Mograph object reduction

[Nico Jones]

Hello again…

I have a load of cubes in a 5×5 grid array in a cloner object. I need to be able to reduce them down cleanly to a line of 4 cubes, or even one cube would do.

Obviously if I animate down the number of cubes within the Cloner, they just disappear in an ugly way, and if I take down the size parameters within the cloner to reduce the columns I get ugly overlapping. Any ideas on how to make this happen smoothly and without visual glitching?

I know it’ll be something obvious, but darnit I’m a newb.

Thanks,

Nico

[Adam Trachtenberg]

How would you like it to happen? Fading out? Scaling down? Flying off?

[Nico Jones]

Hi Adam,

I think scaling down would be my best bet…but somehow combined with an overall ‘shrinking’ effect.

I’m trying to give the impression that 25 multicoloured squares are compressing down into 4. I can fudge it by bringing in a separate cloner object near the end of the transition…but if there was a way to turn 25 cubes into 4 seamlessly, that’s what I’d prefer.

Thanks

Nico J BB

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Something like this? https://www.3danvil.com/tutorials/grid_to_grid.c4d

[Nico Jones]

That is very cool, and I’ll definitely use that technique somewhere!

But it isn’t quite what I’m after. Here’s my fudged attempt. Copy and paste…

https://www.webfilemanager.co.uk/dsf.php?fileid=jCjiNHyM

Basically, I’d like the cubes that end up as the graph to come out of the grid of original cubes. Is that do-able? Or do I just have to be more creative with my crossover? 🙂

Nico J BB

[Adam Trachtenberg]

I see what you’re saying. Here’s one way to do it, although it’s probably a bit confusing: https://www.3danvil.com/tutorials/grid_to_graph.c4d

What it’s doing, basically, is using a step effector to scale a 2D grid into the graph, and then using an inheritance effector to morph the 3D grid onto the 2D grid. I had to use an extra step effector to adjust the final position.

Probably the best way to do it would be to create a polygon object composed of points, with one point for each clone position in the bar graph formation. Then create a matrix object that’s cloned onto the point object and use an inheritance effector to move the 3D grid onto the Matrix object.

Many ways to skin a cat….

[Nico Jones]

Thanks for the help Adam, that’s all a bit beyond me at the moment – I’ll fudge for now then get stuck in properly when I have the time.

Cheers,

nico

Nico J BB