[Randy Johnson]

Maybe this will help.
https://www.base80.com/index.php/2008/07/22/mow_the_lawn_hair_proximal_tracer

[Randy Johnson]

Extruding a spline would be the way to go can you post a pic showing what wierd?
/randy

[Randy Johnson]

-Track your shot
-match the camera
-model everything that will interact or blow up
-project textures/ create matching textures for the explosion
-cut up and connect all the pieces that are to explode (see the MOdynamics tut here at creative cow)
-Set up your physics (the explosion) depending what modules you have this is completely different. (cmivfx tp tutorial NOT free)
-Set up particles (thinking if you have them)
-Set up lighting to match live action
-render out alpha mattes
-Send all your renders to compositing and layer them together

I would say you need a little bit out of every C4D tutorial you can find. However
search for: Cloth boomer

/randy

[Randy Johnson]

*The cloner takes the object. So you need to make a “current state” of the deformed object or place the deformer and object in a null (not as parent-child) and place the null in the cloner this is not a good solution if you need to make the cloner editable later. I would as always create a duplicate copy and hide it in case you need to revert to to it.

*To swap between objects is pretty much a manual thing depending how the scene is put together. This is where instances are great to work with. They are limiting in some ways but you can move them independantly from each other yet they all follow the leader. They can also be controlled nicely from xpresso.

*Size is relative here. CM, MM, M all the same in cinema. If you go to small you will find the viewport cuts the corners off stuff but generally while rendering with C4D the scale really play no role. This answer changes with different render engines like Maxwell render where it is simulating light based on real world references.

Keep in mind that there always like 5 good ways to solve these workflows in cinema.
/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

Hyper nurbs smooth things out so its working. SInce your working with a primitive your only way to edit this would be to add more subdivides on the cube.
However if you want to really control the edges you need to make the cube editable (select and press C) Then you can make cuts in the cube or change the weight of the hyper nurbs.

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

There are a few ways to stick things and make them move together.
The best way that works well for a globe is to take advantage of the Hierarchy of the Object manager.
For example: if you place both the globe and your city markers as children of a Null you only need to animate the null. You can then expand this idea so you have specific NULLS parented to the globe and others sharing the same parent as the globe and so on depending how much there is. And aligning them to start with using the transform tool, or mograph, or writing the diameter of the globe.

Mograph cloner in object mode sticks stuff to object easly.
Another way is to use PSR constraint tag from mocca. There is a good section about this on the Flabio tutorial when he is sticking the TP emitter to his foot.

As for splines…. what kind of splines? Are you refering to the borders again or the animation paths?
All map splines I would set up in illustrator then import to C4D. Animation Paths I would create by hand in C4D.

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

transparent material?
or object buffer that you feather later?
/randy

[Randy Johnson]

This is all about controlling your layers during the composite. I would create everything 3D then mix them later.
Start with your maps.
Here is a great tutorial that includes links to all the textures for your globe. Its a free tutoiral but you need an account.
https://www.cmivfx.com/
Borders and city markers I approach with a Vector map of borders placed in an extrude nurbs and then deformed into a sphere. (I can’t post the link right now as my computer is away on service)

Odds are you are going to have to make a couple versions of each for low and high res.

You will want to make one version of volumetric clouds to fly through. A) it looks cool B) it covers your transition from low to high res. However it takes forever to render and is extremely difficult to fake.

Then in your compositing just blend the layers as you want to see them since they should all have the same camera movement is should go smoothly.

Here is what came to mind when reading your post. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cmlhfdxuY

/Randy

[Randy Johnson]

Try target effector. Dont know if it moves on light but you can make a sphere or something as a proxy object.

/randy

[Randy Johnson]

They are counted the same on playback.
This is because in the black and white times all the data fit at 30fps but when color came it no longer had enough room for all the meta data (Timecode). Then this became a problem with sync and stuff since you loose a little each second so they created what is called a drop frame. This does not include any actual pixels only meta data so the pixels go 30 but the meta goes a little faster to make up for it.
/randy