[Nicolas Guionnet]

I understand.

I am surprised though that Stardust can render OBJs so well. Good.
The connected boxes interface is great.
And Physics is amazing … I would use it a lot ( for videos about probability for instance ).
It is cheap compared to Trapcode …

One thing that is disappointing : 3D curves are defined by splines made out of lights …. and I really don’t know how to go from my usual expression defined curves ( defined with : x(t) = … ; y(t) = … , z(t) = … ) to a set of lights … “indicating” the way …

And if you remember, it was the initial goal of this post … ????

I will soon end up with Trapcode and Stardust … these tools are amazing …

Thanks !

[Nicolas Guionnet]

I am of course not a Form user yet but I read a part of the documentation and there are more than one display option fo OBJs :
https://www.redgiant.com/user-guide/form/base-form-obj/
(at the end of the page … see the horse.)
If I need something more physically realistic, I ‘ll go to 3D elements.
But what I don’t understand is how stardust can help “render” OBJs … it is a particule plugin, isn’t it ? … Maybe I should read the documentation … ???? …
As my current limitation is what my brain can learn, it is also what my wallet can buy at the very beginning of this project.
So I have to choose my tools carefully. I can’t afford everything …
Thanks

[Nicolas Guionnet]

Thanks, Kalleheikki,

I see. This method with Particular seems interesting but Form and TAO also can do it right.

I think I will buy the Trapcode Suite. So versatile …

I’ll use Blender for surfaces and objects … I used to work with it 14 years ago (!!) … and Python is a good friend of mine too as my students learn programming with it.

It feels good to have a solution for these problems. ☺

Thanks for your help.

[Nicolas Guionnet]

Hi Kalleheikki, Thank you for your answer.

In fact it is the first time I hear about Processing. … is it “better” than Python within Blender … ?

I didn’t know that Element D could render Depth of field … as I read many times that it is very basic compared to Cinema 4D … good to know.

I have also read a few things relative to the Stardust vs Trapcode debate … Trapcode looked more versatile. I am going to dig deeper into Stardust …

But Trapcode TAO will be hard to beat for expression designed curves …

Well, choosing the right tool is 30% of the job … 40% ? ☺

Thanks

[Nicolas Guionnet]

​After some search, I found some options that look interesting but I would like to have a more experienced user’s opinion before throwing myself into the process of learning.

1°) I would use blender and Python scripting to generate OBJ animated models of my curves, surfaces or objects. Then I would export the animated OBJ to After Effects :
Create a 3D model using blender and python scripting [Community Environmental Observation Network – Wiki]

2°) Then I could use Trapcode Form to display my OBJ in a variety of ways …
https://www.redgiant.com/user-guide/form/base-form-obj/

3°) C4D could also let me display the animated OBJ. But … I would lose depth of field, am I right ?
Any comment or advice ?

Thanks

[Nicolas Guionnet]

Let’s try :

13237_machinebug.aep.zip

[Nicolas Guionnet]

>Did the OP ever post the project?

I don’t know what an OP is … but I suspect that it could the guy who started the topic, alias me.

Sure, I can upload the file but as it uses a load of imported .ai files … I don’t know how to do that … properly.

> In my understanding, Motion Blur just overlaps a number of rendered images of the layer mimicing real-life camera behavior rather than interpolates between frames.

As I said, I tried to change the computation step to thisComp.frameDuration/10, this way providing 10 times more vector images. And indeed AE used them to make a better motion blur. The “sample per frame” option (composition settings > advanced ) determines the number of images that will be used for the motion blur. If you reduce it to 1 or 2 , you get the same poor motion blur issue we were talking about. So I guess AE “tries” a sequence of time values, close from the current time, to compute the needed images through the expression, and then superposes them. If there is only one image per frame provided, it superposes the image on itself …

[Nicolas Guionnet]

Yes, Oleg, of course …
This is what I did … finally. ????

But, in the future, I would have been tempted to use more sophisticated functions (like a Gaussian) … that require fare more than a pen to provide their primitive … if this numerical computation had been efficient …

Thus, I will use simple functions …

[Nicolas Guionnet]

Hi Richard,
Thank you for your help.

In fact I tried to pre-comp and use the effect, alas the result is the same. … except that now, I know it is a possible solution for a similar problem in the future.

So … thanks !

[Nicolas Guionnet]

Thanks Oleg !
G R E A T !
That ‘s clear …

I will have to find another way to generate an interesting rotation …

But … do we know precisely what AE needs to compute a motion blur ?
The position at every frame is clearly insufficient …
The position at every thisComp.frameDuration/10 ? … thisComp.frameDuration/100 ??

Well, I tried thisComp.frameDuration/10 ! … and it is much better, there is here a decent motion blur …

… but it seems 10 times slower, while 10 times more computation should not be needed (compared to the case where the rotation is given explicitly by a continuous expression.)

And the motion is not smooth, due to the approximations in my method of computation of the primitive (I guess) …

So, I think, I will not use a function of time giving the speed of rotation and then computing the rotation itself. I am starting to think that it was one of my silly ideas …