MoGraph
MoGraph Manual
Programming Team: Christian Losch, Philip Losch, Richard Kurz, Tilo Kühn, Thomas Kunert,
David O’Reilly, Cathleen Poppe, Sven Behne, Wilfried Behne, Per-Anders Edwards, Paul Everett.
Plugin Programming: Michael Breitzke, Kiril Dinev, Reinhard Hintzenstern, Jan Eric Hoffmann, Eduardo, Olivares, Nina Ivanova, Markus
Jakubietz, Eric Sommerlade, Hendrik Steffen, Jens Uhlig, Michael Welter, Thomas Zeier.
Reference Manual: Oliver Becker
Translation/Layout: Scot Wardlaw
Cover and
Packaging Design: Eric Adermann, Heike Bauer, Dirk Beichert
Copyright © 1989-2006 by MAXON Computer GmbH. All rights reserved.
English Translation Copyright © 20 06 by MA XON Computer GmbH / MA XON Computer Ltd. A ll rights reserved.
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Contents
MoGraph Manual .................................................................................................................................. II
1. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 2
General .............................................................................................................................................2
How are clones arranged onto other objects? ................................................................................. 3
Object order in the Object Manager ................................................................................................ 5
Where can I nd MoGraph components? ........................................................................................ 5
2. Cloner Object .................................................................................................... 8
Make Object Editable ....................................................................................................................... 9
Object Tab ............................................................................................................................................. 9
Object Mode ..................................................................................................................................... 9
Clones / Fix Clone / Fix Texture ........................................................................................................ 10
Object ............................................................................................................................................. 10
Polygonal Objects ........................................................................................................................... 11
Up Vector ........................................................................................................................................ 11
Mode .............................................................................................................................................. 12
Selection ......................................................................................................................................... 12
Enable ............................................................................................................................................. 12
Restrict to Live Selection ................................................................................................................ 13
Splines ............................................................................................................................................ 13
Align Clone ..................................................................................................................................... 13
Mode .............................................................................................................................................. 13
Per Segment ................................................................................................................................... 14
Smooth Rotation ............................................................................................................................ 14
Offset.............................................................................................................................................. 15
Offset Variation .............................................................................................................................. 16
Start / End ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Loop................................................................................................................................................ 16
Rate................................................................................................................................................. 16
Rate Variation ................................................................................................................................. 16
Random Seed.................................................................................................................................. 16
Particles (CINEMA 4D) .................................................................................................................... 16
Align Clone ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Velocity Stretch............................................................................................................................... 17
Particle Scale ................................................................................................................................... 17
Particles (Thinking Par ticles) ........................................................................................................... 17
Include Sub Groups ........................................................................................................................ 17
Behavior.......................................................................................................................................... 17
Linear Mode.................................................................................................................................... 18
Clones ............................................................................................................................................. 18
Fix Clone ......................................................................................................................................... 22
Fix Texture....................................................................................................................................... 23
Count .............................................................................................................................................. 23
Offset.............................................................................................................................................. 23
Mode .............................................................................................................................................. 24
Amount........................................................................................................................................... 24
Position, Scale, Rotation ................................................................................................................. 24
The Step Functionality .................................................................................................................... 24
Step Mode ...................................................................................................................................... 25
Step Size ......................................................................................................................................... 25
Step Rotation .................................................................................................................................. 26
Step Rotation H/P/B ........................................................................................................................ 26
Radial Mode.................................................................................................................................... 26
Clones / Fix Clones / Fix Texture ...................................................................................................... 26
Count .............................................................................................................................................. 26
Radius ............................................................................................................................................. 27
Plane ............................................................................................................................................... 27
Align ............................................................................................................................................... 27
Start Rotation / End Rotation.......................................................................................................... 27
Offset.............................................................................................................................................. 27
Offset Variation .............................................................................................................................. 27
Grid Array ....................................................................................................................................... 28
Clones / Fix Clones / Fix Texture ...................................................................................................... 29
Count .............................................................................................................................................. 29
Size ................................................................................................................................................. 29
Form ............................................................................................................................................... 29
Fill ................................................................................................................................................... 29
Transform Tab...................................................................................................................................... 30
Display ............................................................................................................................................ 30
P.X, P.Y, P.Z, S.X, S.Y, S.Z, R.H, R.P, R.B............................................................................................ 30
Color ...............................................................................................................................................30
Weight ............................................................................................................................................30
Time ................................................................................................................................................ 30
Orientation (only in “Grid Array” mode) ........................................................................................ 31
Animation Loop .............................................................................................................................. 31
Effectors Tab........................................................................................................................................ 31
3. Effectors..........................................................................................................34
General ...........................................................................................................................................34
What do Effectors do?.................................................................................................................... 34
Parameter Tab...................................................................................................................................... 35
Transform Mode .............................................................................................................................36
Transformation Space ..................................................................................................................... 36
Position, Scale, Rotation ................................................................................................................. 37
These parameters let you do the following: ................................................................................... 37
Scale ............................................................................................................................................... 37
Color ............................................................................................................................................... 37
Weight Transform ........................................................................................................................... 38
U / V Transform ............................................................................................................................... 40
Modify Clone ..................................................................................................................................40
Time Offset ..................................................................................................................................... 41
Visibility .......................................................................................................................................... 41
Deformer Tab....................................................................................................................................... 42
Deformation ................................................................................................................................... 42
Falloff Tab ............................................................................................................................................ 44
General ...........................................................................................................................................44
Shape .............................................................................................................................................. 45
Invert ..............................................................................................................................................46
Visible ............................................................................................................................................. 46
Weight ............................................................................................................................................46
Scale ............................................................................................................................................... 46
Shape Source (Spline) ..................................................................................................................... 46
Sample Distance ............................................................................................................................. 46
Sample Detail.................................................................................................................................. 47
Source Link ..................................................................................................................................... 47
Shape Source (particle) ................................................................................................................... 47
Sample Distance ............................................................................................................................. 47
Source Link ..................................................................................................................................... 47
Scale ............................................................................................................................................... 47
Falloff.............................................................................................................................................. 48
Clamped ......................................................................................................................................... 48
Spline .............................................................................................................................................. 48
Spline Animation Speed ................................................................................................................. 48
Group Effector..................................................................................................................................... 49
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 49
ReTime ............................................................................................................................................ 49
Start / End ....................................................................................................................................... 49
Effectors ......................................................................................................................................... 49
Shader Effector.................................................................................................................................... 50
Effector Tab Settings ...................................................................................................................... 50
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 50
Minimum / Maximum ..................................................................................................................... 51
Shading Tab Settings ...................................................................................................................... 51
Channel........................................................................................................................................... 51
Edit ................................................................................................................................................. 51
Texture Tag ..................................................................................................................................... 51
Offset X/Y, Length X/Y ................................................................................................................... 51
Tile .................................................................................................................................................. 51
Use .................................................................................................................................................. 52
Invert Alpha .................................................................................................................................... 52
UVW -Mapping in MoGraph ................................................................................................................ 52
Random Effector ................................................................................................................................. 54
Parameter Tab...................................................................................................................................... 54
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 54
Minimum / Maximum ..................................................................................................................... 55
Random Mode ................................................................................................................................ 55
Synchronized .................................................................................................................................. 56
Indexed ........................................................................................................................................... 56
Spline Effector ..................................................................................................................................... 56
Settings........................................................................................................................................... 56
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 56
Spline .............................................................................................................................................. 57
Mode .............................................................................................................................................. 57
Offset.............................................................................................................................................. 58
Start / End ....................................................................................................................................... 58
Clamp ............................................................................................................................................. 58
Segment Mode ............................................................................................................................... 58
Transform Mode .............................................................................................................................58
Inheritance Effector ............................................................................................................................. 59
Settings........................................................................................................................................... 60
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 60
Inheritance Mode: Direct................................................................................................................ 60
Object ............................................................................................................................................. 60
Morph Motion Object..................................................................................................................... 61
Inheritance Mode Animation.......................................................................................................... 61
Falloff Based ................................................................................................................................... 62
Transform Space ............................................................................................................................. 62
Start / End ....................................................................................................................................... 62
Animation....................................................................................................................................... 63
Step Gap .........................................................................................................................................63
Loop Animation .............................................................................................................................. 63
Step Effector ........................................................................................................................................ 63
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 64
Minimum / Maximum ..................................................................................................................... 64
Spline .............................................................................................................................................. 64
Step Gap .........................................................................................................................................65
Target Effector ..................................................................................................................................... 65
Settings........................................................................................................................................... 66
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 66
Target Mode ................................................................................................................................... 66
Use Pitch ......................................................................................................................................... 67
Reverse Heading ............................................................................................................................. 67
Up Vector ........................................................................................................................................ 67
Repel ............................................................................................................................................... 68
Time Effector ....................................................................................................................................... 68
Delay Effector ...................................................................................................................................... 69
Settings........................................................................................................................................... 69
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 70
Mode .............................................................................................................................................. 70
Sound Effector..................................................................................................................................... 70
Settings........................................................................................................................................... 71
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 71
Minimum / Maximum ..................................................................................................................... 71
Sound File ....................................................................................................................................... 71
Start Offset ..................................................................................................................................... 72
Apply Mode .................................................................................................................................... 72
Falloff.............................................................................................................................................. 72
Sample Mode.................................................................................................................................. 72
Clamp Output ................................................................................................................................. 73
Lower Cutoff................................................................................................................................... 73
Compression ................................................................................................................................... 74
Frequency Graph ............................................................................................................................ 74
Filter Shape ..................................................................................................................................... 74
Frequency Color.............................................................................................................................. 74
Use Filter ......................................................................................................................................... 74
Frequency / Bandwidth ................................................................................................................... 75
Left Channel / Right Channel .......................................................................................................... 75
Play ................................................................................................................................................. 75
Scrub Sound ................................................................................................................................... 75
Formula Effector.................................................................................................................................. 76
Settings........................................................................................................................................... 77
Strength .......................................................................................................................................... 77
Minimum / Maximum ..................................................................................................................... 77
Formula........................................................................................................................................... 77
4. Other Objects and Tags ..................................................................................82
The Matrix Object ................................................................................................................................ 82
Generate Matrices Only ..................................................................................................................82
So, what good are a bunch of little cubes that can’t be rendered? ............................................... 83
Generate Thinking Particles ............................................................................................................ 83
TP Group ......................................................................................................................................... 84
Follow .............................................................................................................................................84
Constrain ........................................................................................................................................84
Particle Priority ............................................................................................................................... 84
Fracture Object .................................................................................................................................... 85
Modes ............................................................................................................................................. 86
Straight ........................................................................................................................................... 86
