CSTools: Free C4D Goodies

[C.Smith 0]

The big question is whether the camera animation can be exported to AE - not much use if it can't.

Has anyone tried it?

 

You can bake any animation. You need to anyways for the AE export to work me thinks. Get the cam going how you want, then in the timeline, there is a bake object function (or something like that, not in front of C4D right now).

 

It should then take the cam's path and make keys for it.

[Guest Sao_bento]

You just need to move them from your old R9 object menu to the R10 one and they should show up then. You could also add them to your content browser although I've never tried it myself.

 

The path for the object menu should be

 

app/library/object

That's what I tried, but they don't show up.

[C.Smith 0]

That's what I tried, but they don't show up.

 

I just tried it with R10 and they showed up. Here is my dir path:

 

http://sugarfilmproduction.com/objectpath.png

[Guest Sao_bento]

I just tried it with R10 and they showed up. Here is my dir path:

 

http://sugarfilmproduction.com/objectpath.png

Duh, I had one folder too many.

[C.Smith 0]

Duh, I had one folder too many.

 

lol, I've done the same thing in reverse where I put real coded plug-ins in the plug ins folder but take them OUT of the host folder and then they don't work.

[the_Monkey 8]

Duh, I had one folder too many.

Boo! I wanted it to be a much more dramatic problem (perhaps terror).

You let us down Sao.

 

-m

[Guest Sao_bento]

Boo! I wanted it to be a much more dramatic problem (perhaps terror).

You let us down Sao.

 

-m

I'm just in too big a hurry these days. Switching over to Intel Macs makes me assume that nothing is going to work right. Combine that with R10, that breaks a lot of previous plugs, and then I end up jumping to conclusions and assuming everything is either a version problem or a UB problem.

[biggieboy 0]

Awesome tools. It's a shame there won't be a multicam version of Easycam. I hate animating cameras in C4D, it always ends up looking like I'm dangling the camera from an elastic band. Cams bouncing all over the place.

 

Can anyone who's used the Steadycam plugin tell me what you thought of it? I don't really understand what their site means by "4 Target" and "8 way camera morphing". Does that mean it's limited to 8 cam moves the way Easycam is limited to 1? What if I need to make 9 camera moves?

[C.Smith 0]

Awesome tools. It's a shame there won't be a multicam version of Easycam. I hate animating cameras in C4D, it always ends up looking like I'm dangling the camera from an elastic band. Cams bouncing all over the place.

 

Can anyone who's used the Steadycam plugin tell me what you thought of it? I don't really understand what their site means by "4 Target" and "8 way camera morphing". Does that mean it's limited to 8 cam moves the way Easycam is limited to 1? What if I need to make 9 camera moves?

 

Yeah my system has one move (point to point). Steadycam had a demo movie on it's site. If I remeber correctly you set a bunch of waypoints and the cam animated between them.

[tcastudios 0]

Awesome tools. It's a shame there won't be a multicam version of Easycam. I hate animating cameras in C4D, it always ends up looking like I'm dangling the camera from an elastic band. Cams bouncing all over the place.

 

Can anyone who's used the Steadycam plugin tell me what you thought of it? I don't really understand what their site means by "4 Target" and "8 way camera morphing". Does that mean it's limited to 8 cam moves the way Easycam is limited to 1? What if I need to make 9 camera moves?

 

Hi. SteadyCAMPRO is a small collection of expressions where SteadyGLIDE is the one morphing between 8 cameras and/or objects(In combination

if you want).

And it actually -does- 9 "moves" since the last position (position 9) is the same as the first

But, you can have as many moves as you want , it is only the matter of nesting several SteadyGLIDEs.

 

Have a look at the tuts/previews and you'll get the idea and there is a demo running in CinemaR10 Demo to try things out as well.

Also, the former version (SteadyCAMPROv2) is a free edition called SteadyCAM_FE found at my site.

The idea is the same as SteadyCAMPROv3 but v3 has a much more improved workflow as well as additional expression.(Target and Banking)

 

Please let me know if you have any q's.

 

www.tcastudios.com

 

Cheers

Lennart Wåhlin - tcastudios

[jasfish 0]

I've used the free version from tcast and it's awesome. The pro version is definitely on my wish list I'm giving to my boss soon.

Edited February 28, 2007 by jasfish

[the_Monkey 8]

I am a massive camera snob. I silently judge everybody by their camera curves.

I love my camera moves and for years have mocked the idea that a plugin could make my cameras better.

That's why I had never bought SteadyCamPro even though it's been around for quite awhile.

 

I'm not sure what the mind-flip was, but I purchased it a few weeks ago and I have blown away by its flexibility. I'm currently working on a 1m45s piece for Ecko that consists of a single smooth uninterrupted camera move. It will be done in about a week and is a beautiful showcase for SCP. I'm anxious to share it with everyone. I will unlikely build another camera move without SCP.

 

No disrespect to Chris's tools, they are awesome and essentially the type of complex Xpresso tags I've been using for years for my own camera work. They're also worth a lot more than what he's asking for them, which is very generous of him. Thanks again man.

 

-m

Edited February 28, 2007 by the_Monkey

[tcastudios 0]

Hi -m!

Looking forward to see what you have cooking!

 

And thanks for the thumbs up jasfish!

 

Cheers

Lennart

[jasfish 0]

Didn't mean to hijack your thread, Chris .. I use some of your freebies and I appreciate them a lot .. especially for someone still fairly new at C4d.

