, while having the paper be attracted to a single point will be more fruitful – notice I didn’t say more accurate. If the object already has motion, that will be added in to the attraction force and, like a spacecraft being attracted to a planet’s point source gravity well, the object may sling shot around the attraction point. But if you just place a static object with a dynamics tag that also has the attractor as a force in its list (or at the very least doesn’t exclude the attractor force) it will move right to the attractor every time. Keep in mind that most of the forces are accelerations so as time goes on the object will move faster and faster towards the attraction point.

Now that I see your storyboard, you might be better putting the paper inside a spline deformer. You would have a straight spline as your base and then a curved one with loops etc for the “to” spline. When you move the paper through the “field” that is the deformer (and yes the deformer and splines would run right from the bulletin board to the text on the wall) it will deform as dictated by the spline, like a worm going through a tube.
There are other ways but they involve xpresso and are more complex. You might also add the other spline deformer in the list to get some of the curls.

I think you would have to hand animate the paper peeling off the wall at the start though. So it would probably be a bend deformer or two (these can add up just like the forces) that make this happen or another smaller spline deformer, and these deformers would travel with the paper and be deformed along with the paper inside the outer spline deformer. These would also let you deform the paper on it’s journey adding to the warp the spline deformer is imparting, making it less “perfect” and more fluid.

You can do this with wind but it’s tough to get right when you have a look you want to achieve and even harder when there is a targe to hit.

Make sure you have plenty of subdivisions in your paper object so it’s supple and you should probably add a cloth tag just to give it a little thickness (this too will add subD’s). If you use a plane to start with, make sure to polygonalize it first.

[Rafi Pakarti]

Hi Steve thx for the long reply ????

After reading your explanation above, now im little bit understand about attractor, the gravity on c4d etc (i don’t understand about dynamic tag,but i will find more information), right now i already make the spline path for the paper animation and also make the animation keyframe, but now im struggling with using the bend deformer, idk how to make it unbend before the spline path animation start, but that’s ok, i think im just lack of experience about c4d, so i will figuring out how to make that work.

and one more thing,i want to using the attractor just for the 3rd scene, u said the “Attractor can act like gravity but to a single point”, so i placed it behind the 3d text so that the paper will react and hit the 3d text, after messing the attractor setting, the paper just fly away to right and not even attracted by attractor, im just change the strength to 1000, the shape is box, and the size is same as the text, maybe i have to play with attractor little bit longer

im not quite sure about “hand animate the paper” at the start, because for me it’s not just really time consuming but also i just want the paper fly with little bit realistic, not the perfect flying paper and more fluid, and also i catching up a deadline ????

anyway if you have any advice again for me (especially with bend deformer and attractor) i would be love to hear it, thank you

[Steve Bentley]

This is a pretty complex animation to “start” with so keep that in mind that there isn’t going to be a “button” that solves this – animating things is a lengthy process.

Here are a few things that might help:
To have something move with dynamic forces you need to have a dynamics tag on the object. The paper will never be attracted to the attractor without a dynamics tag. Also remember that positional hand animation can fight with the dynamics forces. Its not a no-no but it can complicate things.
If you add a turbulence force you can get and attractor to look like wind. Think of turbulence as eddies in the attraction force.
Whatever the object is the paper runs into at the end has to have a dynamics tag too but with the setting set to static or off (it still has to be enabled though) – you have to have an object that can stop the paper moving.

Its good you can break this into three scenes because that way you can use the best technique for each scene.

Your set up for the spline and bend deformers should be like this: A null parent then your deformers and your paper as children of the null. I keep my deformers right under the null (i’m not sure if this is required, I just do it out of habit), with the paper at the bottom of all the children.
If you have a texture on the paper you will have to use a Stick texture tag and hit record when the paper is flat and the texture looks right, otherwise it will smear when the deformers start working.

