CSTools Questions

If you have any questions or comments about CSTools. Please comment to this post.

128 comments:

Jasper said...

Hey m8, How's that walk cycle tool coming along? It think you should focus on the main animation and give the foot roll a second place because that is very reliable on the rig. If the legs, arms and body are controllable its ez to animate the foot roll with a proper setup and you can loop those keys to match up with the cycle.

Jasper said...

It's mastajappa by the way in case you don't know who mayonnaise is, it's my company name :).

langefipro said...

Hello, Chris,
I was playing with your CS_walkcycle (beta) and I found it very useful. Now I have a suggestion: Do you think you can add the possibility that the characters would RUN with this plugin in next time? I introduced some changes of the way for using it. So, I added a time node, because at this way is possible to let them begin to walk in the middle of an animation-period, for example, with a frames offset. If you want, I can send you an little example, I think it is better to use by this way. Thanks for an short answer. Dieter

langefipro said...

Hello, Chris,
I was playing with your CS_walkcycle (beta) and I found it very useful. Now I have a suggestion: Do you think you can add the possibility that the characters would RUN with this plugin in next time? I introduced some changes of the way for using it. So, I added a time node, because at this way is possible to let them begin to walk in the middle of an animation-period, for example, with a frames offset. If you want, I can send you an little example, I think it is better to use by this way. Thanks for an short answer. Dieter

Unknown said...

Hi m8, is the CStools compatible with C$D version 10.5? Because for some reason it doesn't appear when I open the object Library menu (This is after I placed them in my object library).

Unknown said...

Hi Chris are the CStools compatible with C4D 10.5? Because I can't find them when I open the object library menu.

Chris Smith said...

They are compatible. Make sure you put them in Maxon/Library/Objects.

Even if they weren't, you should still see them show up in your object library.

Unknown said...

I did that but it doesn't show up. The only way for me to get access to the tools is by going to the actual folder and opening the c4d files.

Unknown said...

hey chris...

been using your cstools for a long time now, just wanted to say thank you for all the time they have saved, and the amazing results they have produced!

recently... im using the vibrate null 2 tool, creating some random motion on an object. eventually i will be comping in AE bringing the camera and nulls and such in there to add secondary elements. i want to attach a null or two to the object that has the random motion on it via VibrateNull, then using that null in AE for some particular effects. adding an ext. comp. tag onto that null wont do the trick as its expression based. do you know of a quick work around?

thanks a lot.

Chris Smith said...

Hi Doug.

Go to the timeline and select Function/Bake Object for the vibrate null. That should turn it into PSR keys. Bring this into AE and then parent to it as you wish.

casey marks said...

Your brilliant!
How bout writing a book on Expresso. People are screaming for tutorials. Some of us would pay good money for some step by steps and Explanations.
You Rock
Casey
casey@caseymarks.com

Chris Smith said...

Thanks, Casey. But Base80 is doing quite a good job of educating already methinks. I turned to his page a few times for help myself. I don't think CSTools are that complicated as far as Xpresso. Just tools that I think needed to be made (at least for me).

see:

http://base80.com

Unknown said...

Just stumbled upon your CS tools in my lib again. And I am so impressed. Such a great tool and lots to learn in there... How the hell did you get so good ;-) The xpresso community could use more people like you.

thanks,
TT

Unknown said...

Hi Chris,

Is it possible to bake the animation of MoCam, EasyCam etc. for export to AE.

Also, I could not find CS_Trackspot in the zip file.

Thanks,
dd

Chris Smith said...

Baking:

Yes. You can bake any object's PSR into keys by selecting that object and selcting "Bake Object". Bake Object can be found under the normal menus or in the timeline menus.

However, Bake object only bakes an objects local coordinates, not it's actual position in global space. So if you twirled down MoCam to find the actual camera at the bottom of the chain and baked it. You would bake all zeros because that camera just rides along to what it's parented to.

I wish C4D would add a "Global Bake" function. But since it hasen't that I know of. You need to do this:

Create a new camera. Add an Xpresso tag to it. In the Xpresso window drag in the new camera object and the actual MoCam camera (The one at the bottom of the chain in MoCam or Easycam). Now pipe the global matrix of the easy cam camera into the global matrix input of the new camera.

Close the xpresso window and select the new camera and bake that. It will have the correct PSR keys.

