[Bob Ruhe]

That’s it! Thanks so much. I was going crazy with this one. I very much appreciate your help!

[Bob Ruhe]

Thank you for the fast reply. I did use the rectangle tool – and as you suggested, and I have tried moving the anchor point but I still get some “creep” in the side I want to keep stationary. Playing with the anchor point still results in movement – but I have to think there’s a way to lock it in place. A coworker suggested using a line instead, but I also have to think I can get the result I want somehow with the rectangle tool. Can’t imagine something like this isn’t possible in AE.

[Bob Ruhe]

Thanks for the reply. I was working on this after I posted – What I’m doing is creating an Exploded View in Autodesk Inventor. I export that to a DWG file I can open in Illustrator. So now I have a vector file with, for example, an exploded view of a car engine… every part separated from the other. I want to give these depth using different line weights, but what I have is one file with every path stroked at the same weight.

Here’s what I did. I created a 2nd layer copy of the first, locked the original, then I did an Object>Expand>Path and then I Alt-Clicked Unite in Pathfinder. Then I clicked the Expand button in Pathfinder. This gave me black objects with no stroke. But it also gave me individual borders around each item. Now all I have to do is select the outer paths and move them to a 3rd layer, then delete the 2nd layer and I have my outlines. Of course then I would do some manual line weighting… not sure how many technical illustrators are here. But this is how I figured out how to do this. I wonder though…

Is there a better way? It certainly goes faster than I thought this way, but I’m always ready for faster shortcuts!

[Bob Ruhe]

Thank you so much – the problem I had before was making it editable, moving the modeling axis to the bottom and then animating the object’s scale.. using that method caused the end of the object I wanted to remain stationary to still move slightly (driving me nuts lol). I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t force that one end of the object to remain “locked” in place while stretching the other side. So using the Sweep option allows me to do exactly what I need to do. Thanks again.

[Bob Ruhe]

I thought i’d post a quick help on this since I found it hard as a newbie to C4D to put a light inside an object.

Create the desired object and make it editable. Next, create a standard light and put it inside your object. On the General Tab in the Attributes Manager, change the light to an Area Light. Position/rotate the area light as desired inside the object. Then on the Details Tab in the Attributes Manager, change “Area Shape” to “Object/Spline”. Drag your object from the Objects panel into the Object area in the Attributes Manager. Then check the “Show in Render” option in the Details Tab in the Attributes Manager.

At this point your object will emit light – of course you’ll want to play with the other settings to pretty it up and junk. My question would be – is this the best option? It’s the only one I’ve found so far. I do hope this at least helps someone.