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Pen write on
I am a newbie to C4D, I know how to get/make objects and some basic animation.
I am trying to figure out how to get a pen to write/follow a path on a sheet of paper. I am starting off by animating the write on effect in After Effects, then animate the pen in C4D to match the write on. Is this the best way of doing it? Is there an easier/more elegant way of keeping the pen nib touching the paper other than manual keyframing?
See the attached pic to see the perspective, there will be a single word on the paper after the pen writes it on. Should I draw paths/splines for the pen nib to follow? How would I attach the pen nib to the path?
So many questions..
Thanks!
Matt
Its more fun to ride a slow motorcycle fast than a fast motorcycle slow…
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4 Replies
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It would be easier to do the whole thing in Cinema. Start by drawing a spline that will represent your writing. You’ll sweep another spline along the first to create the writing (use a flattened circle spline or something along those lines). To that end you would create a sweepnurbs object and drag your two splines into it — profile spline first and then the path/writing spline). Now you can animate the sweepnurbs’ growth parameter to simulate the writing.
Set the path spline’s “intermedicate points” parameter to “uniform”.
Now select your pen object enable the axis tool. Place the object’s axis at the pen’s tip, where it’ll touch the paper. Next, give the pen an “align to spline” tag, and drag your path spline into the tag’s “spline path” slot.
To make the pen follow the writing, animate the tag’s Position parameter from 0% to 100%.
You’ll have to make all the keyframes linear so that the pen and ink maintain the same speed. That’s also why you set the spline to use uniform points.
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I actually did this with an animated texture in After Effects, as you mentioned. It worked well. I set up an 8.5 x 11″ comp, I displayed my timeline in frames and took note of the frame where each character started to be written, then matched the timing of the pen (with some refinement afterwards) in Cinema 4D. I rendered about every three frames in Cinema in low rez just to make sure the pen was lining up and timing out correctly. Worked great. I even used a proximal effect on the paper to detect when the pen was close to the paper and indent a bit with a bump map to look like the pen was pressing down on it. Pretty decent for what I was looking for. Hope that helps.
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Okay, here is what I have after a couple hours work. The write on I did in After Effects just because I already knew how to do it there. The suggestion of using a flat sweepnurbs object to do this, but I didn’t have the time to explore. This is the rough, there will be more camera moves, and tweaked movement. Its also about 2x speed it should be.
Thanks for all the help!
Matt
Its more fun to ride a slow motorcycle fast than a fast motorcycle slow…
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Ok folks! Here is the final piece. Off to the approval people now, not too bad for a rookie that doesn’t have any formal (or informal) training in 3D or C4D. I must say though, it was a heckuva lot easier to figure than Maya. Spent many hours trying to get Maya to work, but gave up.
So, thanks to all on the forum for the help, I think I’ll be looking for a class to get some training on C4D so I can do this stuff easier and make it look nicer.
Any constructive criticism is welcome!
Matt
Its more fun to ride a slow motorcycle fast than a fast motorcycle slow…
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