The other downside to "Bake Object" is it only converts PSR data. Nothing else. So any Focal Length changes won't translate. SOme people have managed to get around this by piping the Focal Length into another camera's Position channel then baking that. Then using pickwhips in AE to get that data back to a focal length. Me personally, I just re-keyframe that part in AE to match since it's usually subtle changes during MoCam morphs.

Chris Smith said...

Re: Trackspot

I removed trackspot a while back because it's not really a tool. It's really a rigged object. I just forgot to remove trackspot from the list.

Unknown said...

Your explanations are as good as your tools. Thank you for making such creative and useful tools.

I would love to check out your trackspot too, even though it's an object.

Guys like you make learning fun.

-dd

Unknown said...

Hi Chris,

Though I don't exactly know how it works, is it possible to try out cs-trackspot, if you still have it handy.

Thanks,
dd

Unknown said...

Hi Chris,

Is it possible to change the coordinates of the MoveNull?

Thanks,
-dd

Chris Smith said...

All the nulls are based around zero. Just put them under a regular null and move them that way. Under tutorials I show how you use the nulls effectively. Or the link is here:

http://sugarfilmproduction.com/CSTools/UsingCS_NullsOverview.mov

Unknown said...

CS_EasyCam is the best tool for camera animation.

Krhodes said...

what happened to cs_trackspot - its not part of the current dl - anyway to still get that?

Chris Smith said...

I pulled Trackspot a while back since it's not really a tool but a rigged model. I kep meaning to remove it's description from the docs :)

Krhodes said...

well thank you for the other tools and offering them for our use - they are great!

Unknown said...

Hi Chris,

When I export camera data to AE the rotation sync slips. It might be a C4d/AE issue. Any easy way to get around this.

Unknown said...

Use square pixel renders...

If you want your exported C4D cameras to sync up in AE.

elhaq film & design said...

i just downloaded your cinema tools but there is no objects folder for 11, should i just create one?

Chris Smith said...

You can read about that in the questions above.

C4D r11 no longer supports an object menu. If you create one it will ignore it. Maxon prefers you use the Content Browser form now on.

Orchid Sounds Visions said...

Omg!
i can belive this amazing tool exist!.
im a after effects user for a long time...but i want to move to cinema.
and sorprise!!!!!
i got all the motion graphics tool in one click!!
no keyfreame need....no more get crazy for make the same of after in cinema...

its so magic! its so fantastic!.
im soooo happy to find this!.
i can do so much animation without keyframes...and etc....and speend a lot lot time between keyframes :D.

thank you thanks you very much
im from argentina.
i dont have any question this tools its very easy to use!.
but i hate when cinema quit the object folder :S

PD: OMG the 3d stroke its really 3D here!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Navarro Parker said...

(Hope this isn't a double comment, my browser was acting weird).

How is it possible to morph between several DocuCams and/or ActionCams?

I need the random zoom + camera shake. But I can't figure out how to combine those cams and MoCam.

I'd really appreciate some help.

Chris Smith said...

Create a null and add an Xpresso tag on it.

In the Xpresso window grab the last camera in each Action Cam or Docucam and drag it in.

Then drag in any waypoint cams from MoCam you want to use.

Then on the Action/Docucams output create a 'global matrix' port. Then on the Waypoint nodes create a 'global matrix' input port. Then just link them how you want. So an Actioncam can link to waypoint one and a docucam can link to waypoint 2. When these are linked, the waypoints do whatever the ActionCam (or any cam of any sort in C4D including a Steadycam) will do.

dlew said...

Hi Chris. Recently started using mocam, and much to my surprise its quite easy to use and works very well in a pipeline. It's very modular. Well, just when I thought we might get out of the woods without any major client feedback, they wanted to tweak one of the waypoints and have it drift smoothly past, instead of "stopping and drifting," as I had animated it. Can you think of an easy way to match the incoming velocity of the camera so as to use the waypoint camera as simply a 'waypoint?' sort of like a roving keyframe in after effects? Currently I've aligned it to a spline and I'm trying to match it by eye, but with any ease on or off, there's always a noticable pickup point. Was MatchPrevious Waypoint in any way useful for this? (like match it, then animate that one directly off the last location.)

Chris Smith said...