Explode Segments ..........................................................................................................................86
Explode Segments & Connect ........................................................................................................ 86
Transform Tab/Effectors Tab........................................................................................................... 86
Instance Object.................................................................................................................................... 87
Object Properties............................................................................................................................ 88
Object Reference ............................................................................................................................ 88
History Depth ................................................................................................................................. 88
Transform Tab/Effectors Tab........................................................................................................... 88
Text Object .......................................................................................................................................... 89
General ...........................................................................................................................................89
Depth:............................................................................................................................................. 90
Subdivision ..................................................................................................................................... 91
Shader Indexing .............................................................................................................................. 91
Caps Tab ......................................................................................................................................... 91
All, Lines, Words, Letters Tabs ........................................................................................................ 92
Effectors ......................................................................................................................................... 92
Axis X/ Y .......................................................................................................................................... 92
Align Height.................................................................................................................................... 93
Tracer ................................................................................................................................................... 93
General ...........................................................................................................................................93
Settings........................................................................................................................................... 94
Trace Link ........................................................................................................................................ 94
Tracing Mode .................................................................................................................................. 95
Handle Cloners ............................................................................................................................... 96
Include Cloner................................................................................................................................. 96
Sample Step .................................................................................................................................... 96
Trace Vertices .................................................................................................................................. 96
Trace Active..................................................................................................................................... 96
Use TP Subgroups ........................................................................................................................... 97
Space .............................................................................................................................................. 97
Limit................................................................................................................................................ 97
Spline Settings ................................................................................................................................ 97
Reverse Sequence ...........................................................................................................................97
Spline Mask.......................................................................................................................................... 98
Mode .............................................................................................................................................. 98
Axis ................................................................................................................................................. 99
Create Cap ...................................................................................................................................... 99
Displace Deformer ............................................................................................................................. 100
General .........................................................................................................................................100
Settings......................................................................................................................................... 101
Emulation ..................................................................................................................................... 102
Strength/Height/Type ................................................................................................................... 102
Direction ....................................................................................................................................... 102
Object/Camera (Refresh tab)........................................................................................................ 102
Backface Cull................................................................................................................................. 103
Shading Tab Settings .................................................................................................................... 103
Falloff Tab Settings ....................................................................................................................... 103
Extrude .............................................................................................................................................. 103
Transform...................................................................................................................................... 104
Extrusion Steps ............................................................................................................................. 104
Polygon Selection ......................................................................................................................... 105
Sweep Spline ................................................................................................................................ 105
Transform Tab ............................................................................................................................... 105
Effectors Tab................................................................................................................................. 105
Spline Wrap ....................................................................................................................................... 106
Settings......................................................................................................................................... 107
Spline ............................................................................................................................................ 107
Axis ............................................................................................................................................... 108
Strength ........................................................................................................................................ 108
Offset............................................................................................................................................ 108
From/To ........................................................................................................................................ 108
Mode ............................................................................................................................................ 109
End Mode ..................................................................................................................................... 109
Size ................................................................................................................................................110
Size Strength..................................................................................................................................110
Spline Size ......................................................................................................................................110
Spline Size Strength .......................................................................................................................110
Banking..........................................................................................................................................110
Rotation.........................................................................................................................................110
Rotation Strength ..........................................................................................................................111
Spline Rotation ..............................................................................................................................111
Spline Rotation Strength ...............................................................................................................111
Cache Tag ...........................................................................................................................................111
Settings..........................................................................................................................................112
Use Cache ......................................................................................................................................112
Bake ...............................................................................................................................................112
Clear Cache ....................................................................................................................................112
Bake Frame ....................................................................................................................................112
Clear Frame.................................................................................................................................... 112
Bake Sequence...............................................................................................................................112
5. Clone Tools.................................................................................................... 116
General ..........................................................................................................................................116
Linear Clone Tool ................................................................................................................................116
Start Position .................................................................................................................................116
End Position...................................................................................................................................116
Clones Count .................................................................................................................................116
Generate ........................................................................................................................................117
Radial Clone Tool ................................................................................................................................117
Center ............................................................................................................................................117
Radius ............................................................................................................................................117
Axis ................................................................................................................................................117
Clones Count .................................................................................................................................117
Generate ........................................................................................................................................117
Grid Clone Tool ...................................................................................................................................118
Center ............................................................................................................................................118
Size ................................................................................................................................................118
Clones Count .................................................................................................................................118
Generate ........................................................................................................................................118
Placement Tab ....................................................................................................................................118
6. Shaders.......................................................................................................... 122
The MoGraph (channel) shader can be found in the material’s texture menu. ............................ 122
Color Channel ............................................................................................................................... 123
Index Ratio Channel...................................................................................................................... 123
Invert Output ................................................................................................................................ 123
Spline ............................................................................................................................................ 123
Beat Shader .................................................................................................................................. 124
Beats Per Minute........................................................................................................................... 124
Peak Interval ................................................................................................................................. 124
Range Curve.................................................................................................................................. 124
Invert ............................................................................................................................................ 124
Multi Shader ................................................................................................................................. 125
Mode ............................................................................................................................................ 125
Add ............................................................................................................................................... 125
To Layers ....................................................................................................................................... 125
7. Nodes............................................................................................................. 127
Data Node..................................................................................................................................... 127
Input Ports .................................................................................................................................... 127
Index ............................................................................................................................................. 127
Object ........................................................................................................................................... 128
Output Ports ................................................................................................................................. 128
Count ............................................................................................................................................ 128
Color ............................................................................................................................................. 128
Global / Local Matrix..................................................................................................................... 128
Position ......................................................................................................................................... 128
Visibility ........................................................................................................................................ 128
Scale ............................................................................................................................................. 128
UV ................................................................................................................................................. 129
Weight .......................................................................................................................................... 129
Rotation........................................................................................................................................ 129
Falloff Node ....................................................................................................................................... 129
Input Ports .................................................................................................................................... 130
Falloff Matrix ................................................................................................................................ 130
Sample Position ............................................................................................................................ 130
Output Ports ................................................................................................................................. 130
Value............................................................................................................................................. 130
Falloff Tab .......................................................................................................................................... 131
Effector Node .................................................................................................................................... 131
Input Ports .................................................................................................................................... 132
Output Ports ................................................................................................................................. 132
Index.................................................................................................................. 134
1 Introduction to MoGraph
2 • 1 Introduction - MoGraph Reference Manual
1 Introduction - MoGraph Reference Manual • 3
1. Introduction
General
Welcome to the virtually limitless MoGraph module!
MoGraph offers the following exciting functionalities:
Various ways in which to clone objects.
Extensive control of clones via Effectors.
Several special shaders for texturing and controlling clones.
A special Text Object with individual controls for lines of text words and letters.
The paths of movement of vertices / particles can be displayed as splines using the “Tracer”.
2 special Deformation Objects that can be used to deform objects using splines (Spline Wrap) or textures
(Displace Deformer).
Effectors that can also be used as deformation objects.
Spline Mask, a boole object for splines.
An Extruder Object that can be used to ex trude polygons of parametric objects. Each extrusion will be seen
internally as a clone and can thus be controlled using Effectors.
Almost anything can be combined within MoGraph. This offers sheer endless possibilities for the creation of motion graphics. For this
reason, we suggest you experiment as much as you can, even if what you want to do seems far too odd-ball. Just try it. MoGraph lets
you easily create spectacular, interesting effects using simple primitives. Believe it or not, the following image was created using a
single cloned cube and a single cloned sphere:
Spectacular motion graphics using simple primitives!
1 Introduction - MoGraph Reference Manual • 3
The next scene consists of only three parametric cubes that were cloned, made to intersect and positioned, colored and scaled
randomly using the Random Effector. Add a little depth -of-eld and HDRI lighting (Advanced Render module) and you too can create
the following image:
3 cloned parametric cubes.
Imagine adding a Sound Effector (see chapter 3) to make the clones scale, move, rotate and even change their texture to the beat of
music. This is only a small sample of what great-looking effects MoGraph lets you create with relatively little effort.
Note:
MoGraph offers several objects with which new elements can be generated or that can be used to view existing
CINEMA 4D objects as clones, thus making them able to be affected by MoGraph (Cloner Object, Matrix Object,
Fracture Object, etc.). For purposes of convenience, we’ll refer to these objects as “clones” once they have been
taken over by MoGraph.
How are clones arranged onto other objects?
The following mini -tutorial demonstrates a randomly chosen example of how clones can be arranged onto an object.
Goal: Clones should be arranged to form a particular word.
1. First, the necessary clones have to be generated that will later be arranged onto a text spline. Create a sphere,
a text spline and a Cloner Object (main menu > MoGraph/Cloner Object). Reduce the sphere’s radius to 10m
and type any word into the text spline setting’s “Text” eld.
2. Make the sphere a child of the Cloner Object and switch to the Cloner Object’s settings. Dene the number
of clones in it’s “Count” setting (e.g. 500) and set “P.Y” to “0” and “P.X” to, for example, “2”. The result should
look similar to what’s shown in the image below. The arrangement of clones can be adjusted to the text length
by moving the Cloner Object itself and varying the “P.Y” setting:
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The text spline was placed into a Sweep NURBS in order to make it more visible.
3. In order to arrange the clones onto the spline, a Spline Effector is needed. To add a Spline Effector, select the
Cloner Object in the Object Manager and add a Spline Effector form the main MoGraph menu. The Spline Effector
will automatically be assigned to the Cloner Object (it will be located in the Cloner Object’s “Effector” eld,
located in it’s “Effector” tab). Switch to the Spline Effector’s settings and drag the tex t spline from the Object
Manager into the Spline Effector’s “Spline” eld. Subsequently, set “Segment Mode” to “Even Spacing”.
Your scene should now look like this:
Spline Ef fector strength settings: 100% at top, 40% at bottom.
If you now vary the Spline Effector’s “Strength” setting (Effector tab) you can transition the clones smoothly
between a linear and a spline arrangement. But this is relatively unspectacular. Thus...
4. Switch to the Spline Effector’s “Fallof f” tab settings and set “Shape” to “Linear”. Now rotate the Spline
Effector around its Y-axis so that its Z-axis points in the direction of the linear clone arrangement (“Coord.”
tab: “ W.B” = -90°). So, what have we just done? The Falloff settings can be used to limit an Effector’s effect.
The “Linear” setting makes the effect of the Effector work along its positive Z-axis. It will have no effect in the
negative direction of the Z-axis. In the same tab, increase the Effector’s Z-scale so that it encompasses 2 to 3
letters of the text spline. You can also do this interactively by simply dragging the orange grabbers in the editor
view. The effect of the Effector will work smoothly within the orange and red planes. If the Effector is now
moved or animated along the length of the clones, the clones will be arranged onto the text spline accordingly
(the Effector’s strength is set to 100% in the “Effector” tab).
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The Spline Effector moves from left to right using a “Linear” fallof f.
Now change some of the settings, e.g. set “Falloff” to “Sphere” or play around with some of the other settings and see what happens.
The settings are described in detail in the following chapters.
Object order in the Object Manager
CINEMA 4D has a strict hierarchy (sequence and order in the Object Manager) that denes exactly which object should be executed
when. In some instances, a hierarchy in MoGraph, can also be important. Each time other objects are affected by a Target Object, the
Target Object should be placed in front of those objects in the Object Manager. This helps avoid unexpected effects such as incorrect
depiction in the editor view, strange rendering effects, etc.
The following could be important factors:
A Cloner Object in “Object” clone mode that has arranged its clones onto the vertices of a target object (even
a target object that is deformed using a deformation object).
Effectors that use a target object, e.g. a Spline Effector (target: spline), Inheritance Effector (target: any object)
or Target Effector (target: any object).
Where can I nd MoGraph components?
All MoGraph objects and tools are located in the main “MoGraph” menu.
The three MoGraph-specic shaders can be found anywhere where shaders can be selected, in the “Motion
Graphics” menu.
The MoGraph-specic bake function is implemented as a tag and can therefore be found under “File/MoGraph
Tags/Cache Tag.
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2 Cloner Object
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2. Cloner Object
General
The Cloner Object is THE object for the duplication of other objects, arranging clones onto ver tices of other objects, arranging clones
onto splines, etc. The Cloner Object sets your object(s) up so they can be affected by various Effectors. These Effectors can be used to
“disrupt”, animate, color or modif y your object and much more.
In order for the Cloner Object to work, the object to be cloned must be made a child of that Cloner Object.
The Cloner Object can in turn also be made a child object of another object if the clones should be arranged onto ver tices, edges,
polygons of that parent object (“Mode” = “Object).
Cloner Objects can be arranged in just about any order in the hierarchy. Although very interesting effects can be achieved by using
the simplest elements.
In the image above, a Sweep NURBS was applied in conjunction with 3 Cloner Objects. Each Cloner Object worked as follows:
st
1
Cloner Object: Clones the Sweep NURBS thrice linearly (“Mode”=”Linear”)
nd
2
Cloner Object: Clones the result several times, in a radial manner (“Mode”=”Radial”) which results in a
single wire column.
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rd
3
Cloner Object: Clones the wire columns in a grid pattern (“Mode”=”Grid Array”), whereby several wire
columns were created.
If the above sample can be so easily created by animating the settings of Cloner Objects and Effectors you can imagine what kind of
spectacular effects you can achieve once you’ve gotten to know the MoGraph module a little better.
Cloner Objects can be made editable at any time (each clone will be converted into an actual object) by simply activating the Cloner
Object and selecting “Make Editable” in the Object Manager’s “Object” menu (or by pressing the “c”-key on your keyboard). Each
clone will be made an individual object.
Note:
We suggest you use this function sparingly, though. Other wise it can be easy to loose track of what you’ve
done, and limitations can occur when baking for animations (see chapter 4). Aside from that, you can end up
creating hundreds of thousands of clones that can be a killer for your workow.
Make Object Editable
MoGraph also offers other clone -generating objects, such as the Matrix Object, the Fracture Object and more that share some of the
Cloner’s settings, like those in the “Transform” and “Effectors” tabs. These are only described here with regard to the Cloner but the
functions are the same.
Object Tab
The four available modes all have their own corresponding settings, which will be displayed for the mode selected.
Object Mode
When in this mode, a Cloner’s children will be assigned to other objects. There are two methods that can be used to tell the Cloner on
which object clones should be generated:
1. Make the Cloner Object a child of the “shaping” object.
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2. Place the “shaping” object into the “Object” text eld.
If both of the above-mentioned conditions are true, #2 will receive priority.
The clones will be assigned as follows:
Polygonal objects: Vertices, edges, polygon center, randomly arranged onto an object’s surface, selections.
Splines: Along the splines.
Particle emitters or Thinking Par ticles particle groups: Onto the particles.
Matrix Objects: A clone will be positioned onto each ver tex of the matrix.
Note:
A Cloner will also function if it is itself a child of a polygon object, spline or emitter. In the case of the emitter,
the “Object” text eld should not contain any object. Even Cloner Objects within a hierarchy can be cloned,
e.g. if the hierarchy below is used:
Clones / Fix Clone / Fix Texture
These functions are the same as described under “Linear Mode” (p. 17).
