[Govinda__]

You can have two stage objects, but only the top one is going to be in effect. So if you swap them you’ll get different sets of cameras.

Or you can create your animations at vastly different points on the timeline.

Or you can do what most people end up doing, and creating different scenes and keeping careful control over the assets that go into each scene. That means keeping things in self-contained, carefully named nulls, such as ‘Cams, ‘Trees,’ ‘Bushes’–and I say carefully because sometimes you have to number the nulls and note down which is the most current set of each section of your scene. Also it sometimes is a good idea to keep your lighting self-contained inside those sets using light restrictions. The idea is that you can swap in fixed geometry to multiple camera takes without accidentally rendering with the wrong geometry or the wrong cameras.

This is all a dumbed-down version of the asset management systems that VFX shops spend so much time getting right so as not to make a huge versioning error in a setting where a lot of artists are sharing the same assets.

But we don’t have xrefs like they do, which may is a mixed blessing.

[Govinda__]

Actually when it last happened to me, the file originated as a couple of jpegs (one file rgb and one alpha) that I made into a premultiplied psd. The worst of it was a line at the top of my imageplane that I couldn’t get rid of.

[Govinda__]

If you say so… Last thoughts for troubleshooting. Change your sampling to SAT. Put a compositing tag on the object with forced antialiasing of 1×1 and 4×4 at least. Reread the c4d manual section on the antialiasing types (circle, sync, etc.) and why they’re there and in which situation you use them. Most importantly in photoshop copy the layer to a fresh document and resave that with straight alpha. Try it as a Tiff.

I’m sympathetic because I’ve had this problem. Okay, it was once in probably a thousand cinema 4d project files, but I’ve had it. I didn’t have to go to extremes to solve it because choking worked. And no, I don’t agree that the premultiplied photoshop format is rock-solid across all apps. I’d change my mind if I heard of well-sourced arguments otherwise, but until then, if one image format that’s screwed me in the past risks screwing my 12-hour 2,000 frame render and costing me a missed deadline, you know, for my part I’m not inclined to use it. Same goes for jpeg–I haven’t used that format in textures since multiple texture errors in 2004.

[Govinda__]

This is more about Photoshop than Cinema.

I don’t trust the psd format. By default, photoshop format is premultiplied, i.e., the alpha is in each of R, G and B and you have multiple alphas for special purposes such as layer masks. You can see that it’s premultiplied by looking at your channels–they each have transparency. Try giving your image an actual channel alpha, which is to say a ‘straight’ alpha image and save it as 32-bit targa file. Then load that into your alpha and see if the problem doesn’t go away.

I’ve still had this problem with a targa, but only once in two years since I started using that ancient, reliable, rock-solid format (it dates from 1983!). In that case, three months ago, I went back to photoshop and ‘choked’ my matte–loaded the layer as a selection, contracted it or expanded the selection as needed and resaved that as an alpha.

[Govinda__]

Maybe you just need a capsule object. That’s a primitive. As for whether PathDeformer works, I just downloaded PathDeformer Lite, booted 9.6 on my Mac and it works perfectly, so it’s down to how you’re installing it or where you’re looking for it. As for what you mean by a ‘small fillet’ on the pipe, you have to explain what you’re thinking of better, or maybe someone else who can read this situation better should jump in with some other suggestion.

[Govinda__]

My guess is that you’re using your old prefs or layouts or ‘new.c4d’ or ‘template.c4d’ from before the upgrade. That’ll cause problems (as I know from personal experience just a few months ago).

[Govinda__]

That’s possible via plugin whose name escapes me. But seriously, it’s overkill. Just get Path Deformer Lite.

[Govinda__]

Path Deformer Lite is free, like I said.

https://www.tarabella.it/c4dbeta/plugin_detail.php?Id_plugin=18

[Govinda__]

Mograph’s spline wrap on a capsule object. Failing that, the free ‘Path Deformer Lite’ from Renato. Failing that, if you’re in V9.5 or later, you can adjust the rounding on either end of a SweepNurb.

Here’s Path Deformer
https://www.tarabella.it/c4dbeta/index.php

Cinema does indeed have fillets. Use Structure>Bevel for the most basic of them for polygon objects (not primitives). For another option there’s ChamferMaker:
https://cinema4d.yourweb.de/thread.php?threadid=3612&threadview=0&hilight=&hilightuser=0&page=1

Yes, it’s Russian…just download plug at the bottom of the first post in the thread.

[Govinda__]

Okay, I found a bunch of threads :). Most of them have me in them from 2002, and some mention defunct plugins.

There are two results you could be talking about. 1) Particles emitted stay where they are along the spline. 2) Particles actually move along the spline.

Either way, it’s mograph now. I’m assuming you mean (2) above, so it’s a cloner in object mode set to a spline as its object. Animate the clones’ offset Then a random effector if you like so they’re not all on the spline itself. Mograph really beats the older TP solutions with a stick.