Hi David,

Two things. Have you tried setting the hold value to a negative number? It works both ways. The more negative the hold value the less it considers stopping at that waypoint.

The other thing is if you're close to a final cam move it make be time to bake the keys then just tweak the keys a little.

Next time I get around to it, I'm going to make an easily bakable MoCam. But for now you need to create a new camera and in Xpresso pipe the Global Matrix output of the MoCam render cam (bottom of the hierarchy) and pipe that into the global Matrix input of your new cam. Then bake the new cam. Then key reduce.

dlew said...

Chris, Hell's horses. Why isn't this in your documentation!? that's a critical function of the mocam toolset, very valuable tip indeed! Thanks for a quick response, I just posted 3 new camera moves to my client due to your timely answer. I didn't bake, I simply used one as a waypoint. It seems after around -20, it seems to really wonk the camera about in a bad way however. It's really magnetic. Very useful. To daisy-chain sets of cameras together you can just connect the last one to the first cam of a duplicate set like you mentioned somewhere?

Chris Smith said...

It is in the docs:

"...At each stop this can be set positive so that the cam stalls at each waypoint for a while. But this can also be set in negative values for the MoCam to never really settle in. It will become a soft move passing by the waypoint the way a spline softly moves between B-Spline points. It's easier to just do than to explain."

dlew said...

Snap! you're right! I'm a jerk. In my frantic search I managed to overlook that (just read the overview paragraphs). Thanks again chris, love your work and your tools. No idea how you do it all but it's an inspiration. Drop me a line next time you're in LA, I owe you a round (codewhite.org)

Stephen said...

Thanks for the tools. Very generous. I was trying to figure out an easy way to make the shadows in CSDaylight be soft shadows instead of hard raytraced. It seems that it is controlled through expresso and I am lost at what to do. Otherwise I can just turn off shadows and use another light source but I'm thinking that it will not be as efficient.

Chris Smith said...

Hi Stephen. You'll have to go inside the Xpresso node and find the node that represents the rim light. There is an input port for shadow type. Delete that. Now you can set the light shadow to whatever you want and Xpresso won't try and reset it.

Unknown said...

A generous contribution. Thanks for your openness to both post them and answer questions! I solved a couple questions simply by reading through the posts.

Unknown said...

Hi Chris,

I have used your moCam and lineGrow tool in my project. They are great tools. I am working with 25fps and when rendering I change the render setting to 50fps. But I have a problem moCam renders it with 25 frames with repeated frames so it looks like 25 frames. Why is this happening?

When I change the project settings to 50 frames it works but I have to change all my lineGrow tools settings in order to sync. It is lots of work...

But after i have read this section in your blog I thought that baking camera animation thing should work.

Thank you for those great tools

burnsilver said...

Chris, Thanks for the awesome tools. In 3D Stroke, I was wondering if there is a way to change the shape of the spline that's driving the taper shape and how to do it? I'd like the front of the growth to be 100% (so no taper at all) and then trail off.

Chris Smith said...

There is but you'll have to deconstruct it. You'll see in the xpresso I driving points on the sweepNurbs scale spline graph. You can delete the inputs and nodes for the front so the tapering is only happening on the back.

burnsilver said...

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm afraid I don't know how to do what you're saying because I'm a complete noob to Xpresso. Can you be more specific, please?
Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris. Great tools, thank you sooo much.
Is there a way of using the native stage object in conjunction with your cams? Eg switching from a few shots in MoCam to a ActionCam Shot.

Adding the moCam to the stage object seems to break the mocam sequence. You can add the individual cams into the stage object to make it work but then you don't get any of the interpolation between the cams so isn't viable.

I'm sure it's just that the MoCamNull which contains the cams get's referenced in the stage object (which is why it results in a static shot) so is there some way of forcing the current cam coordinates onto another null and using that as the scene object reference??? Or maybe you've already got a workaround?

Anything but render both scenes out and piece together in Aftereffects or similar.
Thanks. Chris

Chris Smith said...

Honestly I don't think I've ever touched the Stage object before. I'm going to guess the solution is the same one for baking MoCam which I detailed above in the comments section. But it's basically creating a new Cam and piping the global matrix from the MoCam render cam to it. Like you said the MoCam's local coords are zero'd out. But the Global coords are how it moves through space. Unless there's a way to have the Stage objevt read it's global coords, you'll have to make a new cam and force the MoCam local coords into it's local coords.

