The Monkey's NAB presentation

[froj 0]

The full Ecko Artifaks piece is up on Vimeo now.

 

-m

 

Super nice, great job

[Albert Omoss 0]

The full Ecko Artifaks piece is up on Vimeo now.

 

-m

 

I don't even have appropriate words to describe it. So smooth and buttery delicious. Amazing work! I'll see Chris's 10 and raise another 20.

[Duder 0]

Great work as usual, Monkey.

 

Would've been nuts to see Realflow usage for the drips.

[ChrisC 2]

Yum, that's a lovely piece of work. I'm interested in the smoke @ 0:38 (my favourite section I think, loving that graffiti) - is that pyrocluster? I've never managed to get it looking that convincing, the way stuff emerges from it, then it spills out of the cracks is just great.

[J Montreuil 0]

damn monkey, that piece was freaking sexy

[douwe 0]

was looking forward to see how you would do the following watches.

 

you came up with some strong looks.

 

the secret to the feel of the whole clip is definitely in the smooth moves of the progressive tracks.

 

outstanding work. i'm a fan.

 

would love to spend some time with your .c4d's

 

[robmonstro 0]

 monkey- what did you use for the "liquid" wipe transition seen after the first watch? i see some paper-like roughness around the edges, did you use actual ink blots as a matte?

[the_Monkey 8]

Again, thanks everyone for the nice (borderline creepy) comments.

 

 

I'm interested in the smoke @ 0:38 (my favourite section I think, loving that graffiti) - is that pyrocluster? I've never managed to get it looking that convincing, the way stuff emerges from it, then it spills out of the cracks is just great.

Yea. That's pyrocluster.

I find it help if you start pyroclusters off with the Rolling TP emitters (the smoke seems to blend together a little more realistically), but yea... I know what you mean. Most of the time I'll find any reason to use Particular first.

 

 

 

 monkey- what did you use for the "liquid" wipe transition seen after the first watch? i see some paper-like roughness around the edges, did you use actual ink blots as a matte?

Just about anything that looks "liquidy" (except for the initial 3D drop) was built in C4D/AE using the crushed alpha technique I first saw outlined by graymachine in this thread from 2006. The rough edges just come from leaving the crush a little bit open. We started off trying to use liquid stock footage and I just couldn't get it to behave the way I wanted so the opening floor splat, the blue drips on the paint can, the wipes, the liquid trails - they all use that same technique.

 

-m

[J Montreuil 0]

Monkey, I just watched your presentation and it blew my mind. Also inspired me a lot, so I think you achieve your goal. I'm going to work on a new intro for my reel because I found a really cool song I want to use instead of the current one and I'm going to see what I can come up with.

 

Sure didn't understand a lot of that though...

[Atom 0]

I was playing around with a sound effector trying to smooth things out with this weighted tip, but in my experience, the weight is already at 0%. There is no way to "pull" it down.

 

What am I missing?

[beau+++ 0]

I was playing around with a sound effector trying to smooth things out with this weighted tip, but in my experience, the weight is already at 0%. There is no way to "pull" it down.

 

What am I missing?

 

Do you mean the Weight Transform parameter of the Sound Effector? If so, you can't drag it below 0% if you're grabbing the yellow slider, but you CAN drag it lower than 0% if you use the Up/Down arrows just to the left of the slider. My apologies if that's not what you meant, I haven't read the whole thread yet.

[the_Monkey 8]

I was playing around with a sound effector trying to smooth things out with this weighted tip, but in my experience, the weight is already at 0%. There is no way to "pull" it down.

 

What am I missing?

A weight of 0 should give no sound influence at all... no way to get any lower than that.

Do you have your Xpresso set up correctly?

 

-m

[Atom 0]

A weight of 0 should give no sound influence at all... no way to get any lower than that.

Do you have your Xpresso set up correctly?

 

-m

 

I have been re-watching your NAB video and I finally figured out how the weight works, now. I have my Xpresso setup and I see my beat in the User Data field of a null object I added to the scene.

 

My next question is, how do I get the user data recorded so I can use it in a time track? I noticed in your video, that all your user data fields have the red dot next to them indicating that there is a keyframe for every frame of User Data. When I turn on auto-key and press play, I see my user data changing, but no User Data keyframes are recorded. I guess that autokey frame does not record user data.

 

Ok, I figured out that you have to bake the null that has your user data and make sure the Parameter check box is checked in the Bake dialog.

 

So I have my baked data for the snare track.

 

I have a Random Effector moving left to right and I want my snare to control that motion. But I can not drag drop my Snare User Data track in to the time track field of the Random effector.

 

Whats the next step?

 

I tried copy and pasting all the data in my Snare track into the Time track, but the paste never works.

 

Ah again!