Object
Objects such as those listed in the image above can be placed into this eld. The object that denes the “shaping” must be made a child
of the Cloner. The settings that will subsequently be made available will correspond to the shape used. These settings are described
below.
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Polygonal Objects
If a polygonal object is used as a cloner, the clones will be arranged onto its vertices, edges, polygons, surfaces or selections. Either
polygonal or parametric primitives can be used. Of course HyperNURBS can also be used. By nature, many vertieces will be created ,
thus really bogging down your computer due to the immense number of clones that will be generated.
Up Vector
Activating the “Align Clone” option clearly aligns a clone’s Z-axis but not the rotation around it. Picture a sur face, deformed using a
Displace Object and an animated noise, on whose vertices clones have been arranged. When viewing the animation you will see that
the Z-axis point in the direction of the corresponding surface normals but the rotation around this axis takes place in a more or less
random fashion. If an up vector is now set (using the coordinate system of the object on which the clones grow) this random rotation
will be halted. Basically, this works in the same fashion as the “Align” expression (CINEMA 4D Tags), the only difference being that a
ready -made vector has to be selected instead of a target object being dened.
As an alternative, a Target Effector can also be used. The result will be similar.
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Mode
Use this setting to dene where the clones should be arranged:
Vertex: A clone on each vertex point.
Edge: A clone on each edge (additional settings will be made available).
Polygon Center: A clone on each polygon center.
Surface: Clones randomly arranged over an object’s entire surface.
“Edge” mode offers the following options:
Offset: Moves the clones along the edge (values less than 0% or greater than 100% can also be dene, whereby
the movement of the clones will not be limited to the edges).
Scale on Edge: The clones will be scaled in the direction of the edge.
Edge Scale: Use this slider to adjust the size of the clones in the direction of the edge (only available if “Align
Clone” and “Scale on Edge” are active).
Selecting “Surface” will make the “Seed” and “Count” settings (“Seed”: Different values will result in different random arrangements;
“Count”: Number of clones that will be randomly arranged onto the object’s surface). If this mode is selected when working with a
selection, the clones that lie outside of the selection will be hidden. For example, if a specic number of clones to be arranged onto a
given surface have been dened (e.g. 473), only those clones on the selection will be displayed (e.g. 34).
Selection
Any ver tex-, edge-, or polygon selection made using the Selection Tag can be placed into this eld. The clones will then be arranged
only in the area of that selection.
Enable
Use this setting to enable or disable cloning on a given Selection Tag.
Restrict to Live Selection
Use this setting to restrict the clones to a currently active selection.
Splines
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A simplied DNA strand created using two helix splines. Clones were used to create the base pairs.
If the Cloner is used in conjunction with a spline (spline primitives will work as well), the clones will be arranged onto the spline. The
type of spline used does not play a role (the Cloner offers settings that can be used to arrange clones uniformly).
The Spline Effector can also be used to, among other things, evenly transform any arrangement of clones onto a spline.
Align Clone
Activating this setting will make the clones follow the shape of the spline tangentially with their Z-axis.
Mode
Use this setting to dene how the clones will be spaced on the spline:
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Count: Use the neighboring “Count” setting to dene the number of clone segments. Clone spacing will not
be uniform, but dependent upon the spline interpolation (i.e. “Natural”, “Even” or “Adaptive”). This result is
more often not desired and can be countered by the following modes.
Step: Use the neighboring “Step” setting to dene the interval between clones along the spline. The spline
will be covered in its entiret y by clones.
Even: Use the neighboring “Count” setting to dene a number of clones. The clones will be arranged with
equal intervals along the spline.
Per Segment
At top: “Per Segment ” not active. At bot tom: “Per Segment” active.
Activate or deactivate this setting depending on whether the dened number of clones or steps should be applied to a spline as a whole
or per spline segment (each segment will then be viewed as an individual spline).
Smooth Rotation
At top: “Smooth Rotation” not active. At bottom: “Smooth Rotation” active. Long cylinders were cloned along a helix-shaped spline).
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If irregular results occur, as in the top half of the above image, this setting should be activated in order to achieve a more exact
calculation of angles for all clones. Irregular results very often occur when splines with few dened vertices are used. Nevertheless,
activating this option can also lead to unwanted results:
Top: “Smooth Rotation” not active. Bot tom: “Smooth Rotation” active.
Both marked clones are located on a straight spline segment. If “Smooth Rotation” is active, the clones will be rotated smoothly, thus
preventing a tangential orientation (which can occur if “Smooth Rotation” is not active).
Offset
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A spline always has a beginning (yellow in point mode) and an end (red). If “Offset” is set to 0%, clones will be arranged from the
beginning to the end of the spline. If the “Offset” value is raised, the rst clone (as well as all subsequent clones) will be arranged further
along the spline, in accordance to the value entered. If “Loop” is also active, all clones will be arranged along the spline in a complete
loop. If “Loop” is not active, the clones that are arranged past the end of the spline will be deleted. Setting the “Rate” slider to a value
not equal to 0% will cause the clones to circle in the course of an animation (setting keys for “Offset” will not be necessary).
Offset Variation
Use this setting to vary the otherwise equal intervals between clones.
Start / End
Use these settings to limit or expand the arrangement of clones along the spline.
Loop
If “Offset” and “Rate” are set to values not equal to 0%, clones arranged past the end of the spline will be deleted (“Loop” not active)
or seamlessly (without transition) reinserted at the beginning of the spline (“Loop” active).
“Loop” should always be activated if the clones should circle endlessly on the spline.
Rate
“Rate” basically functions like “Offset”, with the exception that the clones will move automatically when the animation is played,
without having to set keys. This setting denes the distance the clones should travel per frame of animation. Activate “Smooth Rotation”
if any irregular movement should occur.
Rate Variation
Use this slider to randomly vary the clones’ velocity. If the value dened is high enough, individual clones can even be made to move
in reverse. Values less than 0% and greater than 100% can also be dened.
Random Seed
This setting inuences the random dispersion of velocity of the clones. Vary this value to randomly vary the clones’ velocity.
Particles (CINEMA 4D)
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If a Cloner is used in conjunction with a CINEMA 4D emitter, a clone will be created for each particle. This, combined with the numerous
available Effectors, offers possibilities above and beyond what the CINEMA 4D particle system by itself can offer.
Align Clone
If this setting is active, the clone’s Z-axis will be aligned with the particle velocity vector, which will result in a tangential behavior along
the particle path. The Emitter’s “Tangential” setting must also be activated.
Velocity Stretch
Use this slider to stretch the clones in the direction of the velocity vector. The clones will be stretched proportional to the particle speed.
The greater the particle speed, the more the clones will be stretched, independent of the value entered for “Velocity Stretch”.
Particle Scale
The Emitter’s “End Scale” setting can be used to generate uniform particle grow th. This slider merely multiplies this Emitter setting.
Particles (Thinking Particles)
Thinking Particles can also be used in conjunction with MoGraph. Simply drag the desired Thinking Particles group from the Thinking
Particles Settings (Plugins / Thinking Particles / Thinking Particles Settings) into the “Object” eld. Clones will then be created for the
particles.
Include Sub Groups
If this setting is active, sub - groups (in the order they are arranged in the Thinking Particles Settings) of the particle group placed into
the “Object” eld will also be included.
Behavior
Two types of behavior are available:
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Standard TP: Reects the normal behavior of Thinking Particles, with the exception that the clone size can be
varied via the “Particle Scale” slider. The “Particle Scale” slider multiplies the value dened for the “Size” setting,
for example for the “P Storm” node.
Stretch TP: When in this mode, clones can be scaled along the velocity vector using the “Velocity Stretch”
slider. Clone size can be dened using the “Particle Scale” slider. “Particle Scale” multiplies the value dened
for the “Size” setting, for example for the “P Storm” node.
Linear Mode
When in this mode, a clone’s child objects will be arranged linearly (can also be curved), originating from the Cloner. The clone’s
“Position”, “Rotation” and “Scale” settings can be modied which will cause the child objects to move accordingly.
Clones
Use this setting to dene in which order a clone’s child objects should be cloned. The following options are available:
Cluster
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Three objects cloned in “Cluster” mode (“Fix Clone” not ac tive). The three original objects were placed a slight distance apart; if all
would have been placed at the same location, each of the resulting clone clus ters would have consisted of three clones at the same
location.
A clone’s child objects will quasi be packed into one cluster and this cluster will be cloned as a whole.
Iterate
A clone’s child objects will be cloned in the order they are arranged in the Object Manager, from top to
bottom.
Random
A clone’s child objects will be arranged randomly when cloned. The random arrangement can be varied by
modifying the neighboring “Seed” value.
Blend
This mode has two functions: First, it can blend parametric primitives with differing settings, as shown
below:
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In the image above, two parametric cubes were cloned, each of which have differing settings “Scale” and “Fillet
Radius” settings. The “Blend” ensures a correct interpolation of the object settings. The blend mode can also
be applied to more than two child objects at once, whereby the interpolation of the settings will take place in
the order they appear in the Object Manager. The parametric primitives must all be of the same type (otherwise
no parametric interpolation will result!). Settings or options not able to be interpolated cannot be modied
smoothly, but will abrupt.
Example:
The “Blend” mode can also be used to blend spline shapes. The best results can be achieved if both splines have
approximately the same number of vertices.
Lights, including their colors and many other settings, can also be cloned, the results of which can be very
interesting:
2 Cloner Object - MoGraph Reference Manual • 21
In this example, color, shadow density and the diameter of the visible light were blended.
Two Cloners (each in “Grid” clone mode) were made children of a third in “Linear” mode (“Clone” set to “Blend”;
“Fix Clone” not active, P.X”, “P.Y” and “P.Z” =0).
The “Blend” setting can be used to blend dif ferent Cloners.
Sort
The “Sor t” mode rst exes its muscle when used in conjunction with Effectors (those that support this mode
must have their “Parameter” tab’s “Modify Clone” value set to greater than 0%). The respective Effector can
then vary position, scale, rotation, etc. as well as the sequence of child objects used to affect the Cloner. If no
Effector were applied, only the rst child would be cloned.
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Example:
A Shader Ef fector was used in the previous image. The child objects are analyzed in the sequence they are
arranged and affect the cloning process accordingly (black=rst object; white=last object).
Fix Clone
If this setting is not active, differences in position, scale and rotation between the Cloner and the objects to be cloned will be made
apparent by the fact that the clones will also be rotated, scaled or moved. This makes sense especially in the “Cluster” clone mode since
the objects to be cloned would otherwise share the same location (see next image).
If this setting is active, the rst clone will assume the position, scaling and rotation of the Cloner (for you XPresso lovers out there: its
matrix will be assumed).
At top are the three objects to be cloned, each at a slightly different location. Center: “Fix Clone” not active. Bot tom: “Fix Clone” active.
If this option is not active, position, scale and rotation values of animated objects to be cloned will be assumed for the clones.
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Fix Texture
An arrangement of clones with a texture applied as a sur face projection. Lef t: No Effector. Center and right: Random Effec tor with “Fix
Texture” not active and “Fix Texture” active, respectively.
If a Cloner is textured, the “Fix Texture” setting will dene if the texture should be projected onto the arrangement of clones not
affected by the Effectors, thus xing it on the clones. If the clones are then moved or rotated via an Effector, the texture will move with
it. Otherwise the clones will basically move through the texture and will be affected by the texture according to their location.
This method works with every projection type, except for UVW -mapping.
Count
Enter the number of clones to be created here. Each clone will be moved, rotated or scaled by a certain value relative to the previous
clone in accordance with the values entered for P.X., P.Y, P.Z, R.X, R.Y, R.Z, S.H, S.P or S.B.
Offset
“Offset” will move the rst clone, in accordance with the value entered, in the direction of subsequent clones, thus offsetting the entire
line of clones. The function graph can also be used to dene how “Offset” will be applied along the length of the line of clones.
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Mode
Use this mode to dene if the “Position”, “Rotation” and “Scale” settings should apply per step (“Per Step”) or end point (“End Point”:
the values will be interpolated between the start and end points). You can switch modes at any time.
The Step Effector has a similar function. The Step Effector also offers you a spline graph which can be used to dene how the modied
settings should be applied along the length of the clone.
Amount
An increasing “Amount” value from lef t to right. Only the position of each clone changes (scale and rotation can also be modied).
This slider affects the actual effectiveness of the nine clone settings below it (position, scale, rotation), starting at “0”. Mathematically
seen, “Amount” is merely a multiplying factor that affects these nine settings. This setting can be used to create good-looking growth
effects.
Position, Scale, Rotation
Use these settings to dene if and how clones should be modied relative to the next clone’s position, scale or rotation.
