[Jeremy Allen]

Nevermind I figured it out.

I used a -1 scale, with an inverted falloff set to zero. Not sure if this is the best way to handle this effect, but it works for me!

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

C4D 11.5
AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1

[Jeremy Allen]

Wow guys, thanks for the quick responses. Both of your suggestions work with a little tweaking. You can probably tell I’m still very new to C4D, and 3D in general. Obviously I have a long way to go, but now at least I’ve just learned a little more!

Thanks again!

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

C4D 11.5
AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1

[Jeremy Allen]

Well now it seems I have another problem. I’ve got my 4 words cut up and placed, but when I add the fracture object, I get the spinny beach ball of death (on a Mac). This isn’t a very complicated scene. I have a sky object for lighting and a floor with a bit of reflection, and the 4 words.. that’s it.

Being new to C4D, I don’t really know the best way to handle this. Is there a “most efficient” way to use shatter on multiple objects? There seem to be several possibilites:

1. Put all 4 words in a null and parent the Fracture object to the null.
2. Connect all 4 words into one object, Parent the Fracture object.
3. Keep the words as separate objects and parent a Fracture to each word.
4. Make each word a separate child of one Fracture object.

right now I’m using #4 and I get the spinny wheel for a while before C4D reacts to any mouse clicks. At this pace its nearly impossible to get anything done.

Can anyone help with this problem? Please don’t tell me this is too much for C4D to handle…

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1

[Jeremy Allen]

Hey Steve,
Thanks for your time and response.. The tutorials at GSG and the Cow are what got me thinking about this in the first place. I’ve used Destruction for the cutting up and let me tell you, that was a long painful process. It’s very buggy and crashes with almost every cut. It works great for a simple cube, but anything more complex and C4D just gives up. It literally took me several hours to cut up 4 words the way I wanted. I’m not knocking the plugin by any means. I realize its just a beta and I think it will be great once the kinks are worked out. The other method of knifing the text is good too, but then I think you lose the ability to control the extrusion caps. By relying on the explosion FX for the depth, you end up with just plain square caps.

Anyway, the major problem I’m still trying to figure out is the initial “exploding” of the fracture object. I’ve figured out that any objects touching each other will burst outwards. The more they overlap, the more powerful the burst. So I used the separation feature in Destruction, but I still get a slight burst at the start of the dynamics. I feel like I’ve been through every setting in the Fracture object and rigid body tags, but can’t seem to control that intial burst. The closest I can get is by using the custom initial velocity with a high negative Z number. This way the pieces fall straight down. But it happens with a lot of force, and it doesn’t look very natural.

So if you have any suggestions on how to control that inital burst, I’d be happy to hear it! Thanks again.

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1

[Jeremy Allen]

ok, so going with the “backwards” solution, I’ve figured out how to vibrate the pieces by keyframing a vibrate tag after the pieces have settled. This way, when I play it backwards, the pieces will start to vibrate and then start to slide towards forming the word.

So far so good, but one other thing I can’t figure out. I don’t really want the initial “burst” of the fracture object. I would rather the pieces just fall onto the floor instead of exploding out and then falling. With exploding pieces, it looks a little weird played backwards because the pieces kinda fly back into place instead of “crawling” up the letters and into place, if that makes sense.

So is there any way to use the fracture object so that the pieces just react naturally to the gravity dynamics instead of exploding first?

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1

[Jeremy Allen]

I’m a noob, so I could be totally off, but I think it has something to do with adding a solver object to the mix, then your gravity should work.

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1

[Jeremy Allen]

Your setup looks right, but I’m thinking the time effector didn’t make it into the effector tab for your fracture object.. So click on the fracture object and then select the effectors tab. Drag the time effector down into the box and the cube should spin when you hit play. You can speed up the spinning be increasing the time effector strength.

For future reference, if you have the fracture object selected when you first choose the time effector from the mograph menu, the time effector should automatically be added to the effectors list.

Let me know if that still doesn’t work for ya.

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1

[Jeremy Allen]

Hi Dave,
I’m new to C4D as well, in fact I’ve only had the demo version for about 30 days now, but I think I can help with this..

Make your object the child of a MoGraph object, such as fracture. Then choose MoGraph > Time Effector.

Click on Time Effector in the object manager. Now click on Effector in the Attributes manager for the Time Effector and drag your Fracture Object into the selection field.

If you hit play at this point, your object should be spinning, because the Time Effector has a rotation transform set by default under the parameter tab. Of course you can control which axis rotates. This also works for scale and position..

Hope this helps!

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1

[Jeremy Allen]

It may help if you mask out the alpha edges… And you may need to precompose the masked version also.

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1

[Jeremy Allen]

I guess I’d need to see what you are working on to help you better..

If I wanted part of an object to fade to transparent, I would use a linear wipe transition.

Here I have a picture on top of a blue solid.. I used linear wipe to make the bottom right corner fade to transparent. Is this kinda what you are looking for?

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.6

AE CS3
FCP 6.0.1