[Randy Johnson]

if you are a member of cineversity you are entitled to the Plane Smart plug in that actually does this job for you.

Otherwise I think you need to go the manual way…. to speed it up you can make one PSD file with 1 layer per image and then make one material with that and select each layer per material and just keep copying and pasting….over and over again.

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

I have a file here:
https://rootvisuals.com/wordpress/?page_id=82

that is called LED lights that uses the volume effector to switch on and off clones. So it has one set of clones that are bright and one set that are not…. might work for you. You need to render to see the difference.

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

I would put everything on the rendering. Faster test renders, more fps… way more time saved in a project.
Here is a little render comparision https://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/2010/11/12-core-vs-8-core-vs-2-core-cinema-4-render-speed-test/

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

Its all about the number of subdivisions you have on how rounded it will be for example the sphere is not that great if you turn down the subdivisions and disable “render perfect”.
So a common way to model a rounded surface is to use the knife tool to cut new edges into the base then extruding and adjusting points into a rounded shape. Sometimes modeling both shapes seperate and then bridging then together is a better alternative then again move and add points to get the curve. This is best when creating plumbing for example… be sure to use the same number of polygons around each object so they weld together point for point.
Some tools that are good for this type of modeling are the SOFT selection tool and the iron tool.

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

Assuming you have a perfect tile bitmap that you are importing.
This is where the different blending options and layers and diffusion come in. So you can add procedural shading that cover the entire UV not just repeat them selves.
For example adding noise over the bitmap that is on a really high scale and multiplied over is going to do a lot in ways of not changing the look but removing “seams” stuff like that.

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

If you connect the splines that make the letter it will work.
/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

Pretty straight forward if I understand you right.
I just dragged the preview pic. from a texture into the xpresso window and connected that with a filename link from a user data.
https://rootvisuals.com/Downloads/Matxpresso.c4d.zip
/randy

[Randy Johnson]

rotoscope the video, track the the camera, animate a “body” to move similar to the video, animate and export stuff to compositing and… and make it look good.

Here is a breakdown of a similar process,

https://www.justinbates.com/breakdown.html

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

Dont go more complex… you have a long way to go yet. Don’t get me wrong your models are a lot better now then a few months back.
This one looks like you worked with splines and a extrude nurbs…. here are some notes.
These are not meant to be mean they are more to show what I personally looked at and wondered about.
A cell render is always helpful to see how it was constructed.

https://skitch.com/randy-johnson/frsbw/pocket-watch-both-flickr-photo-sharing

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

The use of an iteration will give the option to offset because it will cycle through the object list or what ever node you choose. Then you can have a math node that controls the delay.
There is a series of tutorials on the iteration nodes at the c4d cafe.

/Randy