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Is it possible to Mask a geometry model in C4D?
Is there a way to mask a model element in Cinema 4D as you would to a picture element in AfterEffects? So that portions of a model can be revield over time? any info will be greatfully appreciated. thanks
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7 Replies
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Yes. Make some greyscale animated mattes in AE and save them out. Load them into C4D into the alpha channel of a material. Go to the movie whithin the material editor under the animate tab, hit calculate so it knows how many frames the movie clip is. If your AE movie has an alpha channel then click on ‘use alpha channel’ if you are using the RGB to be a matte then turn off the check box. Then you’ll see the reveal when you render.
Today I made a library for myself of greyscale reveal movies in AE to use on text and other objects in C4D.
For example, go into AE, create a white solid. Then go under Effects>Transition>venetian blinds. And add 2 instances to your solid. Then animate the transition amount over 20 frames or so on both instances. However change the venetian blind settings so that the size is different than each other over time. So that it looks a lot more stylized than just vertical stripes. Then for fun, map this to the alpha channel of a Torus in C4D. It does really cool and complicated reveals.
One thing I’ve been doing lately (which I copied) is to make a stroke reveal matte of some text in AE, then put that in the alpha channel of actual geometry in the same form as the text. So the text looks like it’s being “Writed On” but it’s an actual 3D object.
Other note is to also blur your transition mattes if you want softer grad effects when it reveals.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Is there a way to mask it directly in C4D w/out going through AE? for example, is it possible to make a invisible cube to cover the model and somehow animate this invisible cube away from the 3D model to reveal the 3D model? I’m still working on the 3D city, the explosion doesn’t look right, and the AD wants it to look like its build up from the ground like stacking Jenga, so if i can somehow mask the building directly in C4D, i can fake the stacking with small rectangular geometry. thank you for all the help.
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If it’s a simple building, you can create a simple shape that is like a building. Then use Xpresso and TP to assign jenga blocks to the points of the simple building. Then feed the point node index input with frame count. So that over time it assigns new particles to each point. Then just slap a Pshape node in there to instance the Jenga blocks.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Here, I made an object for you to try:
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com/GrowObjects.c4d.zip
Load it and hit play. You’ll see I made a sample building that grows with cubes over time.
In the attributes manager, you can delete both cube object to do your own thing.
If you click once on my GrowObjects object you’ll see 4 parameters:
Surface object: Make a very simple polygon building with the points placed where you’ll want “Bricks” to be. Hit the ‘c’ key to make it editable so it actually has points. Drag that object to this parameter.
Instaned object: Create your actual Jenga or lego block and drag it here.
Instance size: Brick size
Rate: How fast the building builds.
Unfortunately I don’t know how to force what order it builds in. I’m sure pros know how to change the order of the point index, but I’m a C4D newb and have yet to learn it.
Have fun.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
wow, thank you so much for making this file chris. you have been a tremendous help… i opened the file and it looks very cool, though i tried to sub the main rectangle cube shape to my building in the grow object attribute… and when the cube1 builds up, it only surrounds the top and bottom portion of the building model. I tried to expand the group but it seems like the hi-rise building model structure is already one single polygone with many segment points. Not sure why it only tries to stack the cube1s on the top and bottom portion. although it tries to build, the appearance of the original building stays the same. Not divided in any way.
I wish there’s some way to have the building blocks treating the hi-rise building model as a image puzzle. and stack up as the model appears. =T. I will play around more with the file you created. Knowing all of this (including other posts) you’re definitly not a newbie. if u find out how to make the building blocks appear at random order or even manually set the order of how it builds up. please let me know. thanks again for all ur help.
forever greatful
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Glad to help. Did you load it and just play it first? It should have built the entire building without you haveing to do anything. Then you could modify it from there.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Re-reading your last post, did you hit the ‘c’ key at any point to make your primitive editable? If it’s still a procedural primitive and not true geometry, the Xpresso tree won’t know what to do with it.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com
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