If “Per Step” is selected, the values will reect the difference to the previous or next clone. If “Endpoint” is selected, the values will
reect the difference between the rst and last clone, and the values in-between will be interpolated. The position of the last clone can
be modied interactively by dragging the orange handle in the editor view (as long as the “Step” settings have not been modied).
The Step Functionality
The “Linear” mode can also be used to arrange clones along a curve or spiral, not just in a straight line, as the name may suggest. This
can be done using the following settings:
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Step Mode
From lef t to right: “Cumulative” and “Single Value” modes, respectively.
Use “Step Mode” to dene if the change in rotation should steadily increase from clone to clone (“Single Value”) or between the rst
clone and the last clone, starting at “0” (“Cumulative). The latter results in spiral- like clone arrangements.
Step Size
From lef t to right: Decreasing “Step Size” value (the spiral shape was a result of entering rotation values for all three “Rotation” settings).
Use this setting to dene the step interval between individual clones. This is paramount to scaling the entire arrangement of clones
(not only the clones themselves!), starting from the origin of the Cloner.
“Step Size” can also be used to animate a telescope extending (the “Amount” setting cannot be used to achieve this effect since it
would simultaneously increase the cylinder diameter).
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Telescoped cylinders with varied “Step Size” values in “Per Step” mode.
Step Rotation
Use these three elds to dene the curvature of the “clone line”. If all values are set to 0°, no curvature will occur. Raising these values
will increase the cur vature accordingly.
Step Rotation H/ P/B
Modifying at least two of these values will result in the spline being spiraled; modifying only one of these values will cause the spline
to bend in the direction of the respective value (H=Y-axis; P=X-axis; B=Z-axis).
Radial Mode
Selecting this mode will arrange a clone’s child objects circularly around the center of the Cloner.
Clones / Fix Clones / Fix Texture
These settings work exactly as described for the “Linear” setting.
Count
Use this setting to dene the number of clones to be arranged onto the radius.
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Radius
This is the radius onto which the clones will be arranged around the Cloner. The radius can also be edited interactively, simply by
dragging the orange handles in the editor view.
Plane
Use this setting to dene the axis plane on which the circle and clones should lie, whereby the Cloner’s coordinate system remains the
deciding factor.
Align
If this setting is active, each clone will be arranged with its X-axis tangential to the circle. If this setting is not active, each clone will
orient itself in accordance with the Cloner’s coordinate system.
Start Rotation / End Rotation
Use these settings to dene onto which part of the circle the clones should be arranged. Values less than 0% and greater than 100%
can also be dened (this will result in overlapping).
Offset
Use this setting to let the clones move along the circle.
Offset Variation
Use this setting to randomize the arrangement of clones for a more “coincidental” look.
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Grid Array
Selecting this mode will arrange a Cloner’s child objects in a grid-like manner. This can be used to achieve effects such as the one
below:
The object (insert) was cloned and its rotation varied in the “Grid Array” mode.
Some very nice effects can be achieved by letting an Effector y through such an arrangement of clones.
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Since using “Grid Array” can generate very many objects, thus slowing the editor view, the following CINEMA 4D level of detail settings
can be used:
Editor view: Display / Level of Detail
Display Tag. Assign the Tag to the Cloner.
Clones / Fix Clones / Fix Texture
These settings work exactly as described for the “Linear” setting.
Count
Use this setting to dene the number of clones to be arranged in the X-, Y-, and Z- directions.
Size
Use this setting to dene the scale (expansiveness) of the entire arrangement of clones in the X-, Y-, and Z-directions. The orange
handles can also be used to resize the arrangement of clones interactively.
Form
There are three types of forms from which to choose: “Cube”, “Sphere” and “Cylinder”. As you can see in the example above, when in
“Cylinder” or “Sphere” mode, superuous clones that don’t t into the shape will simply be ignored.
Fill
Lowering this value will reduce the number of clones on the inside of a dened shape accordingly – even to the point where the shape
is made hollow (only its outer shell will remain).
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Transform Tab
Display
Use these settings to aid in displaying various clone properties. These properties will be displayed in the editor view in the form of
colored vertices (it may be necessary to hide the objects to be cloned in order to be able to see the vertices). The following options
are available:
None: The vertices will not be visible.
Weight: Each clone’s weighting will be displayed from red (0%) to yellow (max. weighting).
UV: The internal UV-coordinates will be shown, starting at 0,0,0 (black), i.e. black to red, black to green and
black to blue, respectively.
Color: The clone color.
P.X, P.Y, P.Z, S.X, S.Y, S.Z, R.H, R.P, R.B
Use these settings to rotate, move or scale each clone using its own coordinate system. Simple animations can be dened that will
affect each clone uniformly. For example, modif ying the “R.H” value will make all clones rotate uniformly around their Y- axis.
Even more control can be gained by also applying Effectors, which can affect individual clones using certain scaling factors.
Color
Included in MoGraph are several shaders that work in conjunction with Cloners. If a material containing a MoGraph color shader is
assigned to a Cloner, each clone will assume this color as its “initial color”, which can subsequently be inuenced by Effectors.
Weight
Use this setting to assign each clone an initial weighting. Each Effector can then use this value to affect the clone accordingly. More
about what can be done using weighting is explained in chapter 3 under “Weight Transform”.
Time
Let’s say an object has been cloned whose position (or any other setting) was animated. The clones will assume this animation with
the delay dened here.
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If the “Fix Clones” option is active, it may occur that only one of the animated settings will work. Animated position, scale or rotation
settings will not work.
Orientation (only in “Grid Array” mode)
Use this setting to dene the direction in which the W-axis if the UVW-coordinate system should point.
Animation Loop
If active, animations of parameter-animated clones will be looped.
Effectors Tab
Place all Effectors into this eld that should affect the Cloner. Effectors can be
added to this eld by:
Dragged into this eld from the Object Manager.
Creating a new Effector for an active Cloner.
Clicking on the green checkmark will deactivate the Effector, clicking on the red “x” will again activate the Effector. This can also be
done in the Object Manager. (the effect of the Effector will be applied globally).
Each Effector has a corresponding slider below the “Effectors” eld, with which the Effector’s strength can be adjusted. This value will
be multiplied with the Effector’s “Strength” setting.
Note:
Arranging the Effectors in different sequences (top to bottom) in the “Effectors” eld will lead do different
results. For example, if a Random Effector and a Spline Effector are placed into this eld: If the Spline Effector
is executed before the Random Effector, all clones will not be able to be arranged onto the spline, which would
be the case if the Random Effector were executed rst.
Also important is the sequence in which Effectors with weighting transformations are executed, i.e. if Effector
3 should use Ef fector 2’s weighting, Effector 3 should be placed after Effector 2 in the list.
The sequence of Effectors can be modied simply by dragging them to their desired positions.
3 Effectors
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3. Effectors
General
Effectors are objects that can affect the following:
Clones, matrix, text objects, etc., i.e. all MoGraph clone-generating objects.
MoGraph extruder objects (see chapter 4 “Extruder Object”).
“Normal” CINEMA 4D deformation-free objects (e.g. those that can be made a child of a Fracture Object).
As deformation objects on an object’s points or polygons (see also “Deformation Tab”).
Effectors must be arranged in the following manner in order to work:
Left, the Random Effec tor affects a Cloner Object; right, the Random Ef fector effects CINEMA 4D objec ts.
An Effector created for a clone-generating object will be placed in the Effector list (left).
What do Effectors do?
Effectors take existing clones, objects, object points (only their respective positions) or object polygons and vary their position, size,
angle and many other properties, according to Effector- specic idiosyncrasies (see chapter 3 “Parameter Tab”).
The Random Effector.
The Step Effector sequential.
The Shader Effector in conjunction with a texture, etc.
How do Effectors work?
For those who really want to know the nitty- gritty:
Effectors can be separated into two groups:
1. Effectors that ascertain an initial value per clone and transform them based on individual clone parameters
(those that can be found in the “Parameter” tab). These Effectors are:
Shader Effector: Ascertains an initial value from a texture’s gray scale.
Formula Effector: Ascertains an initial value based on a formula.
Random Effector: Ascertains an initial random value.
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Sound Effector: Ascertains an initial value based on the sound level of various frequencies.
Step Effector: Ascertains consecutive initial values between 0 and 1, which are then assigned to each clone.
Time Effector: Ascertains a steadily increasing initial value in the course of an animation.
These Effectors ascertain the respective initial value, multiply it by strength, min /max values, falloff, and with the values set in the
“Parameter” tab. Thus, a nal position for each clone is calculated. Sounds a little complicated, but don’t worry, MoGraph can also be
understood by those of you don’t read math books in your spare time...
2. Special Effectors that, for example, use a spline or other animated object, etc. to carry out some sort of
action. These Effectors are:
Inheritance Effector: Assumes the position or animation of a reference object.
Delay Effector: A special effect that affects every clone modication with regard to position, size and rotation
simultaneously, e.g. to let them all bounce.
Spline Effector: Arranges clones on a spline.
Target Effector: Arranges clones.
Group Effector: Groups Effectors into one Effector.
Note:
In the following, for the purposes of convenience and easier reading ow, the term “clone” is used in place of
listing “clone, matrix, text, extruder object, objects, object points, object polygons, etc.” each time.
Parameter Tab
Most Effectors have a “Parameter” tab in which all clone properties that should be affected by the Effector can be. Of course there are
exceptions to the rule, as is the case with the Target Effector – it does not have a “Parameter” tab.
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Some Effectors, like the Spline Effector or the Delay Effector, only have an effect on par t of the clone properties described below.
Irrelevant properties will be grayed out.
Transform Mode
From lef t to right: Result without Effector, “Relative” mode, “Remap” mode, both with a Shader Effector with an integrated gradient and
“Scale” transformation.
In the image above, the Effector affects the scaling of the clone. Depending on what transformation mode you select, the clones will
be scaled via addition to the original size (“Relative” – mathematical: “clone parameter” + (clone parameter*Effector value”) or starting
from “0” (“Remap”, mathematically: “clone parameters*Effector value”).
Select “Absolute” when applying position transformation. The clones will generate in the direction of a point dened with P.X, P.Y
and P.Z.
Left the result, right the Shader Effector containing the gradient (inser t) and with a position transformation applied.
Transformation Space
Most clone transformations that require a direction, e.g. position, angle or rotation, can be assigned a coordinate system here. Imagine
this coordinate system in each clone, from which point the transformation takes place. You can select from the following:
Clone: The clone coordinate system.
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Effector: The Effector coordinate system.
Object: The object coordinate system of the object generating the clones (e.g. the Cloner Object itself).
Position, Scale, Rotation
These parameters let you do the following:
1. You can dene what the Effector should vary: Position, scale and/or angle. Simply activate the desired option
and additional parameters will be made available correspondingly.
2. Dene areas in which the Effector should vary the clones with respect to position, scale and angle, based on
the individual capabilities it was given.
Simply put, the Effector establishes values between 0% and 100%, whereby 100% reects the maximum values that can be entered
for position, scale and angle.
Example:
A Shader Effector has been applied in conjunc tion with a black- and -white gradient. Black=0% and white
=100%. If you now enter a value of 300m for P.Y, 300m will be the maximum Y-distance the clones will be
moved by the Effector (to the location where the shader is colored white).
Scale
The following options will be made available when “Scale” is activated:
Uniform Scale: The clones will be scaled uniformly in all three directions. If this option is not active, each
direction can be set separately.
Absolute Scale: It can occur, that negative weighting or scaling can result if unusual settings have been applied
(e.g. cloned particles in conjunction with a Random Effector). The clones will then point in the wrong direction.
Activating this option will eliminate this effect.
Color
Left: Shader Effector. Right: Random Effector
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The color modes primarily dene if and how colors interpolated by an Effector will be combined with clone colors – those of the object
from which the clones have been generated (see chapter 6, “Color Shader”). The Shader Effector and Random Effector are, though,
somewhat different. Both generate shader and random colors when in the “Effector Color and Alpha” and “Effector Color no Alpha”
modes, whereas other Effectors only output grayscales.
Off: No color transformation. The clones will receive the color dened in the Cloner.
Color with Effector Alpha: Use the color slider to dene a color to be mixed with the original clone’s color,
taking into account the alpha value of the Effector itself (the gray scale that corresponds to the “Effector Color
no Alpha” mode).
Color no Alpha: Use the color slider to dene a color with which the clones will be colored, taking into account
the falloff. This color has nothing to do with the Effector-specic transformation, i.e. it doesn’t matter if you dene
the color for a Formula Effector or a Step Effector, the clones will be colored uniformly within the falloff.
Effector Color no Alpha: When applying the Shader Effector in conjunction with a Random Effector, the shader
dened in the Shader Effector’s “Shading” tab will interpolate random colors. When using other Effectors, a
gray scale value corresponding to the Effector’s effect will be interpolated.
