[Adam Trachtenberg]

The only way with the built-in dirt shader is to increase the number of rays–which also increases render times.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Great work Tim!

One small note: the word “like” is missing on your “Estimate a Project” page, i.e., “If you would for us to provide”.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Yes, it’s a problem and I think you already found the two less-than-satisfactory solutions.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

[Doug Bassett] “However, there is a bug. It won’t retain that pref setting for the next time you open c4d. “
It does for me.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

I don’t think you can import an .aec file directly.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Here’s a post I clipped with some good info. on controling flicker. Unfortunately I didn’t clip the author’s name, but I think it was Tim Clapham:

“if you need strokes, and have flicker issues, you best bet is careful tweaking and lots of tests. the options to best tweak are:

1)Join limit
2)START + Angle
3)filter
4) END + length and angle

These all control how the Strokes are created from the lines detected in terms of angles and such. It’s a sort of guessing and test game figuring out the ideal angle for the optimal results. While a test on a still may show no difference between a single degree angle, it could make a huge difference in an animation between a line joining another line or not.

Also, be really careful of the combine function in the lines tab of the render settings and sketch tags. This setting combines lines of different detection methods with the same shader. While this I once thought was always a good thing, I’ve since discovered a lot of popping is cause by a line from the outline meeting a line from the folds making a single stroke when at just the right angles when using combine that of course wouldn’t if not combined. this can cause popping as well.

If your using distort, be really careful to test whether closing strokes will work or not, neither closing or opening is perfect so its really dependent on which is less worse in terms of popping. This isn’t a huge contributor to flickers and pops, but it can be on occasion.

A good piece of advice is to also try to avoid strokes that don’t match on both ends. like a stroke that is thick on one end and thing on the other. The less contrast before the start and end of a stroke, the less distinct two unconnected strokes will show.”

[Adam Trachtenberg]

If it opens like a tennis ball can it seems like a simple bend deformer should do the job.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

First off, while Maya and LW may be popular (conventional), it’s a mistake to assume that they’re more powerful than Cinema. Well, Maya is a very deep program for sure, but it’s mainly geared toward studios. LW certainly has nothing on Cinema in terms of raw power, and IMO Cinema has the edge in that regard.

I think Cinema’s base package would be an excellent choice for your needs, and provides a very good upgrade path should you get hooked on 3D (warning–there’s a good chance you’ll get hooked on 3d :)). trueSpace is a cheaper alternative, but I wouldn’t recommend it: very funky interface and very crashy.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Object Manager>File>Cinema>”Look at camera” tag.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Yes, that’s going to require some hefty expressions or else the use of a plugin. It can be done fairly easily with Paul Everett’s Spline Projector plugin; I think it comes with an example of this. https://www.tools4d.com