Parenting the Separate Ends of a 3D Object to Two Different Nulls?

[Steve Bentley]

Hey Rikk, I may be missing what you are trying to do but I don’t think you can do that with element and an existing chain model. The model of the chain is just fixed geometry inside element so you can’t treat it like a string where you can pull on the ends at least realistically.

That being said, you could use the mograph like system in Element to place individual clones of 3D links along a spline/path and then animate the spline or tie the ends of the spline to object in your scene.

Or export your nulls where you want the chain to attach to and use Cineware to animate the chain in C4D using any of the rope tricks or mograph or dynamics tricks on the chain structure and then bring that C4D project back into you AE project – AE will render the chain for you in a C4D render engine all within AE.

You might also be able to use Newton to do this if you have it – its a physics based engin for AE but I’m not sure if it works on 3D geometry yet.

[Rikk Wolf]

Thanks for the prompt reply, Steve!

I figured it was a long shot. I’m sure you’re familiar with the lightning effects in After Effects, with their “origin” and “direction” functions. I was hoping to discover something that would allow me to do something similar.

I did consider making each link its own 3D object but I fear my computer may not be up to it. However, would you happen to have a link to a good spline/path tutorial? I’ve never used those functions before.

I’m unfortunately not equipped with any of the software you mention but I’ll look into them and see if there’s perhaps trial versions I can play around in!

Very much appreciate your time and helpfulness, thank you!

[Steve Bentley]

What version of AE and Element are you on? More recent AE’s came with C4d lite (you may not even know you have it).
A chain of links or bunch of single links making a chain should be about the same horsepower needed. Its all geometry and 12 separate links takes the same geometry/memory as one object with 12 links in it. It might even be better as singles because you could turn off self reflections and just have the chain links reflect each other (assuming a shiny chain) wheas one big model would have to self reflect to see the other links. It might also be better because in Element each of those links is just an instance of the first one so even less memory is used.

I also got to thinking that BOA might be able to do this if you have it (if not have a look at aescripts.com)

Whats the chain made of (texture wise)? I got to wondering if there were other ways of doing this. 3D stroke might do it (assuming no rust and simple coloring) as might VC’s free saber plugin (assuming a chain made of light). Particular can now do 3D objects so sprites generated along a moving spline might do the trick and then you assign the link objects to the sprites.

But again you should be able to use the cloner in Element to populate a single link (cloned) along a path and all you have to animate is the path. You could also tweak the clones over time to add a bit of secondary animation. It won’t be as good as a set of real links in a dynamic simulation with collision and gravity turned on in C4D but it might do the trick.

[Rikk Wolf]

Hey Steven, sorry for the radio silence. Had some other projects that needed attention.

I’m in After Effects CC 2017 14.2.0.198.

I’m almost embarrassed to say I had no idea Cinema 4D was now being bundled with After Effects. I do in fact have it and I’m poking around in it now. It sounds like a good option, though I’m completely unfamiliar with the software. I’ve been watching some tutorials in an attempt to familiarize myself with it.

The chain has a very simple “green glass” texture applied to it. Doesn’t seem too system intensive but it does take quite awhile to render each frame.

Would making clones of individual chain links in Element 3D requite me to create different solid layers each with an instance of Element 3D loaded on them, or is there some way to do this cloning all on one instance of Element 3D in After Effects?

I’ll keep trying to learn about splines/paths and looking into the C4D and Element 3D route for now.

As always, thanks so much for your time and willingness to help. Everyone on the project appreciates it. 🙂

[Steve Bentley]

All the links would be inside one instance of Element as an effect on one layer. And really its only going to be one true link with the others clones of that original. So the original is at 0,0,0 say, then clone A is moved down one chain link length along the path (less two chain link thicknesses) and rotated 90 degrees or so (you can build in some randomness so each link is not at a perfect 90 from the one before and the one after). There are settings for having the link “follow” the orientation of a path or motion. This means you may have to import the 3D link with its z axis pointing a certain direction (usually along its length).

Glowing glass is very doable in Element but it may or may not reflect and refract the other objects in your scene if they aren’t inside the same instance of element as well. There are ways around this (environment maps for instance) but its not a single button operation.

As for C4D, by AE2017 it was pretty seamless as I recall by that point. You can either render the elements in C4d and import them to AE or import the c4d project into AE and have the entire project as a layer and use the C4D render engine to render it from inside AE. When you make a change to the C4d Project it updates in AE.

[Rikk Wolf]

Hey Steven,

Thanks for the further info. Sorry my response is so brief but it’s about 3:00am and I’ve gotta call it a night.

Dumb question – when we’re discussing creating/cloning individual chain links in Element 3D, are we doing this in the Element 3D interface or doing it using the effects settings directly in After Effects? Image included to clarify.

I’ll also keep watching tutorials on Cinema 4D. Im not much past figuring out how to import OBJ files and duplicating them on that front, ha ha.

Cheers mate,
Rikk

[Steve Bentley]

There are only a few plug ins that can bring in true 3d objects to ae (element, form, particular, zaxwerks etc) so there are limited ways to interact with objs and with the exception of Particular you are working within the environment of the plug in (to allow true 3D). I was thinking you could use the cloning system in element and do it inside element, but you might be able to do it with particular too. Not quite as much control but for a bullwhip-chain it should work. Emit the particles along the animated path with a zero velocity.
Now that i’m thinking about it, you could use the new masknode-to-null feature to extract points along an animated path (the whip) and then asign or emit objects from those points.
A problem I just thought of is that paths in ae are 2D. So you might have to use them on a 3D plane and then use LocalToGlobal coordinate conversion in expressions to tease out the true position of the “3D” path.
In the end I think this will be soooo much easier in c4D.

[Michael Szalapski]

You can use expressions to make layers in 3d look at each other. You’d want to use a null object in AE that follows the movement of his hands and tie the Element layer to it (one of my favorite Element features) and have that null point towards a null where the saw is located.

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Rikk Wolf]

Hey Steve,

Unfortunately Particular has developed a strange bug on my system, so I’ve been unable to use it for some time now. I’ll see if I can get it fixed but simple uninstall and re-installs aren’t doing it.

If I use Element 3D, can you clarify for me if I should be cloning the chain links in the plugin interface or approaching it directly in the After Effects controls (pic attached to previous post).

Sounds like it would be easier in C4D, I just don’t have any experience with it but I’ll attempt to remedy that.

[Rikk Wolf]

Hey Michael,

Perhaps I’m overlooking something simple but I also assumed the same. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work like that for me.

I do indeed have the chain parented to a null created from motion tracking the actor’s fist. However, there doesn’t seem to be anyway to tie the other end of it to my saw blade null/track point and get acceptable results.

I’ve attempted to pick whip things in Element 3D like “World Position XY”, “Y Rotation” and “Bend” (under Deform) to the saw blade but it bizarrely pushes the chain in all kinds of strange directions. It can even push it completely off screen or wrap it around itself (picture attached).

Sometimes I get something that seems to move properly in 3D space but it’s severely misaligned with the scene.