[Adam Trachtenberg]

You need to set the random effector so the objects change rotation over time. One thing you could do is go to the effector tab and change the mode from random to noise. Then adjust the scale and animation speed (and rotation parameters in the parameters tab). Or you could animate the rotation settings in the parameters tab.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

If you go to the dynamics tag’s Force tab and increase the “follow rotation” setting, you’ll be able to influence the rotation of the dynamic objects with effectors. There’s no way to keyframe dynamic objects unless they’re just collider objects.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

I think the easiest way to do this would be to break up the cubes into individual polygons and assign each polygon it’s own external compositing tag.

Here’s how you’d do it for one cube:

1. Make editable if necessary and select all polygons;
2. Go to Mesh>Commands>Disconnect and click the gear icon to the right. Uncheck “preserve groups” and click OK;
3. Run Mesh>Conversion>Polygon Groups to Objects.

Now you’ve got separate objects for each face, but you still need to situation the axes accordingly so the solids will line up in AE.

4. Select all of the sides objects and run Mesh>Axis Center>Axis Center;
5. In the Alignment section of the dialogue check the alignment box, set the axis to Z, and set Alignment to “Normals”

Now you just have to add the external compositing tags and save out the 3D data.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

I’m not sure if it would be up to this task, but the Depth Break function of NitroBlast 2 might be a possibility. It’s described at about the 22 minute mark of the first video here: https://nitro4d.com/product/nitroblast/

[Adam Trachtenberg]

That’s pretty nifty, I hadn’t seen it before.

The Takes system is pretty powerful if you take the time to figure it out.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

You can do this either with the layer manager or the takes manager.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

I don’t know of a way to set a time limit per object, but you could do it for all by keyframing dynamics off.

I think I mislead you earlier. Since the objects are rolling you need to increase the angular velocity threshold (not linear velocity) to make them stop when they slow down. Try cranking it to 145 – 180 degrees.

So basically, from an artistic (as opposed to realistic) viewpoint, I think you have to play with Dynamics>angular velocity threhold, Mass>Rotational Mass, and Force>Angular Damping to achieve the look you want. The distance objects will roll is influenced by all three parameters. Aerodynamics>Drag also has some effect.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

It looks smooth here. Are you sure the Picture Viewer is set to 100% magnification? It will look aliased if you zoom out.

Otherwise you may be just seeing a limitation in your monitor resolution, because the rings are very thin. Maybe at a very slight blur in post.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

The velocity threshold basically sets the floor for how fast an object can be moving to still be calculated by the dynamics engine. The setting really depends on the scale of your project.

As far scale goes generally, you probably don’t want to work at too small a size, but you can (and should) adjust the dynamics scale setting in Edit>Project Settings>Dynamics. The default value is 100 cm (or units). If, for example, your dynamic objects are only 10 cm across you would reduce that value to 10.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

You can do this with a very basic Xpresso setup: 11161_pointnode.c4d.zip