[Adam Trachtenberg]

First, what you *can’t* do: transfer actual 3D geometry.

What you can do:

* transfer Cinema’s camera;
* transfer 3D data (position/scale/rotation) for objects with External Compositing tags;
* transfer lights; and
* transfer multipass files, which will be stacked and assigned the correct transfer modes automatically.

I’d highly recommend that you view a four-part video tutorial at Cineversity.com which gives a very good introduction to the possibilities and workflow. These are free, but I think you still have to register at the site to access them.

https://www.cineversity.com/tutorials/lesson.asp?tid=1183

https://www.cineversity.com/tutorials/lesson.asp?tid=1184

https://www.cineversity.com/tutorials/lesson.asp?tid=1185

https://www.cineversity.com/tutorials/lesson.asp?tid=1186

[Adam Trachtenberg]

That’s going to be a tough gig in Cinema, depending on how realistic you need to make it.

You have the Explosion FX deformer, but that doesn’t do IMplosion and it lacks collision detection.

It’s probably beyond the reach of the Dynamics module (too many objects).

Thinking Particles’ PBlurp might be an option, but probably too memory intensive.

There’s a physics plugin called Silver Bullet that’s pretty good, but you’d have to split your objects manually….

You should probably be looking at something like Blast Code but it only works with Maya.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Easiest way is probably to leave the camera fixed and animate the logo by moving it along a spline by keyframing the align-to-spline tag’s offset parameter.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

The rail spline should prevent this. How are you generating the rail?

[Adam Trachtenberg]

I don’t think there’s any way to convert it without MAX. Suggest you’d have a better chance at success posting this at the MAX forum.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

The “Axis” setting in the Lines/Words/Letters tabs gives you some control of the rotation point, but unfortunately only in the plane of the front faces.

AFAIK you would have to make the text object editable and put the individual parts you want to manipulate into nulls to change the rotation point relative to depth.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

You can simply animate the rotation of the object inside the array, but scaling the array will cause the objects inside to distort.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Not really sure what you’re going for from the description. If you want to have the atom array geometry plus the origninal geometry, just copy the original sphere.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Ah, tricky! Unfortunately Cinema supports near clipping but not far clipping, so that’s not going to help. I can think to two solutions:

1) Two-render solution: place a large plane with a “look at camera” tag and a flat black (no specular) material on it so that it blocks the rear objects and render with the object buffer; or

2) One-render solution: give each individual object a compositing tag set to use the same buffer. Then create an Xpresso expression that disables the object buffer based upon distance to the camera.

Which you choose would probably depend on how long the animation takes to render, i.e., if it’s relatively quick, pick No. 1; if it’s a mult-hour affair, go with No. 2.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Group the front panels under a null and add a compositing tag to the null. In the tag’s properties you’ll see an object buffer tab. Enable an object buffer and note the number assigned.

Then, in render>multipass settings, add an object buffer pass and set the same number as you noted above. Set a save location for the multipass file(s).

What this does is create an alpha for the front panels only. You can use that as a luma matte in your compositor of choice to place the front panels in front of something else.