Effector Color and Alpha: See aforementioned point. In addition, an Effector-specic alpha channel will be
taken into account (interpolated from the gray scale values of the colors created).
All modes, except for “Off ”, offer a “Blending Mode” menu from which you can dene the mode with which the interpolated colors
should be mixed with the Cloner’s colors. The following modes are available:
Mix: An average color between that of the Effector color and of the Cloner Object will be interpolated.
Add, Subtract, Multiply: The colors will either be added, subtracted or multiplied.
Divide: The Cloner’s color will be divided component- wise through the Effector color. This mode is not really
a very effective one – it’s more for playing around with.
Weight Transform
Imagine you can use one Effector to control any number of other Effectors: If, for example, a texture (Shader Effector) should dene
where the transformation of a Random Effector should have an effect. This is what “Weight Transform” does.
Basically, weighting can lie anywhere between 0% and 100%. The weight of any clone can be made visible by selecting the “Weight”
display mode in the clone-generating object’s “Transform” tab. When that clone-generating object is active, the weight of each of its
clones will be displayed and assigned a color between red and yellow, depending on the amount of weight it has (it may be necessary
to make the clone- generating object invisible).
Red: Weight = 0%
Yellow: Weight = 100%
This weighting can be used by any other Effector when this Effector’s “Weight” slider in the “Falloff” tab is varied.
Example:
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Above is an array of clones with a single cloned cube in the “Grid Array” clone mode. A Step Effector with the “Spline” function graph
(see insert) was assigned to the cloned object. All settings for the Step Effector’s “Parameter” tab have been deactivated, except for
“Weight Transform”, which was set to 100%. The only thing the Step Effector does now is give each clone a weighting of between 0%
and 100%, as the red-to- yellow coloring of the grid shows.
If, for example, you want to use this weighting to control a Random Effector, follow these steps:
Create a Random Effector and assign it to the Cloner. Make sure the Random Effector is executed after the
Step Effector is executed (Cloner’s “Effectors” tab). Subsequently, make the desired changes to the position,
scale and angle settings.
Set the Random Effector’s “Weight” in the “Falloff” tab to 0%. It’s also a good idea to set “Shape” to
“Innite”. Otherwise the Effector’s falloff may still have an inuence (unless, of course, this is exactly the effect
you want...).
The result:
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In the image above, the effects of position-, scale -, and angle transformation (and, if desired, all other transformations) caused by the
weighting of the Step Effector can be seen. Using this weighting, any number of additional Effectors can be made to affect the Cloner.
Sometimes it may be necessary to reset this weighting: The weighting can be set back to a dened starting value of 0% by creating a
Shader Effector and setting its “Strength” value to 100% and “Maximum” and “Minimum” values to 0%, respectively (“Effector” tab).
This shader must then be arranged behind all other shaders within the cloned object that are affected by the initial weighting.
U / V Transform
All clones have internal UV- coordinates (they have nothing to do with texturing), with which the effect of each Effector is calculated.
U / V Transform can be used to affect how Effectors that use these UV-coordinates, e.g. the Formula Effector, work.
Modify Clone
Use this parameter if you want an Effector to affect a clone’s child objects. This can be useful if the following is true:
You have made several objects to be cloned children of a Cloner.
The “Clone” setting has not been set to “Cluster”.
We suggest the “Sort” mode, which will make the effect more visible.
Example:
The Cloner Object in the image above was set to “Sort” and was subsequently assigned a Step Effector (see “Step Effector). A “Modify
Clone” setting of 100% will produce a result as shown above. The distribution of clones will change in accordance with any changes
made to the “Modify Clone” setting. Values less than 0% or greater than 100% are also possible, which will vary the number of child
objects used to create clones.
“Modify Clone” also works with other Cloner Object modes – the setting then simply modies the number of clones to be modied:
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The Step Ef fector curve (insert) causes the ef fects shown above when “Random” mode has been selected. The “Modify Clone” value increases
from lef t to right.
Time Offset
A cylinder animated using two different deformation objects: Left, a Shader Effector; right, a Step Effector.
Lets say you have an object, animated solely via parameter animation (light source, deformation object, etc.). It would be nice if an
Effector could generate clones from that object at different intervals. This is what “Time Offset” does.
In the image above, Taper and Bend objects were animated from frame 0 to 20. Each Effector was assigned a “Time Offset” value of
20 - the Effectors distribute the clones with the temporal offset in accordance with the gray scale values (Shader Effector), i.e. from
clone 0 to the last clone (Step Effector) or from wherever the corresponding Effector draws its input values.
Visibility
Use this setting to affect the visibility of clones. This option can’t be used with every Effector, though. This option can, for example,
be used in conjunction with the Random Effector to randomly make clones invisible (make sure “Minimum” is set to -100%). The Step
Effector and Shader Effector will hide clones set to “0”. This can occur with the Step Effector at the point at which the spline is set to
“0” along the X-axis. In the case of the Shader Effector, this will occur in areas of black.
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Deformer Tab
The main function of Effectors is to work together with Cloners (see chapter 2, “Cloner”), whereby the clones will be deformed
differently, depending on the Effector used.
All Effectors can also be used as deformation objects for normal polygon objects. Simply make the Effector a child of the object or make
it, together with other objects within a hierarchical level, a child of a parent object. The “Deformer” tab also offers several additional
useful settings. As you can see in the screen shot above, there are only a few transformations from which you can choose.
Note:
Using an Effector as a deformation object is useful if, for example, you want objects already placed under a Null
Object to affect and Ef fector without the use of a clone-generating object. All objects will be treated equally,
i.e. the Random Effector will arrange all objects with an offset of, for example, 1000m. The Effector cannot
assign different values to different objects. If you want do to this, though, these objects must be made children
of a Fracture Object (see chapter 4).
Deformation
Various options are available, depending on how an Effector should af fect objects:
Off: No deformation.
Object: The objects as a whole will be modied.
Point: Each point will be moved individually.
Polygon: Each polygon will be moved individually using its own polygon coordinate system.
In the image below, the Random Effector was used to demonstrate how each element is moved.
From lef t to right: “Object” mode, “Polygon” mode, “Point” mode. In the example on the right, all polygons were disconnected as well (main
menu: Functions/Disconnect).
You can also use splines to transform objects using the Spline Effector, assuming the object has been sufciently subdivided. A torus
was used to create the examples pictured below.
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Increasing Spline Effector s trength values from lef t to right with “Deformation” mode set to “Point”.
Or how about a Simple Ef fector (a Shader Effector without a shader, only position transformation), whose falloff is dened by
particles:
The Effector falloff (in this example using a Plane) is dened by a radius around each particle.
As you can see, a myriad of possibilities is available. As is the case with so many CINEMA 4D features, experiment to your heart’s content
– there’s much to be discovered just by playing around with various settings.
Note:
There are some limitations when using Effectors as deformation objects: Transformation of color, “Time Offset”,
weighting, etc. will not work. Concentrate on using the “Parameter” tab’s “Transform” menu. The Target Effector
and Group Effector cannot be used as deformation objects.
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Falloff Tab
General
All Effectors have their own “Falloff ” tab. Use the settings in the “Falloff ” tab to dene properties such as shape, expansion and much
more for that Effector. Thus, the Effector can be limited in its spatial expanse (also with splines, particles, etc.). In the following, a
Shader Effector without a loaded texture will be used to explain the settings that inuence the R.P of each clone. Falloff works analog
to any other parameter to be inuenced.
The falloff of a spherical Effec tor. The actual falloff begins outside of the red radii.
An Effector’s dimensions are displayed using the following colors:
Yellow: Maximum Effector expanse, beyond which it has no effect.
Rot: The Effector’s strength is at its maximum within the red radii, outside of which the falloff begins, and
continues to the yellow radii.
Orange: Grabbers that can be moved interactively to adjust the Effector or falloff.
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If you animate an Effector to pass through a group of clones, the falloff settings can be used to create soft transitions between areas
not affected by the Effector and areas affected by the Effector.
An animated Effector with properly adjusted falloff settings results in a uniform displacement as it passes through a group of clones .
Shape
Clockwise from the top lef t: “Box”, “Sphere”, “Cylinder”, “Linear”, “Source” (spline), “Source” (particle).
You can select from the following:
Innite: No falloff will be applied to the strength of the Effector. The Effector will affect the entire scene with
full strength.
Box, Cylinder, Sphere: The corresponding shape will result.
Linear: Falloff will take place along the Effector’s Z-length. The following applies: Full strength in the negative
Z-direction, no strength in the positive Z-direction.
Source: Splines or particles can be used and the falloff will take place within a certain distance surrounding
the spline or particle.
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Invert
Inverts the falloff.
Visible
Use this setting to turn the Effector’s visible radius on or off (as long as “Shape” is not set to “Innite”).
Weight
Use this setting to dene to what degree an Effector should take into account any potential clone weighting (see also “Weight
Transform”). A value of 100% means that the Effector will ignore the clone weighting; a value of 0% means the clone weighting will
have a maximum effect.
Scale
Use this setting to dene the three-dimensional size of the Effector.
Shape Source (Spline)
Sample Distance
Left a lesser, right a greater “Sample Distance” value.
Internally, a number of sample points (set using “Sample Detail”) are assumed along the spline, around each of which a radius is created.
The clones will be affected within these radii. If “Sample Detail” is set high enough, a tube will be visible around the spline, its radius
equal to the “Sample Distance” setting.
Note:
Interesting effects can be achieved when used in conjunction with the Displace Deformer (see chapter 4,
“Displace Deformer”).
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Sample Detail
As you already know “Sample Detail” denes the detail with which the spline form will emulate the sample points. The higher the value
set, the longer it will take to calculate and the more accurate the emulation will be.
Source Link
Drag a spline from the Object Manager into this eld on whose basis the effect of the Effector should be calculated.
Shape Source (particle)
Effectors can have an ef fect within a certain radius ( “Sample Distance”) around particles.
Sample Distance
The Effector will have an effect around a particle within the distance dened here. Falloff will have an effect ranging from the center
of each particle to the dened “Sample Distance” value.
Source Link
Drag the emitter (CINEMA 4D) or particle group (Thinking Particles module) into this eld.
Scale
Use this setting to scale the entire Effector, including falloff and the corresponding radii.
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Falloff
An increasing “Falloff” value from lef t to right.
Use the “Falloff” setting to dene the radius (red) within which falloff should have an effect. The Effector’s effect will be full strength
ranging from its center to this (red) radius. The Effector’s effect will fall off to zero from the red radius to the yellow radius (“Scale”).
If “Falloff” is set to zero, the Effector’s strength will be full strength within its overall size (yellow radius: “Scale”). If “Falloff” is set to
maximum, a uniform transition from the Effector’s center (max) to its overall size (“Scale”(min)) will take place.
Tip:
You can achieve some nice effects by letting Effectors with a maximum “Falloff” value pass through clone
groups!
Clamped
Normally, the falloff value lies between 0 and 1. This setting is acceptable for most areas of use: Let’s say you set an Effector’s P.Y value
to 200m. The strength of its effect is strongest at its center so the clone will be located at P.Y=200m. There are times, though, when
you want to dene larger values, independent of the “Falloff” value. To do so, deactivate the option and the resulting effect within the
effective falloff will be increased dramatically.
Using this method, you can create interesting “controlled” explosions:
Create a Random Effector and activate the “Position” option (“Parameter” tab).
Set “Shape” to “Linear” in the “Falloff ” tab and move the Effector through the clone group.
Spline
You can custom-dene a falloff using this spline curve. Dene the falloff that will take place between the red (falloff begin) and yellow
(max. effect range) radii.
Spline Animation Speed
If the falloff you dened using the spline curve should take place over time, enter a value greater than “0” here. A value of 100%
represents a one- second cycle.
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Group Effector
Three Ef fectors in one Group Effec tor.
The Group Effector is useful for grouping various Effectors that should be executed at a specic time via the “ReTime” function. If, for
example, you’ve discovered an interesting or especially effective combination of a Step Effector and a Random Effector, you can group
them in a Group Effector and assign the Group Effector to other objects as desired, without having to again assign the individual
Effectors.
Strength
As is the case with all Effector, the “Strength” slider denes the Effector’s strength. Values less than 0% and greater than 100% can
also be dened.
ReTime
Let’s say you’ve used a Group Effector to group several Effectors that have animated settings and the timing is a little off. You can
either modify each Effector’s animated setting or you can simply activate the “ReTime” setting and each animation within the “Start”
and “End” frame range will be compressed. This works best if all animations begin at frame “0”.
Start / End
Dene the frame range within which the Effector animation should take place. The smaller the frame range, the faster the animation
will run.