Chris Smith said...

...err correction on my last sentence: Pipe MoCam's render cam (last object in the hierarchy), GLOBAL matrix into a new cams LOCAL Matrix. Then use the new cam in the stage object.

Anonymous said...

perfect, that works well. I just created a reference cam for each moCam, easyCam and the other CScams in the scene Using the xpresso tip.

Now I can use the stage object to switch between the reference cams at will, which means only 1 render and better judgement on the edits in c4d as you can see them cutting in the editor window.
thanks

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Hy Chris,

I got your cool CSTools running. I have one problem though with 3DStroke. It seems I am not allowed to reset the offset instantly to 0. When I do that, there is a small stroke 'left over', even though the offset is back to 0.

This also happens when I reach the end of the animation and the frame jumps back to zero.

Is there a trick to get the stroke to correctly reset its state ?

Thank you for any answers
maxx

Chris Smith said...

If you're reffering to the blip of stroke that happens, that unfortunately is beyond my control. CS_3DStroke manipulates knots on a spline graph. When it does that blip, it's a weird phenominon from the sweep nurbs. I've tried many time to find a wrokaround. It seems intermittandt. Works sometimes, other times not.

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris
I've come across a prob I can't find a workaraound for with the 'LineGrow' object. If you nest the pathSpline, Tipshape+lingrow into a null then move that null the tipshape separates from the head of the line.

Of course you could just nest everything apart from the pathspline and and move that which works ok. BUT then you lose the visual representation of the spline in the editor view. Meaning that if you wanted to edit the spline in it's new position you have to go back to 0,0,0 to do it, then check back to the extruded path (wherever you moved to) to see if you got the desired results.

Any ideas? My only thoughts were to duplicate the path spline and place the dupe in the nested null along with the other bits (still leaving the original outside) so at least you had representation of it in it's new location. But when it comes to editing it, you still have to go back to 0,0,0. Unless you can edit the duped spline in place, then use some xpresso to make the original spline (used for the actual path) match the modified dupe. Not even sure if this is possible and probably beyond my xpresso tinkering.
Crazyhorse solution? or is there something more elegant that comes to mind.

thanks again
Chris

N-Dubz said...

Hi Chris,

Just completed my first project using your awesome set of CSTools. For this project (For Toyo Tires) I used 4 of your cams (loving action and docu cam) would love to hear your comments and thoughts. Anyway, thought I'd let you know and thanks for developing these tools and especially for making them available free to everyone.

Website link - http://www.enginecreative.co.uk/portfolio/toyo-tires-european-advertising-campaign.html
Vimeo link - http://www.vimeo.com/9374396

Cheers,
Matt Key
Engine Creative

Chris Smith said...

@N-Dubz
Dude,

Fantastic work. That's the exact kind of thing those cam tools were made for. Thanks for sharing. A treat.

@chrisbaseone

Man, i'd have to look into that. I made those so long ago I would be reverse engineering what I did at this point to figure it out. When CSTools were released by Maxon as part of the Broadcast bundle, they fixed the same problem with 3D stroke. Although I'm not sure exactly what they did. I'm very busy this month and next but maybe soon I can try and figure it out. Although you may have better luck taking a stab at it yourself. Sorry I'm not much of a help.

Padawan said...

HI Chris,

The idea is to have a automatic bouncing ball.
So cs_spring can help me a lot.
Just two question.

1° Is it a way to have a limit on Y axis so the object don't cross the ground (Y=0). For the moment the lower position is never quiet the same so my ball cross my ground.

2° Is it a way to add some scale or squash deformer link to the bouncing control. What i would like is again an automatic compression of my ball touching the ground. WIth a slider who can control the strengh of the compression.

Thank you !
Yves

Padawan said...

Hi,

Me again. :-)
I was playing with xpresso and i find a way for the squash thing.
Link the weight of the squash deformer with range mapper to the Y position of the null.
And then i've got the strengh with the factor slider.
Works great !

Still got my ball crossing the ground. If you've an idea ?

Thanks a alot!
Yves

Chris Smith said...

Setting the formula to 'bounce' instead of 'spring' does what you want.

Unknown said...

