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Reverse Hinge Connector
I have had a hard time finding much useful info about connectors and how they work (not to say I haven’t found tutorials that USE them, just not any that EXPLAIN them). So I have been stuck figuring them out myself using common sense.
Anywho, I am trying to make a sign of sorts and want to use a hinge connector to move the text. I’ve mostly gotten how it works figured out, but I can only seem to get it to work from top to bottom, but not bottom to top. Essentially I want the text to move from below this cube and end up above it. Here’s a sample file, with the settings maybe a little looser than need be, but the point is still there. Also, this is my first try uploading a file, so if it’s wrong, please tell me
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5 Replies
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the connectors are part of the Dynamics system (which is why you need the Rigid and Collider body tags on the sign and cube) so it’s the scene-wide dynamics gravity is what drags it down. You have a number of choices
— change the gravity in Project/Dynamics – the default is Gravity 1000cm if you change it to -1000cm the sign will swing up. That’s system-wide though so if you have other dynamics in the scene they won’t work right (everything will fall up)
— flip the camera over (but that has the same system-wide problems and it’s a pain to animate anything)
— don’t use dynamics and connectors – you could make the sign a child of a null (same spatial relation as the sign and the connector now) then rotate the null and the sign will rotate around it, keyframe that.
— start the sign on the bottom and use a force (like the Simulate/Particles/Wind) to blow the sign upward -
Wow thanks man! I think some of that occurred to me, but connectors are a new concept and I like learning new things so I might have become a bit narrow minded.
The project I am working on has 2 similar signs. one swings up from the bottom, and the other swings down from the top. I liked the rocking back and forth that you get with the connectors and I guess I was kind of hoping to get that from the bottom sign.
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[Nick Bruzek] “The project I am working on has 2 similar signs. one swings up from the bottom, and the other swings down from the top. I liked the rocking back and forth that you get with the connectors and I guess I was kind of hoping to get that from the bottom sign.”
You’ve probably already figured this out, but if not: Use Brian’s third solution for the top sign, while using dynamics and connectors for the bottom one. Or make a separate project for each sign using dynamics, altering gravity as necessary for the particular sign, and then composite in AE.
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I like the suggestion of doing both separately and comping them in AE, though I fir whatever reason have never had much luck combining C4D and AE, and I know it’s supposedly easy and they are essentially made for eachother, but I’ve never managed to make it work
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The easiest way would be to render out two movies (or image sequences), one with the background and the first sign, and the second with only the other sign and no background, and with an alpha channel. In AE you would just place the second movie over the first to composite the two.
Otherwise, there are lots of tutorials for C4D to AE workflows, so look around and hopefully you’ll find something that fits your needs.
Good luck.
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