Effectors
Drag all Effectors from the Object Manager into this eld that you want to place into the Group Effector. These Effectors will then no
longer be assigned individually to the cloned object. Otherwise their effect would be doubled. Only the Group Effector will be present
in each Effector’s Effector list. The Effectors will be executed in their dened sequence (see chapter 2, “Ef fectors Tab”).
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Shader Effector
Above, a noise (Voronoi) is used to dene position and rotation of the clones via its gray scale values.
The Shader Effector primarily uses a texture’s gray scale values to transform clones. To do this, the texture somehow needs to be
projected onto the clones. UV-mapping is used in place of texture tags.
The Shader Texture can also be used to color clones (as well as lights!) directly. Simply dene the following:
A texture in the “Shading” tab (faster method) or
Drag a material containing a texture in a texture channel onto the Shader Effector and select the corresponding
texture channel in the “Shading” tab’s “Channel” menu. In case you have several texture tags, simply drag the
corresponding tag into the “Texture Tag” eld. (offers better projection control).
When using linear or radial clone modes, we recommend using the “2D - U” “Color Gradient” shader.
Note:
The Shader Effector serves well as a “basic” Effector if, for example, you only want to inuence the clones based
only on their position, scale and angle falloff settings. Make sure no shader or texture tag has been loaded in
the “Shader” tab.
Effector Tab Settings
Strength
Use this slider to adjust the overall strength of the effect. A s usual, values less than 0% and greater than 100% can be entered.
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Minimum / Maximum
Use these settings to reduce or expand the effect’s area of inuence.
Example:
“P.Y” has been set to 200m in the “Parameter” tab. A noise shader, that normally provides values between “0”
(black) and “1” (white), will vary between 0m and 200m, relative to “Minimum” and “Maximum” values of 0%
and 100% respectively. If you would set “Minimum” to 30% and “Maximum” to 120%, the clones would be
placed between 60m and 240m respec tively.
Shading Tab Settings
The following settings are the same as for the Displace Object (see chapter 4, “Displace Object”), with the exception that the Displace
Object lets textures be projected onto object points, and not onto clones.
Channel
There are basically two methods for projecting textures onto a group of clones.
With the help of an additional texture tag.
With a shader that doesn’t contain a texture tag (then only UVW- mapping)
First, select a material channel from the “Shading” tab’s “Channel” menu, upon which the “Texture Tag” text eld will be made available.
You can then drag any texture tag from the Object Manager into this text eld. The texture contained in the material will now be
applied in the material channel you selected.
Edit
Clicking on this button will open the corresponding shader’s properties in the Attribute Manager for quick editing.
Texture Tag
If you select “Custom Shader” a tex ture selection menu will be made available. From this menu, a texture or bitmap to be used by the
Effector can be selected. We suggest the use of the texture tag method since it is simpler to use. Furthermore, the texture tools can be
used to adjust texture coordinates interactively.
Offset X/Y, Length X/Y
If “Custom Shader” is selected, several settings will be made available with which the tex ture can be moved (offset) or scaled (length)
within the UV-coordinates. When using noise shaders, though, “Space” should be set to “UV (2D)”.
Tile
Use this setting to dene whether or not the texture should be tiled.
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Use
Use this setting to dene how the Shader Effector should view the colors it elicited from the clones. This only applies to the assertion
of internal values, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, and not for the coloring of clones.
Alpha: If the shader or texture (e.g. a QuickTime video) contains an alpha channel, selecting this option will
evaluate the alpha channel. If no alpha channel is present, the gray scale values will be used.
Gray: The gray scale will be used.
Red, Green, Blue: Each color will be used individually.
Note: The “Alpha” mode does not work in conjunction with the layer shader. Use a different mode instead.
Invert Alpha
Inverts the effect of the alpha channel.
UVW-Mapping in MoGraph
MoGraph has a lot of mysterious settings beginning with “U” or “V”. The reason for this is that all clones possess internal U,V, and W
coordinates. This coordinate system always has a range from “0” to “1”. How this coordinate system spans the clones is illustrated in
the image below:
U,V,W coordinate span; text object from top to bottom; line text index; word text index; all text index.
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These UVW -coordinates have nothing to do with the texturing of clones. They serve exclusively to help Effectors assign each clone a
value so that it may be transformed.
Example:
In the image above, a simple cube was cloned linearly using a Cloner Object (insert top left). Next, assign a
Shader Effector (with “Scale” active and UVW-mapping) containing the gradient shown at center to the Cloner.
The rst clone’s “u” value = “0”, the last clone has a “u” value of “1”. The scaling of the clones is a result of the
applied gradient (type “2D - U”).
If the rst Cloner Object is now placed into the second Cloner Object (this time with clone mode set to “Radial”),
the result will be as pictured at the top left (insert).
If the second Cloner Object is also applied to the same Shader Effector, the result will be as pictured at the
right. Don’t forget that “u” runs along the radius where start and end points of the pictured gradient meet (1st
clone: u=0; last clone: u=1).
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Random Effector
Left, the initial state of the clones; right, the Random Effector was applied (position and angle were randomly modied).
Computer graphics can easily be recognized as such by its often all-to-uniform look. The Random Effector’s job is to give your clones an
irregular arrangement / look. This Effector’s abilities are not limited to just position, rotation or size but can also modify color, weighting
and more. Weighting in particular can help in achieving interesting effects when the Random Effector is used to simultaneously control
other Effectors (or inversely). See also “Weighting Transformation”.
Parameter Tab
Strength
Use the “Strength” slider to adjust the Effector’s overall strength.
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Minimum / Maximum
Use these sliders to decrease or expand the Effector’s range.
Example:
“R.H.” is set to 360° in the “Parameter” tab. If “Minimum” and “Maximum” are set to 0% and 100% , respectively,
the clone angles will randomly vary between 0° and 360°. If “Minimum” and “Maximum” were set to -25% and
+25%, respectively, the clone angles would randomly vary between -90° and +90°.
Random Mode
Clockwise from the top lef t: “Random Mode” “Random”, “Gaussian”, “Noise”, “Turbulence” (ver y large “Scale” values used for demonstration
purposes). Transformation was done with “P.Y”.
Four random modes are available:
Random / Gaussian: These two modes provide truly random results. “Gaussian” generally provides somewhat
lower values as does “Random”. Modifying the “Seed” value will result in completely dif ferent random values.
Noise / Turbulence: Internally, a 3D noise is used to supply the clones with random values. “Turbulence” ensures
that the noise is less uniform. “Noise” in particular is good for animating random values because it modies the
random values in a constant, harmonious manner. Basically, it has the same effect as noise loaded into a Shader
Effector. Noise / Turbulence offer the following settings:
Space: When set to “Global”, the noise is xed in space, i.e. when the Cloner Object moves, the clones receive
modiable random values, in addition to the temporal modication (if the animation speed is > 0). When set to
“UV”, the values (i.e. the spatial values, not those with regard to animation) remain constant when the Cloner
Object moves.
Scale: This value represents the noise’s global scale. In the image above, very large “Scale” values were used
for demonstration purposes, which actually has less to do with randomness. If the noise in the image above
were made much smaller, the wave-like structure would become much more inconspicuous. Eventually each
clone will really only randomly receive values from its neighbor.
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Synchronized
Activate this option if the same values for position, scale and angle, etc. should apply. Otherwise an individual random value will be
interpolated for each transformation.
Indexed
Important for “Noise” and “Turbulence” modes: If this option is not active, equal random values for X, Y, and Z will be ascertained
when “Noise” is sampled internally, which can lead to diagonal movement when an animation is played.
Activate this option to interpolate different random values, which will result in more random and natural movements.
Spline Effector
The Spline Effector takes the clones and arranges them in turn on a spline. Clones and spline points are numbered internally. Simply put
(i.e. without having changed any settings), the Spline Effector will arrange the rst clone at the start of the spline and the last clone at
the end of the spline. The positions of the clones that lie between the rst and last clones will be interpolated based on various settings.
This is all done by the Cloner Object as well. The trick is to get the various settings to make the clones move smoothly from their initial
position (or scale, or angle) onto the spline. The clones can also be moved relative along the length of the spline or a copy of the spline
will be assigned to each clone, along which the clones can move along (see below “Transformation”).
Settings
Strength
Use this slider to adjust the distance of the clones from the spline: A value of 0% means the clones will not approach the spline; a value
of 100% will place the clones directly onto the spline (in so far as no other settings oppose this action).
If you want various splines to blend into one another, make sure the start and end points of the clones and spline lie in very close
proximity of each other. Otherwise, an unwanted overlapping of clone movements could result.
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From lef t to right: Increasing “Strength” values. In the top row, clones and spline match (start and end points lie very close together); in the
bottom row, clones and spline are twisted in opposing direc tions.
Spline
Drag a spline object or tracer (see chapter 4, “Tracer) from the Object Manager into this eld.
Mode
There are three modes from which to choose. They have the following properties:
Step: The clones will be placed with equal intervals onto the spline.
Falloff: In this mode, the position of each clone is primarily dependent upon the Effector’s falloff setting.
Depending on the size of the falloff value, the clones will ow along the length of the spline. This works especially
well in conjunction with the “Linear” falloff type and a maximum falloff value.
Relative: If the clones have irregular intervals between them in the X, Y or Z directions before the Effector
has taken effect, these irregular intervals can also be retained, proportionally, by the clones arranged on the
spline.
A text object with an Effector in the “Let ters” tab. At top: “Step” mode. At bot tom: “Relative” mode.
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This is especially useful when working with tex t because the relative letter spacing will be maintained (only works with single- line
text).
Offset
If “Strength” is set to 100% , modifying “Offset” will make sure the clones wander along the spline. Lesser “Strength” values will
produce interesting effects.
This is the most important setting when it comes to letting clones wander along a spline.
Start / End
Every spline has a starting point and an ending point (these are colored yellow and red on splines made editable in point mode). Use
the “Start” and “End” settings to dene the area of the spline on which the clones should be arranged. If “Start” is set to 0% and “End”
to 100%, the clones will be arranged along the entire spline.
Tip:
If raising the “Strength” setting results in an intersection of clones, i.e. the rst clone lies on the end of the
spline and the last clone on the start of the spline, it often helps if you simply invert the positions of the “Start”
and “End” sliders.
Clamp
If an offset value not equal to 0% has been selected, this setting determines whether clones that land on a spline’s start or end points
should be deleted, or appear on the opposite end of the spline.
Segment Mode
If splines consisting of several segments are used, these settings dene the clones’ behavior on the splines. The following settings are
available:
Use Index: The segments are numbered (internally), starting at “0”. The “Segment” setting can be used to
dene a single segment to be used.
Even Spacing: The clones will be distributed equally across all spline segments, their intervals remaining
constant per segment.
Random: Clones will be distributed randomly across all spline segments. The random distribution can be
varied by modifying the “Seed” setting.
Transform Mode
Here are several Effector-specic settings: If “Absolute” is selected, the clones will be arranged directly onto the spline, which is exactly
what most users want.
The other modes are especially then useful, if both “Start” and “End” are set to 0%. The clones will then move as shown in the image
below when the “Offset” setting is varied:
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At top: A varied “Offset” setting and “Star t” and “End” set to 0 % . At bottom: Initial states with “Offset” set to 0% .
Relative to Spline: Varying the “Offset” value will move the clones in unison, relative to the spline, without
being placed onto the spline.
Relative to Node: Imagine a copy the spline on each clone (with its rst spline segment oriented in the direction
of the Z axis), which the clone follows via the “Offset” variation.
Activating “Rotation” will make the “R.H”, “R.P” and “R.B” settings available, with which each clone can be rotated according to its
coordinate system.
Inheritance Effector
Spectacular effects can be achieved by using the Inheritance Effector. Position, angle and animations are passed on (“inherited”) from
one object to another. Furthermore, an object’s clones can be more-or-less morphed onto the clones of another Cloner. In the past,
these types of effects were only possible using the Thinking Particles module.
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Settings
Strength
Use this setting to adjust the strength of the Effector’s inuence. 0% will have the same effect as deactivating the Effector itself. Values
less than 0% or greater than 100% can also be entered.
Inheritance Mode: Direct
In this mode, clones will inherit states directly from the “parent object”, without temporal delay.
Object
Drag the object (“parent object”) into this eld whose position, angle and size should be passed on. The results will differ, depending
on whether you drag a normal object or one of the MoGraph Cloner Objects (e.g. Cloner Object or Matrix Object, etc.) in to this eld.
The “parent object” can, of course, be animated.
Normal object
The “parent object” has been moved to a position across from the Cloner Object and rotated. This results in a transformation of the
clone’s position and orientation.
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Morph Motion Object
The Inheritance Effector can be used to transition from one Cloner Object to another (each in “Object” clone mode). The “Morph
Motion Object” option must be ac tivated.
If you use a MoGraph object (Cloner, matrix object, etc), the clones of the original object will be transferred to the clones of the
MoGraph object. When creating such effects, we suggest the Cloner Object and “parent object” contain pretty much the same number
of clones.
