[Ron Moore]

This is terrific! Now I see that wrapping my mind around Thinking Particles is going to take some concentration. It’s a powerful tool indeed. I was able to get my arrows propelling nicely along the spline but haven’t been able to align the main axis of the arrow to be coincident with the spline itself so it can follow the path without pointing off at an angle. Maybe there’s another setting I’m missing.

[Ron Moore]

Thanks! I appreciate the help. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

[Ron Moore]

How I wish I had MoGraph! I guess I’ll jump into Thinking Particles and see if C4dCafe can give me a jump-start. Thanks for the tip.

[Ron Moore]

I’m using Carrara Pro 6 to convert SolidWorks files to .obj files and then taking the files into Cinema 4D, where I’m trying to apply the label directly to the surface of, in this case, a gas can. I’d just prefer that the label was applied as part of the texture rather than “floating” in the vicinity of the can surface on a plane. Is Riptide a Cinema plug-in or would it also work for Carrara? By the way, the label is not on the original object.

[Ron Moore]

That may have been where I slipped up. I did run Connect on the objects, but deleted the originals, and did not run Optimize. I’ll run it after work and I really appreciate your suggestions. Maybe I can get this to go after all. I’m glad I just happened to have Carrara to convert the files in the first place. Thanks.

[Ron Moore]

Thanks for the tips. I’ll definitely try them out later. By the way, do I run the Optimize command on each “surface nurb” that makes up the object one at a time or on the grouped (null object) that includes all the surface nurbs that form the object?

[Ron Moore]

Adam,

Thanks for the information. I’m not sure what you mean by AFAIK. I’m not at my computer at home right now, but I will send the files in question this evening and thanks for offering to take a look at them. Each object comes in as separate “surface nurbs,” as Carrara labels them, and I can select individual polygons (in Polygon Mode) but it treats the object as a whole as indivisible it seems. I’ll try your suggestion of unchecking the “high quality” box when I get home tonight but so far I can’t come up with a way of getting a cross-section of this pump object without using a Boolean Object.

Ron

[Ron Moore]

Thanks for the tips but I’m still unclear on the procedure for setting up the object buffers. I set them up in C4D but when I have them on the timeline in AE and choose Luma Matte, I do get a transparent bg but the object itself is partially transparent. Also, I’m not sure how to render with a “full scene alpha.” I checked the Alpha Channel box in the Save tab of the Render Settings but keep getting the black bg over in After Effects. I’ve been working with Cinema 4D now for 6 months but apparently am not straight on some fundamental workflow between C4D and AE. I think once I get past this I’ll be able to make some strides, but it’s just not quite sinking in. I’ve watched some tutorials on Cineversity on this topic but even that info didn’t make it clear enough for me.

[Ron Moore]

Thanks, Brian. I’ll just place any new textures I create or find in the “tex” folder and change the Preferences accordingly. Appreciate the help. This is some incredible program!

[Ron Moore]

When I tried to load the C4D file in the Materials Manager by choosing Load Material, just a generic black icon showed up. The only way I could get the full shader effect to appear in the viewport was to open the C4D file as a new scene by opening it from the main menu. In that scene there’s a light, environment, floor, torus and sphere, all with the material applied. Apparently it’s all to demonstrate how they used the material as sort of a demo. I’m just not sure how to adapt this example scene to my own modeling.