The paper you animate as though in a straight line along the straight base spline. When you turn on the spline deformer, the paper will follow and bend along the target spline which has all the curves and loops.
I’ve never been a fan of the bend deformer – its just clunky. But you have to orient it the right way, you should size it to the object, and you should turn on keep y length otherwise the paper will stretch when curved.
Remember that you can set a deformer to a bend shape but have the object outside the bend and then pass the object through the deformer space, (straight-bent-straight again) or you can push the deformer, already bent, across the paper while it’s moving and the paper will act like a worm moving through a tube shaped like the deformers shape.
You can move the paper independently of the deformer and move the null so that the paper and deformers move together.

Keep in mind using the spline deformer AND the dynamics probably will be too difficult to get right – two systems kind of fighting. You could easily and I recommend using bend or twist deformers WITH the dynamics though. The dynamics tag would have to be on the parent null so that the object and the deformers travel together.

If you want to upload your project I can have a look at your progress.

[Rafi Pakarti]

After all day long for this project to just make it right, finally it almost done, just the last scene that i can’t solved it

ok, in the 1st and 2nd scene,i used spline deformer and bend deformer and it looks great (i now realised it’s not taking too much time for this), and it almost finish (but it still need to be more polished again), in the last scene, the attractor still not react to the paper, i have set the dynamic tag for the paper and also for the logo i have set the collider body too, and you right about using spline deformer and dynamic will be too difficult (my bad that im still using that right now), maybe you can look on my project about what is wrong on my project, maybe im use wrong setup

thanks for helping me out for this, i forgot that how complex it is so im too much concentrated on word “deadline”

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_1oNhLHmN4ueGZjQmM2YWdnMTg/view?usp=sharing

(im still new about c4d workflow, so if you see my project really messed, im reallly sorry :D)

[Steve Bentley]

So a couple of things that will help,
First, the attraction amount is way too high – you probably set it that high because it wasn’t working. Understandable.

In the paper’s dynamics tag there is a forces tab and in there is an area to include or exclude the forces you want to affect this specific tag. You have it set to “include” but nothing is included. You can either change it to exclude and not include anything (so exclude nothing = include everything) or you can drag and drop the attraction force from the object manager into this area and keep it on include. That’s usually the best because then if you add more forces later for something else you aren’t scratching your head as to why your paper is now doing something else.

You probably weren’t aware that there is always another force lurking in C4d – gravity. You can have a separate gravity force but to turn off the project gravity, go to the project settings (not prefs) under edit and go to the dynamics tab and set gravity to 0.

That’s why when the paper gets over by the letters it gives up and falls. That’s the projects gravity at work.

I would split this into 2 or three files. Or have multiple paper objects within the project – one for each section so you aren’t fighting previous deformers when using the dynamics. So the last scene would have it’s own paper object with no deformers on it (or deformers that will help with the letters wrap). You could also make the paper here cloth so it gets plastered on to the letters better than a flat sheet could be.

[Rafi Pakarti]

Thx Steve for your reply, sorry for the late post

Right now im not worry anymore about the flying paper, i just have to make the animation more smooth, and after focused on c4d in a few days, i checked on AE to see the paper what it looks like, im using sketch and toon to make the paper stroke and the problem is, in random frame especially when the paper bending or curving, the stroke is break and when the paper not bending, the stroke are connect with each other again, i’ve been searching on the web and all forums about this problem, the S&K plugin are little bit buggy when you trying to animate the object, do you have any suggestion about this new problem?

here is the screenshot from after effect

https://imgur.com/a/izccH

View post on imgur.com

[Rafi Pakarti]

the S&K i mean S&T (Sketch and toon)

[Steve Bentley]

Ya S&T can be a little tricky, especially on animated things. Could you use the Cell Shader instead? (render menu extra effects) Is much more stable and can be colorized in AE.

But with S&T try baking your deformations and dynamics (last tab in the dynamics tag). Once C4d can look down the timeline to whats coming it has a better time predicting what’s going to be needed for the next set of strokes.

I couldn’t see those images you uploaded. Can you let us know the settings you are using in S&T?