[Jim Scott]

Creation Art Effects has several oil paint effects:

https://creationeffects.com/creation-art-effects.html

[Jim Scott]

Very clever Emir. Thanks for the example.

[Jim Scott]

I think that you are right that using xpresso is the way to go. Unfortunately that is an area where my ignorance really shines so hopefully someone else can chime in. I’ll keep plugging away and let you know if I come up with something.

[Jim Scott]

Nope, that was completely my mistake. You distinctly wrote “deformer,” and for some reason I set up an example with an effector on clones to experiment with because I had been working with some effectors earlier in the day. It must be old age.

[Jim Scott]

Thanks Pete,

My brain scrambled your original post, so I was making suggestions based on a formula effector and not a deformer, which rendered all of my suggestions rather meaningless. Sorry for the confusion. Let me look at this and get back to you.

[Jim Scott]

Hi Peter,
Any chance you could post your project file? It would make it easier to troubleshoot if we could see it.

[Jim Scott]

A few ideas:

If you want the formula to be active but not animating, and then to begin animating at a certain frame, keyframe the project time from 0 to 1 at that frame.

If you want the formula to have no effect, but then ramp up, leave the project time at 1 and keyframe the Strength from 0 to 100% beginning at the desired frame.

Alternatively, if you want to jump from no effect to full effect, keyframe the “Enabled” setting in the Basic tab between successive keyframes.

Hope this helps.

[Jim Scott]

There are snapping options in C4D, but I don’t know of any that will allow you to drag one object along the surface of another and have it always orient itself perpendicular to the face as your example seems to do. Others who are more experienced than I am may have better info.

Here is one plugin that you might check out: https://aescripts.com/target-4d/

[Jim Scott]

Ok, I lied. I do know a way to lock a position axis… I just forgot about it. Add a Protection tag to your dynamic object, and for your desired outcome uncheck everything except the Z position property. It’s much simpler than my previous solution, but just not as much fun. ????

[Jim Scott]

I don’t know of any way to lock an axis for dynamics simulation, but you can cache the simulation and then use cappucino to convert the cache to keyframes, and then delete the Z position keyframes in order to limit movement to X and Y.

1) With the object’s Dynamics tag selected, go to Cache and click on “Bake Object.”

2) With the object selected, go to C4D’s main menu: Character > Manager > Cappucino to bring up the dialogue box below and confirm that Position and Rotation are selected (add Scale if you need it).

3) Click on “Start Realtime” and then with your cursor in the Viewport click and hold your mouse button until the animation runs through and all the keyframes are created. You will see the keyframes being created in the Viewport, and once you release the mouse button you will find all of the created keyframe parameters in the Timeline.

4) Open the Timeline menu, twirl open “Position,” and select and delete the Position . Z data.

5) Delete the Dynamics tag so that the position keyframes will be used.

For the camera, if you want it to match the X and Y position of your animated object while staying parallel to it in Z you could use the Set Driver/Set Driven expressions. Otherwise, a Target tag on it might be all that’s needed. Please elaborate more on what you want the final result to be and I will try to provide the best solution.