[Thomas Alberti]

Thanks Walter! Really appreciate it. Just what I was looking to know.

[Thomas Alberti]

Windows 8.1
CC 2017 (Ae 14.0.1)

fyi the shortcut would only select the time remap property when the keyframes were visible…

Thanks for the pointer, Roei–I will do so if I can’t figure it out otherwise.

[Thomas Alberti]

So my longshot solution was to find an equation that captured the difference in position between the text and the object.

I tabulated ten data points from the sweep nurbs end growth (10%, 20%, etc.) with the corresponding Offset value of the Spline Xpresso node (which outputs to the position of the object). They differed by about 5% +/- 2% or so each time. Then I just pasted that table into an online polynomial regression calculator (https://www.xuru.org/rt/PR.asp) and grabbed the equation.

I added a COFFEE node to the Xpresso group and pasted the equation into the script editor. It was just bit tedious to change all the notation (e.g. pow(Input1, 6) through pow(Input1, 2)–I ended up selecting a 6 degree polynomial equation), but in the and to my surprise, it worked pretty well. Sometimes the object was still off by 1%, but never much more–for my purposes that will do.

Screenshot

note: This was a sample case; I have to try the solution on a longer phrase of text. If it doesn’t work I’ll update this post.

note: In the image you’ll see that I ended converting the End Growth percentage to an actual distance (which I got from a COFFEE script using SplineLengthData, but it’s not necessary–i was trying to get more precision which ended up being fruitless).

[Thomas Alberti]

Thanks Brian! That’s super helpful 🙂

[Thomas Alberti]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the insight. I didn’t know what a buffer is, but I looked into it and eventually waslead to fiddling with multi-pass settings, both in C4D render settings and in Cineware.

The change I made to fix the problem was in Cineware, checking the Cinema 4D Multi-Pass box, and then changing the multi-pass from RGBA Image to Atmosphere. But I don’t know what kind of effects this will have in future compositions, or why the RGBA Image didn’t work–if you have a moment to explain any of this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks again!

Tom

[Thomas Alberti]

Thanks! Changing the sampling to 5 worked.

Would you be able to give any insight to why the Cinema 4D render view does not match AE? In AE, the visible light comes through the plane but then stops at the edge of the plane (looking very unnatural), whereas in C4D the light rays extend beyond the plane as they should. Not sure if it has anything to do with my render settings, so I included them.

Thanks again!

[Thomas Alberti]

Originally I had tried to bring in an After Effects layer with the text stroke as the alpha matte for a solid. But C4D only saw the solid, no transparency.

Then I made a text spline.

I watched a Russian YouTube that showed how to apply a sweep to a box spline and the text spline to give it the “stroke” I wanted. But I didn’t understand anything he said.

As you mention, I used a boole to subtract the text from a plane. The problem is that when the volumetric light passes through, it seems to be passing through not just the empty space on the plane, but the whole sweep of the text, which I think is making the visible part of the light look like it has many different angles and extra artifacts.

Did I answer your question? I’m just starting out in C4D.

Thanks for your help!!

[Thomas Alberti]

So is the feature totally absent?

[Thomas Alberti]

Thanks for the details, Ted. Those are helpful setups. Do you think I would regret a rMBP? I mean, it is a bad idea in any way for AE?