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Animation with connected elements

Posted: 19 Aug 2013, 22:28
by diegohenri
Hello all,

I know this is superficial issue, but is hard to make complex animation in Ventuz.
So, Anyone know a way to do an animation like this? ( Sorry for the low quality ).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E3eudg7 ... e=youtu.be

Maybe use variation of position with the 'mover', but I don't know how to start.

Thanks. :)

Re: Animation with connected elements

Posted: 20 Aug 2013, 10:37
by Christian Krix Schmidt
Use Cinema4D. Atomify a mesh to get this kind of structure with knots and connected lines. These individual objects you can animate without having to revert to mesh deformation or vertex animations. I just used this technique for a project extensively.
Have a look at what it can look like.
connect_0000_1.jpg

Re: Animation with connected elements

Posted: 20 Aug 2013, 11:32
by mrmacmusic
Christian Krix Schmidt wrote:Use Cinema4D. Atomify a mesh to get this kind of structure with knots and connected lines. These individual objects you can animate without having to revert to mesh deformation or vertex animations.]
Apologies for jumping in here... would you animate the mesh in Cinema4D, or Ventuz?

Re: Animation with connected elements

Posted: 20 Aug 2013, 11:52
by Christian Krix Schmidt
Depends on the complexity. You will have to bake the animations probably. I think I would go with animating in Cinema4D for this one.

Re: Animation with connected elements

Posted: 20 Aug 2013, 11:59
by mrmacmusic
Christian Krix Schmidt wrote:Depends on the complexity. You will have to bake the animations probably. I think I would go with animating in Cinema4D for this one.
Thanks Christian ;) I figured that might be the case - getting models and animations exported out of Cinema4D for import into Ventuz is something I'm trying to get a handle on... I understand the principles, but the execution still has me scratching my head a bit!

Re: Animation with connected elements

Posted: 20 Aug 2013, 12:33
by Christian Krix Schmidt
Doesn't matter which application you use. Ventuz cannot import Vertex animations, only object/model based translation/rotation/scaling. The only obstacle remaining is the export/import process. But the Collada exporter from Cinema4D is great and easy to use.

Re: Animation with connected elements

Posted: 20 Aug 2013, 14:25
by diegohenri
Thanks All,

Christian, I turned the animation to Keyframes and exported it to a Collada 1.4 file.
But in Ventuz just the rotation is animated.
How did you do the animation in c4d, point by point?
Or did you do the animation in Ventuz?

Re: Animation with connected elements

Posted: 21 Aug 2013, 08:08
by gabrielefx
each animation step has to be one single object.
In 3ds Max I have an utility that saves for each frame one obj file.
Then I merge all these obj files in Max and I export all these overlapped objects with the Collada exporter.
In Ventuz you can scrub all the objects id in sequence. Then you attach a mover to this id controller.

Re: Animation with connected elements

Posted: 21 Aug 2013, 12:23
by mrmacmusic
diegohenri wrote:Thanks All,

Christian, I turned the animation to Keyframes and exported it to a Collada 1.4 file.
But in Ventuz just the rotation is animated.
How did you do the animation in c4d, point by point?
Or did you do the animation in Ventuz?
I'm new to all this and slowly figuring it all out too – my understanding is that position, scale and rotation of objects in Cinema4D will be retained when you export in Collada format (and will import nicely into Ventuz), but not points. Vertex animation, mesh deformation etc. has to be baked out to keyframes.

The point gabrielefx has made about each animation step is I think correct, as I have also established that the meshes exported by Cinema4D depend on which frame of the animation is selected. I guess therefore that you have to export each keyframe of your animation from C4D as a separate .dae object, then import these into Ventuz so you can scrub through them in sequence. I don't know if there is a way to automate the export process, but I'd also be eternally grateful if the 3D gurus around these boards could point me in the right direction on this!

Re: Animation with connected elements

Posted: 21 Aug 2013, 14:49
by Christian Krix Schmidt
Search the forum. There have been detailed posts about this, some quite recently with a nice step by step guide about a book page turn animation if i remember correctly.