[biggieboy 0]

awesome, thanks guys, we'll be ordering it in the next couple days. (sorry to hijack the thread. Once again, AWESOME tools Chris)

Edited February 28, 2007 by biggieboy

[cgmafia 0]

cool thread

keep up this good work

[basilisk 0]

Just finished the launch video for Virgin Media which made extensive use of CS_3D stroke. It made a real difference to getting it done. (Concept is a bit cliched - but the 3D stroke look is actually part of the new Virgin Media logo, so I couldn't avoid it)

 

you can see it on

basilisk web

click on the first project

[C.Smith 0]

Just finished the launch video for Virgin Media which made extensive use of CS_3D stroke. It made a real difference to getting it done. (Concept is a bit cliched - but the 3D stroke look is actually part of the new Virgin Media logo, so I couldn't avoid it)

 

you can see it on

basilisk web

click on the first project

 

Wow! Holy shit dude. So you got to tell me now that you used my own tool a million times more than I have, what can I do to make it better? Did you find any glaring problems with it? Any additions to make it more useful?

[basilisk 0]

So you got to tell me now that you used my own tool a million times more than I have

Overused may be the word you are looking for...yep I certainly owe you - next time you are passing I'll get you a few drinks.

Any additions to make it more useful?

I ended up using my own custom profile, rather than the preset circle. Maybe you could include a few options there, maybe a ribbon profile, and a multi-strand profile (you then might need to have an option to rotate the profile)

 

The tool works pretty much as required. I sometimes get a glitch on the first frame, like the xpresso doesn't kick in properly till frame 2. Not sure why, but it is easy enough to get round this. It would be good to have more control of the scale along the length of the stroke - to get things like rounded ends, but these are pretty difficult to achieve with the sweepnurbs scale graph.

 

Also when the offset approaches 0 or 100, a thick stroke loses it's nice taper and you get quite a sharp cutoff at the end. The maths would probably be nasty but if you could get a smoother decay at the ends it would be nice - so curve 1 becomes curve 3 rather than curve 2

 

[C.Smith 0]

Overused may be the word you are looking for...yep I certainly owe you - next time you are passing I'll get you a few drinks.

 

I ended up using my own custom profile, rather than the preset circle. Maybe you could include a few options there, maybe a ribbon profile, and a multi-strand profile (you then might need to have an option to rotate the profile)

 

The tool works pretty much as required. I sometimes get a glitch on the first frame, like the xpresso doesn't kick in properly till frame 2. Not sure why, but it is easy enough to get round this. It would be good to have more control of the scale along the length of the stroke - to get things like rounded ends, but these are pretty difficult to achieve with the sweepnurbs scale graph.

 

Also when the offset approaches 0 or 100, a thick stroke loses it's nice taper and you get quite a sharp cutoff at the end. The maths would probably be nasty but if you could get a smoother decay at the ends it would be nice - so curve 1 becomes curve 3 rather than curve 2

 

 

Yeah, right now the offset is just an ADD function pushing the scale graph points back and forth. The graphs own built in clamp is clipping the ends. I could look at doing something where the scale shrinks as it gets towards the ends like your example. It may be as easy as a curved graph defining the scale of the point's Y positions. Where the middle of the graph is flat maxed out, but then ends S curve off. So the stroke acts like it already does but in the last 25% or so on each end, it scales down to zero at the point where it normally clips. The only bitch is syncing the 'length' parameter in there so there is no clipping. So the shrinkage is perfectly proportional to the spread of the points that define the stroke.

 

I keep expecting Maxon to build this into the sweepnurbs anyways. When I heard they updated Sweepnurbs in 9.5 with extra functionality, I thought everything 3Dstroke does would be a no brainer to add in. So I did this tool just to make up for what I assumed Maxon would have done in the first place. At least they gave us the graph to define scale which allowed this tool to exist at all.

[basilisk 0]

I keep expecting Maxon to build this into the sweepnurbs anyways. When I heard they updated Sweepnurbs in 9.5 with extra functionality, I thought everything 3Dstroke does would be a no brainer to add in. So I did this tool just to make up for what I assumed Maxon would have done in the first place. At least they gave us the graph to define scale which allowed this tool to exist at all.

 

As you say, you may be wasting your time. Maybe wait till 10.1 comes out to see if Maxon has made your tool redundant, before spending more time on it.

[C.Smith 0]

As you say, you may be wasting your time. Maybe wait till 10.1 comes out to see if Maxon has made your tool redundant, before spending more time on it.

 

Speaking of which, any word on 10.1 release date? Looking for some much needed NLA in there.

[basilisk 0]

Still on 9.6 here. For most the jobs I do, there is nothing that is essential in v10. Unlike the mograph module which I snapped up straight away. I tend to be a bit conservative on the upgrade process. If 10.1 adds in more nice features (and bug fixes) I guess I might have to go for it.

[Guest Sao_Bento]

Just finished the launch video for Virgin Media which made extensive use of CS_3D stroke. It made a real difference to getting it done. (Concept is a bit cliched - but the 3D stroke look is actually part of the new Virgin Media logo, so I couldn't avoid it)

 

you can see it on

basilisk web

click on the first project

Very nice. I like the simplicity of the virtual sets as well.

[basilisk 0]

Very nice. I like the simplicity of the virtual sets as well.

:blush:

there were only three weeks to do the post production, so "simplicity" wasn't chosen just for stylistic reasons. The Virgin client thought it was "very Virgin" i.e. red and black, as opposed to Sky's current branding which is all ice blues and white.