 

The paste occurs at the current frame, so you have to make sure your time line is at frame #0 before you paste.

 

It is actually working now....cool.

Edited June 17, 2010 by Atom

[douwe 0]

My next question is, how do I get the user data recorded so I can use it in a time track?

 

so your Xpresso is : Sound Effector (object) ----> Sample Effector (weight) ----> User Data (weight track)

 

1. on the User Data weight track parameter set a keyframe on frame 0.

2. select the object that contains the User Data fields in the Object Manager

and click Functions / Bake Object / choose parameter

4. that should do it.

[Atom 0]

so your Xpresso is : Sound Effector (object) ----> Sample Effector (weight) ----> User Data (weight track)

 

1. on the User Data weight track parameter set a keyframe on frame 0.

2. select the object that contains the User Data fields in the Object Manager

and click Functions / Bake Object / choose parameter

4. that should do it.

 

Thanks douwe, the bake did get me recorded data.

 

Another followup question would be based upon the video as well. Around 36 minutes Mike is talking about the RawUncut logo and using the Random Effector to add the reveal. It looks like the snare is pushing the random effector on the beat. How do I set that up? When I apply my time track, it only has up and downs so the effector just jumps back and forth.

 

What is the process for converting up and down data to stepped data (or accumulated)?

[the_Monkey 8]

What is the process for converting up and down data to stepped data (or accumulated)?

The Progressive Tracks Script written by Rick Barret converts peak tracks to progressive tracks.

You can find it at Cineversity attached to my NAB presentation.

 

-m

[anthonyc 0]

For the record it was my ghey shirt Although I may point out I get more positive lady comments from it. I'd like to think of it more as a third world dictator look Me and AnthonyC had words in that thread for sure. We hugged and made up through PMs and I deleted my side of the thread.

 

gosh my eyes are going bad or something ...how the heck did i miss this!

 

hahah i think i made a comment about you wearing a blouse which was my horrible attempt to break the ice after that crazy joe the plumber thread. I have learned that not everyone gets my sarcasm...and i've been called out before lol. but I gotta say tho, with all respect.....guys like C.Smith, The Monkey and Nick Campbell are geniuses to be able to figure out the C4D stuff like they do, And then to also share their knowledge with us? That complete and utter generosity to help other artist become better is amazing. and without sounding like too much of an ass kisser hahah I don't think we can all thank you enough.

[Atom 0]

The Progressive Tracks Script written by Rick Barret converts peak tracks to progressive tracks.

You can find it at Cineversity attached to my NAB presentation.

 

-m

 

Maybe my dyslexia is keeping me from finding the link on that page?

 

I can't seem to find the link to the script.

[froj 0]

Maybe my dyslexia is keeping me from finding the link on that page?

 

I can't seem to find the link to the script.

 

http://www.cineversity.com/_downloads/tutorials/tutorial1774/project1774.zip < that one?

[Atom 0]

http://www.cineversi...project1774.zip < that one?

 

Thanks you froj.

 

I know I am being a nagging noob here, but I am just learning C4D, coming from other 3D packages.

 

So how do I use this script? Is it a coffee script?

 

Do I select my track in the animation window and then somehow run it?

 

Thanks again for the replies.

[douwe 0]

So how do I use this script? Is it a coffee script?

 

Atom, that question is already answered, on page 4 of this thread :

 

You need to load the CSC file into the Script Editor using the Import command. Then select the OBJECT containing the baked tracks in the OBJECT MANAGER, and run the script using the Script Manager Execute button or the User Scripts submenu of the Plugins menu. It works on all tracks of the selected object at once.

 

good luck.

[zheralmm 0]

Maybe I overlooked it but in the presentation the monkey said he'd bake out user data. I can't find an explanation of how to do that. Does anyone know how to do that? Thanks!

[ekcaf 0]

umm and chicken suits

also totally got to get rick into python...he should be able to hack together a midi reader that generates keyframes based off notes.

 

thats just what i need as i program drum and bass beats and reeces, is this midi plug-in really possible ?

 

keep me posted

Edited July 5, 2010 by ekcaf

[the_Monkey 8]

thats just what i need as i program drum and bass beats and reeces, is this midi plug-in really possible ?

 

keep me posted

It's actually possible to do outside of C4D.

I once hacked together some existing PHP scripts to convert MIDI to SMPTE and then imported that data.

It wasn't super pretty but it worked.

 

From what I've seen of Py4d, a MIDI interface seems very real... just a lot of work.

 

-m

[ekcaf 0]

Thanks mate, I didnt think this was possible in Cinema. I'v been asking around and your the first to reply.

 

I'm wondering if there was a way to pull the data from a rex2 file and use that some how ? lol this seemed usefull when i though of it.

I will post my results if I get any where though.

 

MoGidi

Edited July 6, 2010 by ekcaf