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Xpresso for blinking lights
Hello, I need some help with expresso. I want to animate some blinking lights using expresso. I have a scene with 3 spheres, each one working as a source of light, using area lights linked to each sphere. Following the C4d Help and tutorials on how the MonoFlop node works, I have managed to create an expresso setting for animating the lights to turn on and off at a desired time interval. I have this expresso set and it works for what I want.
As you can see I have linked the 3 lights to the output of the MonoFlop Node and of course all the lights will turn on at the same time. With this setup the lights will turn on for 9 frames every 48 frames.
This is ok but now I need to offset the start of the expresso animation for each light, How can I achieve this? I want each light to blink at the same time interval but not starting at he same time, I need to offset the animation for each light so they don’t turn on at the same time. IS there a way to achieve this within the expresso? I know maybe I need to do an xpresso tag for each light but I was wondering how to offset the start of the expresso setup. I hope I have explained myself and forgive my english. Very new with expresso. This is going to be applied to some lights of an aircraft model for animation.
Manuel F. Rugeles
Editing and Motion Graphics
https://www.vimeo.com/manrug -
7 Replies
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Taking a quick guess at it here I would say you just need to create a switch to tell you light blink when to begin. So one light would start taking the frame input to start blinking at frame 2 the next of frame 6 and so on.
I’m working on this right now for robertleger.net Xpresso Tasks(another great place to learn Xpresso) where I’m simply automating the strength values of effectors to the run over time without needing key frames. I simply offset the start value until the it hits the frame set in the user data. Then the frame value is let though and increments the value.
I would have to play around with your setup to be sure for your case though.
Hope this helps.
Greg
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The use of an iteration will give the option to offset because it will cycle through the object list or what ever node you choose. Then you can have a math node that controls the delay.
There is a series of tutorials on the iteration nodes at the c4d cafe./Randy
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Yes, the idea of a switch to tell the light blink when to begin for each light is what I want, but I don’t know how to achieve this, what node to use to offset the start value of the animation for each light. I’m not sure if i understood correctly what you are working on for robertleger.net Xpresso tasks but it seems pretty much the same principle for what I want. I basically want to automate the blinking but with an offset time to start the xpresso animation for each light. Thanks a lot for the answer and trying to help.
Manuel F. Rugeles
Editing and Motion Graphics
https://www.vimeo.com/manrug -
Thanks for the help, I will learn more about this iteration nodes.
Manuel F. Rugeles
Editing and Motion Graphics
https://www.vimeo.com/manrug -
Just curious if you NEED to use xpresso to make the lights blink? Not sure what the ultimate use is, but could you use the track after function in the animation window to cause the lights to blink? It’s sort of like the loopOut expression in After Effects. It’s nice because you only have to create a couple of key frames and then tell it to repeat it.
Just curious. I love xpresso, but if there is an easier way, I’m all for it.
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Tim Shetz
c4dtraining.com -
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Thanks for the help Tim, I didn’t know about that Track after function in Cinema 4d but if it works like the loopOut expression in AE it should work for my blinking lights. I’ll check it out. I just wanted to automate the blinking without keyframes because it has to be done to a lot of lights. I thought the xpresso approach was the only way to do it in C4d, but I think the “loopOut” method will be much easier for me. Thanks.
Manuel F. Rugeles
Editing and Motion Graphics
https://www.vimeo.com/manrug
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