Hi Chris. I'm new to C4D and CS Tools, first of which I'm using is DocuCam, which is amazing. Based on my camera position and base zoom my actual focal length is 30 and I'd like it to be even wider. At this point my base zoom is 0 so I can't get past 30 for the focal length. I know this is operator error so can you tell me what I'm missing. Thanks.

Chris Smith said...

Make sure the 'reset frame' parameter is set to the same frame that your animation starts, if it never goes to the reset frame it will drift until it hits zero or way too long. If the resert frame is the same as your animation start it will have the exact same motion every time and the zoom won't drift.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the quick response. My reset frame is the same as the beginning of the animation. Is it possible to get a wider angle lens than 30? I must be missing something.

Chris Smith said...

yeah, i think I had it go as wide as 8mm. You sure you have your base zoom all the way wide?

Unknown said...

Base zoom on the top DocuCam parent is 0 and on the camera itself it's 30 although changing it at the camera level doesn't seem to affect it. Not sure where I'm missing it. Thanks for your time, by the way.

Unknown said...

I'm using EasyCam2 and exporting the camera data out to after effects but am getting a 5027:12 error. Looking up the error, I read: After Effects: AEGP Plugin RPFimport: No camera data in the file. Is this because of using EasyCam and is there a way around this?

Chris Smith said...

You'll want to bake the cam data into keys and just import that. You'll need to create a new camera , set it to the same Focal Length as the Easycam setting. Then in an Xpresso tag, link the Global Matrix out of the EasyCam render cam (last cam in the hierarchy) and pipe that to the Global Matrix input to your new cam. Then in the timeline, select the new cam and Functions->Bake Object. That will create keys for the motion. Clear EasyCam from the scene then try and move it to AE. AE doesn't know what any of the expression stuff is so that is probably what is giving you the error.

pip said...

Hi,
I am trying to learn some of the basics of 3d using C4D. I downloaded the CS tools featured by Nick at GreyscaleGorilla ( very helpful tutorials ..thanks alot). EasyCam does not seem to work in C4D 11.5 .... any ideas? It works fine in C4D 11 on the same machine.

pip said...

Hi again,
CS Daylight and various others in in the collection don't seem to work in C4D 11.5 either...... the 'user data' sliders have no effect? If you build a file in C4Dv11 with say CS Daylight + CS EasyCam then open it in C4Dv11.5 then they do work? Is there a simple fix for this...?

Unknown said...

@pip: These items are working ok for me with 11.5...

Chris Smith said...

They all work fine in 11.5. I just used a version made in v10 yesterday in an 11.5 presentation.

What problems are you having?

pip said...

Hi,Chris/Mark

Sorry guys .... just found the problem .... I had been using the OLX plugin as discribed by Nick but had failed to install the correct 'Merge' button on the C4D interface.
I just tried loading CS EasyCam into C4D 11.5 via the 'Content Browser' and it worked fine!

Great set of tool Chris and thanks for the quick response

Rajarshi Basu said...

Hi Chris,

I love the docu cam, but I can't seem to set the Front and Rear blur in the settings. Is it possible to do this ?

Chris Smith said...

You'll need to twirl down to the actual render cam "DocuCam" and set the settings in that camera. Those settings weren't mirrored to the User Data settings where I have the main controls.

Jera Calderon said...

Hey Chris, just thank you!!
You are the Man!
hugs from Brasil!

Chris Smith said...

mmmm. Brazilian hugs :)

Thank you!

Unknown said...

Kudos Chris on a great addition to Cinema 4d. Question - when I download your file, and then attempt to use them, some things seem stripped (like material, lighting, some 'reference' objects, etc). Not sure what I did wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated. (I have downloaded the newest product several times, used the Greyscale Gorilla blog to load them into C4D, etc.)

Thanks!

Unknown said...

Hi Chris, I bow before you and your toolset which has contributed to countless projects. Thank you thank you. After using Mocam successfully several times I have a question that hopefully is a quick one:

I'm using CSTools Mocam where each Waypoint Camera is directed at a target object. This seems to affect the actual Mocam adversely, particularly as to Depth of Field because it doesn't seem to acknowledge the target object's distance, and the Mocam stays at a constant 1000 distance from the object, the same as each waycam would be except they have "use target object" checked. I can't manually animate this parameter either, so I'm wondering if there is a way to make Mocam more target object friendly? Is there a workaround or adjustment to the Xpresso I could make?