Morph Motion Object
If this option is activated, effects such as the one pictured in the previous image will result. If this option is not active, behavior as
described for “Normal Object” will result.
Inheritance Mode Animation
The reference object is rotated 90° in the course of the animation. Lef t: “Step Gap” = 0. Right: “Step Gap” = 2.
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Whereas “Inheritance Mode” “Direct” automatically activates the “Position”, “Scale” and “Rotation” settings, the “Inheritance Mode”
“Animation” transfers animation data which can be made to affect individual clones one after the other.
The following special settings are available.
Falloff Based
If this setting is activated, the clone will be affected by the reference object’s complete animation within the Ef fector’s falloff. Where
the Effector’s fallof f is zero (where the Effector’s maximum inuence lies), the reference object will be in its nal state; where the
Effector’s falloff has no inuence at all (outside of the Effector’s range of inuence), the reference object will be in its initial state. The
greater effect can be achieved by deactivating this setting.
Transform Space
Use this setting to dene how a conglomerate of clones should go about inheriting an animation. This can best be seen when applied
to an animated (rotation or scale) reference object:
Generator: The entire conglomerate of clones will rotate/scale around a single axis.
Clone: Each clone will rotate /scale around its own axis.
“Clone” and “Generator” modes.
Start / End
Use these settings to dene within which frame span the reference object should affect the clone. We suggest the reference object
animation be started at frame “0”. Otherwise, effects may result that are ver y difcult to control.
By varying the “Star t” and “End” settings, the speed of the transferred animation can be adjusted. The transferred animation can run
either faster or slower than the reference object animation.
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Example:
The reference object rotates 180° between Frames 0 and 20. The “Start” and “End” values are set to 100 and
150, respectively. The clones will now rotate in unison (“Step Gap” = 0) 180° from frame 100 to 150.
Animation
Use this setting to dene from which state the clones should inherit the animation:
From (Out): The reference object’s starting point.
To (In): The end of the reference object’s animation.
Step Gap
If you want each clone to inherit the reference object’s animation individually and with a certain time lag (instead of all clones inheriting
the animation at once), set “Step Gap” to a value greater than “0”. A value of “0” will let all clones inherit the animation simultaneously,
whereas a value of “2” will result in each clone animation beginning with a 2-frame delay to the clone before it.
The reference object’s rotation and angle can also be animated, which can result in interesting effects.
Loop Animation
Activate this setting if you want to loop the reference object’s animation for the clones. Other wise, the animation will stop after one
loop. This works best if “Animation” is set to “To (In)”.
Step Effector
The Step Effector works like this: Each dened transformation is applied to the last clone, and the transformation of the clones in
between (i.e. clone “0” to the last clone) is interpolated.
The Step Ef fector with “S.Y” set to “10”; the last clone is 10 times larger in the Y-direction than the rst clone.
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The following applies to the numbering of clones:
Clone mode “Grid”: When looking at the grid in the Z- direction: The rst clone is at the bottom left. The
sequence is basically as follows: 1st row at bottom front from left to right, 2nd row at bottom front from left to
right, etc., then from front to rear.
Polygon objects / splines: If cloning takes place on polygonal objects or splines, the rst clone is always the
one that is on the rst object point or spline point.
Particles: The rst clone will be on the temporally rst particle.
Instance object: The rst clone is the one directly behind the animated instanced object.
Strength
Use this setting to adjust the strength of the Effector’s inuence. 0% will have the same effect as deactivating the Effector itself. Values
less than 0% or greater than 100% can also be entered.
Minimum / Maximum
The values entered for the settings in the “Parameter” tab represent maximum values for those transformations. The Effector is free
to choose from a range of values between 0% and this maximum value if the “Minimum” and “Maximum” sliders are set to 0% and
100%, respectively. Adjusting these sliders will affect the range of values from which the Effector has to choose accordingly.
Example:
“R.P” is set to 90° in the “Parameter” tab. The following will apply:
Minimum = 0 %; Maximum = 100%: The rst clone will be located at 0°, the last at 90 °.
Minimum = -100%; Maximum = 100%: The rst clone will be located at - 90%, the last at +90% .
Spline
The transformation shown is a result of the spline setting (insert) and a “S.Y” setting of 10.
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Use these function graphs to inuence the interpolation between the rst and last clone. The interpolation will take place as it is shown
by the graph.
Step Gap
“Step Gap” set tings from lef t to right: 0,2,10.
Use this setting to inuence the interpolation values between the beginning clone and end clone. Increasing values greater than “0”
will result in a lessening of the difference between each clone; differences between clone groups, within which no transformations
take place, will still be evident.
Target Effector
The clones are oriented towards the “Object Target”. In this example, “Use Pitch” has been activated.
Use the Target Effector to make clones orient towards a Target Object, each other or the camera.
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Settings
Strength
Use this slider to adjust the strength of the Effector. A “Strength” setting of 0% means the Effector will have no effect.
Target Mode
Depending on the option selected, the clones will orient themselves according to:
Object Target: The clones will be oriented themselves with their Z-axis in the direction of the “Object Target”.
The “Object Target” is dened by dragging the desired object into the “Target Object” eld. If this eld is left
blank, the Target Effector itself will be used.
Look at Camera: The clones will always orient themselves with their Z-axis in the direction of the camera in
the 3D view.
Next Node / Previous Node: Each clone will orient itself with its Z-axis according to the previous or next clone.
In the example below, a torus was used to demonstrate:
Each clone orients itself according to the previous or next clone.
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Use Pitch
If this setting is activated, a clone’s Z-axis will always point to the “Object Target”; if this setting is not active, the rotation’s pitch
direction will remain unchanged. An up vector can also be set.
Reverse Heading
Instead of the positive Z-axis, the negative Z-axis will attempt to orient itself to the target.
Up Vector
Clockwise from top left: “Use Pitch” deactivated; “Use Pitch” active; additionally, “Up Vector” set to “Object”; additionally “Target Mode” set
to “Look at Camera”.
As soon as “Use Pitch” is activated, the clones will point with their Z-axis exactly in the direction of the position dened in “Target
Mode” (in as far as “Reverse Heading is not active). The rotation of the clones, though, is herewith still not set entirely. One of several
pre-dened vectors or “Object” can be selected from the “Up Vector” menu in whose direction the clones should be oriented with
their X- axis (in as far as the “locked” Z-axis permits).
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Repel
Clones can be pushed away from a target object (here red) by activating the “Repel” setting. “Distance Strength” here has been set to 100 %.
The following sliders appear when “Repel” is activated:
Distance: Denes the minimum distance the clones must have from the target object (or an Effector in other
modes) before being displaced.
Distance Strength: Use this slider to adjust the strength of the repulsion.
Time Effector
The Time Effector establishes its transformation values in accordance with the length of the animation. Thus, this Effector is ideal for
creating effects based on animation length without having to set keys.
Example:
Let’s say a bunch of clones should move at 300m / sec. Simply create a Time Ef fector and set “P.Y” to 300m.
That’s it. Without having set a single key, this bunch of clones will move with a constant 300m / sec. in the
Y-direction.
If, in addition, the weighting should change from 0% to 100 % within 10 second, simple set “Weight
Transformation” to 10%. Yep, that’s it, you’re done.
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In the example above, a Time Effector is used to affec t the clones in “P.Y”, with the fallof f shown (inser t graph). The ef fect will continue
endlessly, without a single key being set.
Except for the “Strength”, “Minimum” and “Maximum” sliders, the Time Effector has no other special controls. Use the “Strength” slider
to adjust the strength of the effect (values less than 0% and greater than 100% are possible). Use the “Minimum” and “Maximum”
sliders to limit or expand the value range accordingly.
Delay Effector
The Effector moving in a circular motion (not the Delay Effector!) drags a “trail” behind it as it moves. The “trail” is a result of the Delay
Effector.
The Delay Effector ensures that the effects of other Effectors with regard to position, scale and rotation do not begin abruptly, but
with a specied temporal delay. Basically an “effect trail” is dragged behind the corresponding Effector.
Important:
The Delay Effector should be arranged after the Effectors it should affect, i.e. it should be arranged after (below)
these Effectors in the MoGraph object’s “Ef fector” list in the “Effector” tab.
“Spring” is a very useful option for letting clone movements look more realistic. Using the Delay Effector saves time because adjustments
to the Timeline (e.g. Curves) are done more - or- less automatically that result in realistic movements.
Settings
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Strength
As is the case with all Effectors, this slider is used to dene the overall strength of the Effector.
Mode
The three available modes can be characterized as follows:
Blend: The clone states will rst be blended quickly, then slowly. Use the “Strength” slider to adjust the overall
speed with which this occurs.
Spring: As the name suggests, the clones will behave as though they have springs between them, resulting in
slight residual oscillation. Over-oscillation can also occur. Large values will increase residual oscillation, i.e. the
larger the value, the softer the springs.
Even: This mode will uniformly blend the clone states. Use the “Strength” setting to adjust the speed with
which this occurs.
Note:
Problems may be encountered when using this Effector in conjunction with scene motion blur (see “Post Effects
in your CINEMA 4D reference manual).
Sound Effector
Using the Sound Effector, clones can be transformed using the frequencies emitted by sound les!
Note:
If the audio sounds awed when played in the editor, deactivating “All Frames” under “Animation / Frame Rate”
in main C4D menu can help.
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Settings
Strength
As is the case with all Effectors, this slider is used to dene the overall strength of the Effector. Values less than 0% and greater than
100% can also be dened.
Minimum / Maximum
Use these sliders to limit or expand the internal range of values dened for the transformations.
Example:
“S.Y” is set to 30. If “Minimum” and “Maximum” have been set to 0% and 100%, respectively, the clones will
be scaled to 0 during times of absolute silence and to 30 when the frequency is loudest. If “Minimum” and
“Maximum” are set to 50% and 80% , respectively, the clones will consequently be scaled between 15 (silent)
and 26 (loud). Values less than 0% and greater than 100% can also be dened.
Sound File
Load a .wav or .aif sound le into this eld. The les must be uncompressed.
The following is supported:
11,22 kHz and 44 kHz
8- bit and 16-bit
One second of CINEMA 4D animation is equal to one second of sound from the sound le. In other words, if a CINEMA 4D animation
is played at 25 fps, the sound le’s frequency spectrum will also be interpolated (sampled) at 25 fps.
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Start Offset
Enter the frame at which the sound le should start playing here. If “100” is entered, the sound le will start to play at frame 100 and
the Sound Effector will have no effect before frame 100. A negative value can also be dened.
Apply Mode
Left: “Step” mode. Right: “All”; at the bottom left the clones are not affected by the Effector, the Sound Ef fector scales the clones only in the
Y-direction.
“Apply Mode” denes how the sound le should affect the clones. There are two options from which to choose:
All: Each clone will dget just like the other to the rhythm of the music. No differentiation is made between
frequencies.
Step: Frequencies will be assigned accordingly to clones, from clone 0 to the end clone. If, for example, the
“Linear” clone method was selected (as in the image above), the lower frequencies will affect the clones at the
left and the higher frequencies will affect the clones at the right. Higher frequencies will thus have an effect
upon the numbering of the clones. The Effector will affect the clones according to how high or low the volume
is set.
Falloff
This setting is only available if “Apply Mode” has been set to “All”. Use the “Falloff” setting to adjust how quickly the Effector value
will fall after peaking. A setting of 0% will cause the Effector value to fall instantaneously; increasing the “Falloff” setting will slow
the fall of the Effector value accordingly.
Sample Mode
In order for the Sound Effector to be able to ascertain workable values from the “chaos” of a sound le, a small excerpt (e.g. one
millisecond) is analyzed each time it is sampled. From this excerpt, frequency values are ascertained. How this happens is dened by
the following modes:
Peak: The peak within the excerpt is used.
Average: The average value within the excerpt is used.
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Switch: This mode offers only two states: 0 and maximum. If no tone is detected, “0” will be output; if even
the faintest tone is detected, the Effector will have a maximum effect.
The difference in resulting amplitude between “Average” and “Peak” are minimal. “Average” results in somewhat smaller amplitudes
than “Peak”.
Clamp Output
At top: “Lower Cutoff ” deac tivated; at bottom: active.
This setting is only available if “Sample Mode” is set to “Peak” or “Average”.
Activating this setting will cut the amplitudes off at a specied length. Even if a given sound le has a very high volume at certain
spots the Effector will only have an effect at those spots with the maximum value. Extremely high values that can result from large
compressions will thus be absorbed.
Lower Cutoff
The effect of a 440Hz sound le. The amplitudes can be “cleaned up” by setting “Lower Cutoff” to its maximum value.
