Im also new to C4D and I tried the above, with no luck. Putting everything in a group as a null and applying the texture as frontal didn’t displace the image at all with the geometry.
Putting the texture image on transparency and using a spot light makes the texture this massive glob of nothing. I tried changing the height and angle of the light, but nothing makes it just project like normal.
Any other help? Did you get yours to work rick?