Chris Smith said...

@Rich.
I'm not sure what the problem would be. Just Open or Merge them like any other scene file.

@Jack.
As yu probably know from using MoCam, the target depth settings on the waypoints are crucial to MoCam because it uses them as the fulcrum points in which to orbit around. I hijacked the target depth usage from normal for this. It is the primary way you get MoCam (and easyCam2) to have a good looking move between waypoints. However it seems you are doing something which affects this behavior. It would be hard to modify mocam to ignore the target depths because it's entire internal pipeline carries the target depth length through most of the main nodes so the cam know what to orbit around to create arced paths. That being said, If you are trying to do a DOF thing, don't try and do it from the MoCam render cam itself or the waypoints. Use an Xpresso tag to link the global matrix from MoCam (the actual render cam, not the null that reps the tool) and pipe that into the global Matrix of a new cam. Then try and set all the DOF stuff on it. That way it will move just like MoCam but not have any of it's parameters tied to the target depths.

Unknown said...

Ah yes, that is the plan. Thanks so much!

Unknown said...

Just FYI, the reason I used targets in the first place was because I needed to animate each waypoint camera to have its own move around an object, otherwise I would need a MoCam with 16 Waycams. I suppose I could have baked each camera after targeting or used two Mocams, but this project had to be done quickly and changed frequently. Again, thanks so much for these indispensable tools!

Tom Scholefield said...

hey dude.
how do i extend the time duration past 30sec in easycam2

i know i prob need to change some of the expresso but can't figure it out.
cheers!

Chris Smith said...

Go to the User Data settings in the A.M. and change it to something higher or turn off the MAX checkbox limit.

Anonymous said...

Is there a way to go from the easy cam (nice slow camera movement) to the action cam (crazy camera movement)? Im really making this a lot harder than it has to be. Thanks for your help. Hopefully you can get back to me soon!

Chris Smith said...

sure. Move the _E camera out of the easycam hierarchy and make it a child of the action cam render cam (not the tool null itself) and the easy cam will morph from the _S cam to it's own _E cam which is moving in sync with action cam because it's a child of it.

Unknown said...

I'am quite sure it has already been asked several times but i kind of struggle to find the answer.

Is this possible to add more than 2 camera to easycam2 ?
Like having one movement from a point A to B, staying put for a while then going from point B to C ?

I imagine how i would do it without the wiggle/shaky things by setting two easycam2 one after another but i want to achieve it with the wiggle/shaky thing.

Is there a way to do it ?

Thanks for the great tool anyway, they're really useful.

Chris Smith said...

CS_MoCam

Unknown said...

Yep, but Mocam doesnt have the "turbulence" thing.
I've got it working by making mocam a child of cs_vibratenull2, it's even more tweakable now.

Your set of tools is really nice, thanks for sharing it (and answering quickly).

Chris Smith said...

You are supposed to use the various CS nulls on the waypoint cameras themselves. The instructions talk about this. It's not a good idea to add mocam under a vibrate null because the MoCam itself will vibrate relative to where it is from the Vibrate null making some very unpredictable behavior. The idea with MoCam is that each waypoint uses it's own animation or as a child of another CS_Null. Then when the MoCam camera arrives at a waypoint it aquires that waypoint's vibrations.

This video may help you see what i'm talking about how you should make the correct child relationship so that everything is based around zero in the chain:

http://sugarfilmproduction.com/CSTools/UsingCS_NullsOverview.mov

dave said...

Hi Chris your CS Tools are awesome! Your very generous to share your time and knowlege,
thank you!
Is there a way to substitute a camera view I already have into easy cam? other than copying the coordinates thanks again.....dave

Chris Smith said...

Just make the start or end camera a child of the other camera you want to copy. Then set the start or end cam's coords to all zeros. It will then copy the movement of your other cam.

That or just pipe the global matrix of your other cam into the global matrix of the start or end cam in Xpresso.

dave said...

Hey Chris, Thanks for the reply!
I followed your instructions for making the start, and end cams a child of my cameras, with everything under the easycam null.
That worked and they showed the same view as my cameras but with them as children when I switched on the EasyCam_Cam it still had the stock view and didn't see the start or end cams viewpoint. If that makes sense :)

I don't know enough about xpresso to know about "global matrix"
But I got it to work by putting in the coord. of my cams. Thanks again I really do appreciate your time...dave

Steve said...