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Use this setting to remove some of the chaos from the effects of the Sound Effector. Sounds are made up of a mixture of diverse
frequencies that are dif cult to single out. “Lower Cutoff” makes sure that frequencies with a lower volume are increasingly ignored
the higher this value is set.
Compression
Use this setting to increase the effects with quieter sounds.
Frequency Graph
This function graph offers you a visual representation of the frequency dispersion of the sound sample in its momentar y state. The
lower frequencies are depicted at the left and the higher frequencies at the right at their corresponding volume settings (decibels).
Furthermore, the frequency band is displayed in blue below. The graph will not be updated as the animation is played. Simply click on
the graph to get a view the current frequencies.
Filter Shape
Use this function graph to set a varying multiplier across the entire frequency spectrum. A straight line on the Y-level will inuence the
Effector’s effect, whereas areas near “0” will reduce the Effector’s effect to “0”.
Frequency Color
Cube clone using “Linear” mode and colored according to their frequency using “Frequenc y Color”. Additionally, the Sound Effector is set to
affect “P.Y”.
This color gradient will only work if “Color Mode” is set to “Effector Color no Alpha” in the Sound Effector’s “Parameter” tab. The
gradient reects the frequency band: Left the lower frequencies, right the higher frequencies. Note the cubes in the image above that
are only slightly affected by the Effector (volume is low in these segments) and have received only little color.
Use Filter
Activate this setting if you want to specify exactly which frequency range should be used by the Sound Effector.
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At left a small frequenc y excerpt, at right a larger excerpt. The Effector is set to affect “P.Y” only.
Specic frequency ranges can be ltered out of a sound le. For example, you can select a lower frequency range if you want to lter
out higher frequencies.
Frequency / Bandwidth
Use these settings to dene a frequency band to be used by the Sound Effector. If, for example, “Frequency” and “Bandwidth” are set to
2000Hz and 2000Hz, respectively, a frequency range between 1800Hz and 2200Hz will be used and the rest marked blue. If the frequency is
subsequently changed, the bandwidth will be calculated accordingly so the frequency range can maintain the same number of octaves.
If the bandwidth is too small only a relatively rough Effector resolution can materialize.
Left Channel / Right Channel
Use these settings to dene which channels should be used when playing stereo sound les. A mono sound le requires only one
channel.
Play
Press to play the sound le, press again to stop.
Scrub Sound
If this option is active, the sound le will be played while the animation plays or when the time slider is moved manually.
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Formula Effector
Now here’s an Effector that will put a smile on the faces mathematicians amongst you. This Effector lets you create complex formulas
with which you can control it.
The Formula Effector is not all that easy to understand, so let’s back up a little: You’re already familiar with the Shader Effector that
effects clones using a tex ture and its gray scale values. The areas of black are given an internal value of “0”, the areas of white a value
of “1”, and of course all the gray tones in -between that are also given an internal value. If, in the Shader Effector’s “Parameter” tab,
“P.Y.” is set to 300, clones will be moved in the Y-direction between 0m and 300m in accordance with the gray scale values.
So, how does the Formula Effector t into all of this? Instead of simple color or gray scale values, values from a formula are used that
dene where a given clone should be placed, between 0m and 300m (or outside of this range – simply add a “2” to the formula and
all clones will be placed at a height of 600m).
At top the initial state of the clones, at bot tom with the Formula Effector applied, containing the following formula: “sin((id/count)*360”.
In the example above, the Formula Effector uses the formula: “sin((id/count)*360”. As you can see, the results of the formula can vary,
depending on the sinus function between 1 and -1. If “P.Y” is set to 300m these values will be transformed and var y between -300m
and +300m. Consequently, if a simple “2” were entered into the “Formula” eld, the clones would be placed at 600m. Since a linear
arrangement of clones sets the value for the rst clone to u=0 and the value for the last clone to u=1, the same result can be achieved
by using the formula “sin(u*360)”.
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Settings
Strength
Use this slider to dene the strength of the Effector.
Minimum / Maximum
Use these sliders to adjust the Effector’s range of inuence. Values less than 0% or greater than 100% can be dened.
Let’s assume you have entered the following formula: “t*px”. If “Minimum” and “Maximum” were also set to 0% and 100%, respectively,
extreme values would quickly be reached. It would, therefore, be advisable to set “Maximum” to 1% (or even much smaller, depending
on your scene or the desired result).
Formula
The following variables can be used when writing a formula:
px, py, pz: X-, Y- or Z-coordinates
rx, r y, rz: Rotation for each dimension
sx, sy, sz: Scaling for each dimension
u,v,w: The (internal) UV-values for each clone
id: The individual clone number (all clones are numbered sequentially, beginning with “0”)
count: The clone number
falloff: The falloff value for each clone
t: Animation time, i.e. if this variable is added to the formula, it will automatically be animated. This setting
uses a slider as multiplier.
f: The frequency. This setting uses a slider as a multiplier.
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Varying “t” adjusts the animation speed, varying “f” varies the spatial frequency.
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4 Other Objects & Tags
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4. Other Objects and Tags
The Matrix Object
For the most part, the Matrix Object carries out the same functions as the Cloner. Therefore, please refer to the Cloner description in
chapter 2 for a description of all shared functions.
The Matrix Object has two main functions:
It creates orthogonal matrices as opposed to the clones created by the Cloner. This allows CINEMA 4D
deformation objects (e.g. bend objects, bones, etc.) to have an optimal effect on the Matrix Object (see
below).
For owners of the Thinking Particles module: In addition to matrices, Thinking Particles particles can be created.
What this basically means is that matrices and particles alike can be affected by Effectors.
Note:
The Matrix Object itself does not generate anything that can be rendered. How, then, is it possible to arrange
clones onto the matrices created? Easy: Create a Cloner (see chapter 2), set its “Mode” to “Object” and drag the
Matrix Object from the Object Manager into the “Object” eld. The Cloner’s child objects will now be arranged
onto individual matrix positions.
In the following, only those Matrix Object settings that differ from those of the Cloner will be described. These settings can be found
within the “Generate” setting.
Generate Matrices Only
When in this mode, matrices will be created that are displayed as small cubes, but cannot be rendered. (these matrices can be seen as
little coordinate systems whose orthogonal state will not be inuenced by deformers).
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So, what good are a bunch of little cubes that can’t be rendered?
Top: Initial state. Bot tom: Bend objec t applied.
Answer: A lot of good. In the image above, bend objects were used to affect clone arrangements. In both cases, the effect of position
and rotation are the same. However, where no Matrix Object is applied, the Cloners will be distorted - which, in most cases, is an
undesired effect. If the deformation object effects the Matrix Object, only position and rotation of the clones will be modied. No
geometry will be distorted.
By also applying CINEMA 4D deformation objects, another weapon in your clone- positioning arsenal can be added.
Generate Thinking Particles
For owners of the Thinking Particles module, selecting this option makes interfacing with Thinking Particles possible. This option lets
the Matrix Object act as an Emitter, letting clones be affected by Thinking Particles nodes and vice -versa. Particles will be created in
the very rst frame of animation.
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TP Group
Drag the particle group (from the Thinking Particles settings) that should be disrupted by the particles created by the Matrix Object
into this eld. Leave this eld empty if the particles generated should be assigned to the “All” group.
Note:
If your scene contains two or more Matrix Objects that generate Thinking Particles, make sure that they are
each assigned to different particle groups. Otherwise unwanted results may occur.
Follow
Use this slider to dene how much of the initial clone movement (e.g. from an animated Matrix Object) will be transferred onto the
particles/clones.
If this slider is set to 100% , clones and particles will be affected uniformly by TP-Nodes and MoGraph
Effectors.
If this slider is set to 0%, particles will not be affected by Effectors.
The function of the “Follow” setting can be compared with the “PMotioninheritance” TP-Node, the only difference being that the
movement of the matrices/clones will be inherited. In doing so, the differences in speed of the matrices/clones is taken into account,
allowing the TP-Particles to continue moving freely based on the Thinking Particles nodes (e.g. if “PWind” was applied, its effect will
be added to the movement of the matrices/clones).
Constrain
Use this slider to dene exactly how particles should come to lie on the actively changing position of the matrices/clones. If the slider
is set to 100%, TP- Nodes will have no effect and the TP -Particles will be completely constrained onto the matrices/clones. If this slider
is set to 0%, the TP- Particles will be able to move freely. The trick to using the “Constrain” setting is to effectively mix back and forth
between matrices/clones and particles, i.e. letting TP-Nodes have inuence and subsequently relinquishing control to MoGraph.
Normally this setting will result in a calming effect. If this setting is increased to 100% in the course of an animation, the clones will
assume the position they would have if “Generate” were set from to “Matrices Only”.
Particle Priority
If the matrix Thinking Particles functionality is viewed as an internal Effector and not as a separate object, these options dene where
the Thinking Particles Effector should be placed within the list of Effectors:
Before Effectors: First on the list of Effectors.
After Effectors: Last on the list of Effectors.
The behavior of clones, as well as the visible limits of an Effector’s falloff in the editor view, is better discernable when “Before Effectors”
has been selected. When in this mode, clones will in fact react in accordance with the visible falloff limits. If “After Effectors” has
been selected, clones will only react if the Effector affects the Thinking Particle’s starting position (this effect will only be visible if the
Effector’s falloff has not been set to “Innite”).
Example:
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Let’s say we want to do the following: We have a ring-shaped Matrix Object whose clones should be randomly
dispersed by a Random Effector that enters the scene from the right. The clones should then fall (gravity) and
come to rest on both planes.
So, how is this done?
1. Create a Matrix Object, set “Generate” to “Thinking Particles” and assign a Random Effector with a “Linear”
falloff to it. Set “Follow” to 100% and “Constrain” to 0% . Reposition and animate the Ef fector so it passes
through the arrangement of clones.
2. Create an XPresso Tag and set up a “PPass”, “PGravity” and two “PDeector” nodes. Connect the “PPass”
node’s output port to each of the other input ports and modify their respective settings accordingly (deector
type: object; assign each deector node a different layer and set “Bounce” to 30% , for example).
Done. The clones will react to both MoGraph and Thinking Particles. If you raise the “Constraint” value in the
course of the animation you will see that the clones will move in the direction of the clone position that would
have resulted if Thinking Particles had not had an effect. Use this setting to regulate the strength of the Thinking
Particles effect.
Fracture Object
The Fracture Object does two things:
It views all child objects as clones that can be affected by any Effector.
If the child objects also happen to be unrelated objects (e.g. spline segments in extrude NURBS or objects)
that have been separated into their individual components via the “Disconnect” command, these individual
components can also be viewed as clones.
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The Fracture Object itself can be separated into its individual components via the “Make Object Editable” or “Current State to Object”
commands, taking into consideration each command’s settings.
Modes
Straight
If this mode is selected, each child object will be viewed as an individual clone. Use this mode if you want to open an old scene where
no MoGraph was used and want to now let Effectors affect certain objects within this scene.
Explode Segments
Left: “Explode Segments”. Right: “Explode Segments & Connect”. Both have a Random Effector applied.
When this mode is selected, spline segments (i.e. a Text Object in an Extrude NURBS) and polygon objects’ non- related polygons will
be viewed as clones. Internally, the same functionality as in the “Disconnect” function is used.
This option can be used to create nice explosion effects.
Explode Segments & Connect
In this mode, a subsequent optimization is carried out after the segments have been exploded that fuses overlapping vertices. For
example, if an Extrude NURBS is used, the surface areas will not be viewed as separate clones (see image above).
Transform Tab/Effectors Tab
Please refer to chapter 2, “Transform Tab” and “Effectors Tab”, respectively, for a description of the settings contained in these tabs.
The functionalities are the same.
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Instance Object
An animated instance object with a sphere placed into the “Object Reference” eld and a “Histor y Depth” of 20. A Step Effector with “Scale”
active has been applied.
An animated Instance Object can look back at its own “history” a specied number of frames and create past states in the form of
instances. These instances, in turn, are regular clones that can be affected by any Effector (especially effective is the Step Effector).
Press the CTRL-key if you want to view the effect in the editor view without playing the animation itself.
Instance objects can also be made children of Cloners, which can result in spectacular animations:
An Instance Object was made a child of a Cloner ( “Radial” clone mode).
Note:
Instances can only be rendered in the Picture Viewer if the Instance Object was baked, i.e. with a MoGraph
cache tag assigned to it (see chapter 4, “Cache Tag”). Furthermore, when a scene is opened, instances will only
be shown if the Instance Object has been baked. In other respects, strange results can occur (e.g. with scene
motion blur), in which case it always helps to bake the clone -generating object.
Note 2:
If the fact that the original object is visible bothers you, simply place the Instance Object and the Cloner Object
into a Null Object, assign the Null Object 2 red vertices (not visible in the editor view or when rendered) and
the Instance Object 2 green vertices (visible in the editor view and when rendered. Alternately, the object can
also be moved outside of the view of the camera.
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