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video created with cinema 4d, arnold render, unreal engine & davinci resolve
audio created in ableton live
The release of Cinema 4D 2023 brought an entirely new simulation system. This new system brings some high resolution pyro and cloth physics (which have historically only been possible in programs like Houdini) to C4D.
This animation is the result of my initial experimentation with the new Pyro tag. The scene set up is very simple - a sphere is combusted with a pyro tag. There is no gravity affecting the simulation, but there is instead a slow turbulence. This causes smoke to expand omnidirectionally from the sphere until it collides with a cube. The cube is not enabled in Arnold so the camera cannot see it - instead the smoke assumes its shape. Time is dramatically slowed down.
Audio created in Ableton Live.
This animation is the result of my initial experimentation with the new Pyro tag. The scene set up is very simple - a sphere is combusted with a pyro tag. There is no gravity affecting the simulation, but there is instead a slow turbulence. This causes smoke to expand omnidirectionally from the sphere until it collides with a cube. The cube is not enabled in Arnold so the camera cannot see it - instead the smoke assumes its shape. Time is dramatically slowed down.
Audio created in Ableton Live.
I used a C4D plugin called "Signal" created by GreyScaleGorrilla to trigger motion. This plugin allowed me to animate by using a tempo-based timeline that is independent of the timeline in C4D, which in this case is rendering at 30FPS.
I set the tempo of this grid to 140BPM, the same tempo as the song I wanted to use (which I created in Ableton). The entire scene is just a sphere being deformed, but every deformation is triggered by Signal on a 140BPM grid. The result is that every deformation syncs perfectly with the accompanying audio track, even though the framerate (30FPS) and the tempo (140BPM) are not mathematically divisible.
I set the tempo of this grid to 140BPM, the same tempo as the song I wanted to use (which I created in Ableton). The entire scene is just a sphere being deformed, but every deformation is triggered by Signal on a 140BPM grid. The result is that every deformation syncs perfectly with the accompanying audio track, even though the framerate (30FPS) and the tempo (140BPM) are not mathematically divisible.
This project was my first experiment using Unreal Engine 5. After watching youtube tutorials for a few months, I downloaded the public beta and started trying to learn the basics.
Unreal Engine has a particle system called "Niagara" which I used to generate the roughly 16,000 particles you're seeing. Their color changes based on their lifetime, which is a few seconds. So each second roughly 2600 particles are generated, and over the next few seconds they change color as they shrink into nothingness. Their position changes based on the audio signal you hear.
This entire system runs in real time with raytraced lighting. I exported it as a "game" where the user can navigate the camera around a cube the particles exist within. As the camera approaches the particles, the music grows louder, and the particles react more by moving around in space more.
Unreal Engine has a particle system called "Niagara" which I used to generate the roughly 16,000 particles you're seeing. Their color changes based on their lifetime, which is a few seconds. So each second roughly 2600 particles are generated, and over the next few seconds they change color as they shrink into nothingness. Their position changes based on the audio signal you hear.
This entire system runs in real time with raytraced lighting. I exported it as a "game" where the user can navigate the camera around a cube the particles exist within. As the camera approaches the particles, the music grows louder, and the particles react more by moving around in space more.
I wanted to mess with the refractive properties of glass, and I wanted to get more comfortable working with .VDB files.
Both of those ended up being pretty easy to get into place, so I spent most of the time on this project working on the surface imperfections of the glass.
The music is created in Ableton.
Both of those ended up being pretty easy to get into place, so I spent most of the time on this project working on the surface imperfections of the glass.
The music is created in Ableton.
This is a cube I sliced up with veronoi fractures. The cube is being fractured via the coordinates created by a matrix.
I'm playing with parameters of the slices, the position of the cube, and the position of the matrix.
Everything is rendered in Arnold. All the audio was created in Ableton.
I'm playing with parameters of the slices, the position of the cube, and the position of the matrix.
Everything is rendered in Arnold. All the audio was created in Ableton.
This was a Realflow simulation.
I used the 'fill' function of Realflow to create a cube with beveled edges.
Everything here is just physics simulations. At one point I used keyframes to slow down time.
The resolution of the water could be higher - this is especially noticeable at the end as the final droplets are 'settling' into place.
Everything is rendered in Arnold. I did the sound for this mainly in Da Vinci resolve.
I used the 'fill' function of Realflow to create a cube with beveled edges.
Everything here is just physics simulations. At one point I used keyframes to slow down time.
The resolution of the water could be higher - this is especially noticeable at the end as the final droplets are 'settling' into place.
Everything is rendered in Arnold. I did the sound for this mainly in Da Vinci resolve.
This is a Realflow system where a sphere is emitting super viscous liquid.
Over time I am inverting the force of gravity, so the liquid transitions from falling to floating to rising.
Everything is rendered in Arnold. Sound is created in Ableton.
Over time I am inverting the force of gravity, so the liquid transitions from falling to floating to rising.
Everything is rendered in Arnold. Sound is created in Ableton.
-soft body physics simulations in cinema 4d
-audio created in ableton
-surfaces and sky rendered in arnold
-color grading in da vinci resolve
-kick drum stem used as mograph input to inform physics simulation
-audio created in ableton
-surfaces and sky rendered in arnold
-color grading in da vinci resolve
-kick drum stem used as mograph input to inform physics simulation
This was my first stab at messing with cloth simulations.
I quickly found that actually simulating cloth physics in Cinema 4d is extremely time intensive, so what you're seeing here is actually just a surface deformer being manipulated by wind and turbulence. I really like the effect, but it doesn't account for what happens when the cloth touches itself.
Everything is rendered in Arnold and there is lots of color correction that I did in Da Vinci Resolve.
I quickly found that actually simulating cloth physics in Cinema 4d is extremely time intensive, so what you're seeing here is actually just a surface deformer being manipulated by wind and turbulence. I really like the effect, but it doesn't account for what happens when the cloth touches itself.
Everything is rendered in Arnold and there is lots of color correction that I did in Da Vinci Resolve.
In this scene I was playing with an 'unfolding' plugin for C4D to get the sort of 'peeling' look to the layers of foil descending across the dancer.
Everything is rendered in Arnold. All the audio is created in Ableton.
I messed around in Da Vinci resolve to get the camera shaking and color grading more how I wanted it to look.
Everything is rendered in Arnold. All the audio is created in Ableton.
I messed around in Da Vinci resolve to get the camera shaking and color grading more how I wanted it to look.
This was pretty much just an excuse to see how much hair I could render using my new 3090 graphic card.
I was really happy with how well the motion capture data from mixamo made the hair sort of "bounce."
Everything is rendered in Arnold, all music created in Ableton.
I was really happy with how well the motion capture data from mixamo made the hair sort of "bounce."
Everything is rendered in Arnold, all music created in Ableton.
motion capture data of a dancer/character death is rigged to a mannequin model in cinema 4d
explosion simulation is slowly converting the figure into a cloud of polygons
rendered in arnold
audio created in ableton
explosion simulation is slowly converting the figure into a cloud of polygons
rendered in arnold
audio created in ableton
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