Chris, How can I animate the ActionCam? I've tried adding the expresso tag as you described in your reply to Navarro. When I try to keyframe a camera linked via global matrix, it's values just return to 0 all the time. I don't want to combine it with MoCam, I just want to be able to keyframe position and rotation as normal, yet have these values compounded with the shake and snap zooms of ActionCam.

Chris Smith said...

Navarro didn't want to animate ActionCam, he was wondering how to morph between them using action cam which I explained the process for. ActionCam animates itself. Are you trying to add motion on top of it or morph to it from another position?

If you're trying to add animation on top of it, then create a camera and make it a child of the "actionCam camera at the bottom of the hieracrhy and animate that. It will ride along with Action Cam but be able to do what ever added motion you want.

If you want to morph from one cam to ActionCam, follow the instructions I gave Navarro using either EasyCam or MoCam.

Steve said...

Thanks Chris, although thats not really achieveing the result I wanted because the new camera doesn't get the zoom changes, and all the orbiting etc becomes offset by its relationship to the actioncam. To follow the idea of animating 'on top' of the ActionCam, I am trying to animate 'underneath' it. If that makes sense.

RR said...

My C4D R12 doesn't have a Objects folder. I can't get the CSTools to install. I tried making an Objects folder and it didn't work. I tried no objects folder, also no dice. What should I do?

Robyn Rhodes

Chris Smith said...

http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/2010/10/how-to-install-cs-tools-in-cinema-4d-12-also-works-for-11-5/

Samrita said...

Hi Chris,
first of all, this is really great stuff, you share with us. Thanks a lot ...
After seeing some of Greyscale Gorillas tutorials, I wanted to play with the 3D Stroke. Unfortunately it doesn't quite work in C4D R13. I can adjust the thickness, but none of the rest like length, falloff and offset. I tried it in R12, where everything works fine. Checking the xpresso, all ports are connected. Do you have a clue, why it wouldn't work right in R13?

Chris Smith said...

They made the huge mistake of removing b-splines from the spline GUI in 13 which broke half of all cs tools.

Samrita said...

wow...not nice of them, they better get them back :(
anything to do about it?

Chris Smith said...

I've wasted many emails recommending b-splines stay in. Not only for legacy purposes but more importantly because they are by far the best interpolation to work with. So at this point it's up to the community to make fixes if they wish. I'm working on all new tools as true plugins. Not supporting the original xpresso ones any more myself.

Ginz said...

Hi Chris,
First of all thank you for the amazing tools you are sharing with us.
I have a quick question about easycam , is it possible to add a camera in between the start and the end or add points between them (like more then from point A to point B?)
Thanks.

Chris Smith said...

Have you tried MoCam yet? It's basically EasyCam with 8 'waypoints'. You don't have to use all 8. Just only make the first 3 cams active and if you want it to flow smoothly through the middle point, make sure the hold is at zero.

But before doing a 3rd cam, make sure you are utilizing the Camera Depth correctly on the two cams in EasyCam2. EasyCam2 derives it's orbit path from the camera depth settings. So changing them on the start and end cam can dramatically change the flight path of the cam.

Ginz said...

MoCam seems to answer my question (:
Thanks Chris!

mike said...

Hi,
I have as question about the SineNull. I want to animate the frequency of the y position from 0 to 10.. and then have a regular frequency of 10. Now the movement does accelerate but after the last keyframe makes a weird 'bump' and changes speed ( abit slower) What am I doing wrong? I hope my explanation is clear.
T.i.a.
Beautiful set of tools btw :)

Garamanga said...

Hi there,

I've been digging around the web for a C4D alternative for the "grow" plugin on 3dstudio max.

I've seen some forum comments about a tool called CS_BuildOn. However it doesn't seem to be any live links to this tool.

Is there any chance you could point be in the right direction or re-upload.

Hope you can help and love the other tools you have here. Very useful.

Cheers,

Gareth

Garamanga said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chris Smith said...

Hi Gareth,

Build-on did a very similar thing to the grow plug-in for sure. It was made for an older version of C4D and has not been updated. An evolution of CSTools is currently being made as true C4D plug-ins. A more complete version of BuildOn is on the list for being remade. Not sure of timeframe though. If you go to Maxon's Cineversity site, you can watch me use BuildOn in a SIGGRAPH 2010 presentation on using Python.

For now you CAN use the mograph module to do the same thing, albeit with a ton more setup and animating a falloff. and using spring effectors. BuildOn took a group of objects and automatically made them all grow up from nothing in sequential order with optional springy animation. What was great about buildon was no matter how your objects were arranged in space in what orientation, It just made them grow in order. You could rearrange the order of growth, by just simply rearranging them in a list. SO for example a complex model of a house frame would all grow itself board by board by just dropping the house into BuildOn and setting a few timing sliders to your preference.

Jochem said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chris Smith said...

You may be confusing me with Chris Schmidt who makes a lot of tutorials for Grey Scale Gorilla. I've done one tutorial in my life relating to CSTools.

Thermopylae said...

Hey Chris...fantastic NAB vid of the AutoCam. I wonder if you could contact me regarding that piece of software. I understand that you are still working on it, however I would like to make a proposal to you, just not on your public blog. Cheers Gerry

Unknown said...

I have a project that's perfect for the new AutoCam. Any word on availability?

Unknown said...

Any idea on when new AutoCam will be available? Sorry for the double post.

Chris Smith said...

If I have it out before the holidays it will be a miracle. So unknown at the moment. Modifying and changing some things.

Unknown said...

Thanks Chris. Really looking forward to it. Good luck.

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris, first off thanks for the great tutorials on GSG. My question,
would you consider posting a tutorial showing a chain spiraling down onto a tabletop
and finishing in a nice free form shape? Like a jewelry beauty shot.
Thanks, Dave

Chris Smith said...

Hi Dave,

You should probably ask Chris Schmidt at GSG as I've never done a tutorial for GSG. I make CSTools. Chris Schmidt works for Nick and co-developed City Kit, Light Kit, and Transform.

MyronB said...

Hi chris,
great work on cs tools. I got a question on DocuCam. the renderfarm (smedge) is having trouble rendering my scene. my guess is because of the expression being chopped up into little packets. is there a way to 'bake' this expression out?

thanks,

-Myron

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chris Smith said...

Myron,

Not exactly sure what you mean but the turbulence functions probably use different seeds on the differnt machines which means none of it will line up.

I explained baking out a few times above, but in a nutshell you want to create a new camera, add an xpresso tag and drop the very last cam in the docucam chain into that as well as the new cam itself. Then link the global matrix of the docucam to the new cam. Set the new cam focal length where you want it and then bake the new cam. It will then have all the docucam motion.

STPHN! said...

Hello mr Smith,

I see you on the interweb some month ago on a maxon booth with a presentation about a camera tool you developed. Do you plan to share it or something?

Thank you for your work

Chris Smith said...

STPHN,

I did show a camera animation system, "Autocam". I still work on it almost every day. I keep adding and modifying things. Also, to be honest, I'm running into a lot of problems where I'm hitting the limits of what Python will give you. Been talking with Maxon about implementing some of the things I need. Although it's looking more like I'll need to re-write it all in C++ to get all the features I want. So, no timeline on it I'm afraid.

STPHN! said...

Bonjour Chris smith

Too bad, it looks fabulous and can be a cure to all C4D camera frustration(s) -- excuse my english :)

thanx a lot for all you effort on those amazing tools you provide

Iswell said...

Thanks a lot Chris

Unknown said...

Thank you very much, these tools ar amazing, but I have a problem with the Spriticles. I don't see anything when I render, I've tried to change the material in the User data but It doesn't seem to work.
Do you know what could be the reason?

Thank you very Much

Unknown said...

hi there

3dstroke doesnt work in r14?

thank you

Unknown said...

hi there

3dstroke doesnt work in r14?

thank you

alex101 said...

Hello,

3D Stroke does not seem to work properly in R14.
Is there a fix for this issue?

Thanks!

Chris Smith said...

The spline widget changed in r13 which broke it.

Unknown said...

Hi Chris,

Love EasyCam! Thanks for making it available.

Any progress to report on AutoCam? Are you still developing it?

Thanks,
Jeff

Navarro Parker said...

Wasn't there a CS Tools for making things grow on in sequence? I seem to remember a cartoony rubbery truck where each component (hood, fenders, wheels, etc) scale up from zero one after another in rapid succession.

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