Cinema 4D Tutorial - Triggering Dynamics the Easy Way Video Lecture | Create stunning 3D Graphics with Cinema 4D - 3D & Animation

hey everyone it's EJ from Aya's I'm calm
and in today's tutorial I'm gonna be
showing you how you can art direct and
take total control over dynamics by
learning how you can simply trigger
dynamics using what's called ghost
bodies let's check it out alright so
what I want to do first is just kind of
set the overall scene here I got my
little dandelion got these little
floaties that's what I'm gonna be
calling them in this tutorial and what
I'm want to do is our direct how these
in trigger which one of these little
floaties float away and basically time
them to this nice beautifully sweeping
camera move as it kind of orbits around
the dandy line so let's just kind of
break down the shortcomings of just your
default dynamics so the first thing
we're gonna do is just make our scene
dynamic so I'm gonna select these
objects to the base which is the little
circle that's making up the center of
the Danny line the stem and this round
room that we are in basically like a
background sight kind of thing and these
are gonna be collided into we want the
little floaties to be able to collide
into them and not intersect them so I'm
gonna make these colliders so I'm gonna
right click go to simulation tags go to
collider body and this will ensure that
these objects will just be climbed into
now for the round room if I can just see
what the round room is basically a
rounded rectangle that I just deleted
the front face off of and for the round
room we need to make sure that dynamics
takes into account that this object is
actually hollow it's not like a solid
brick of concrete or anything so we need
to make one small change to the default
settings on our Collider for our round
room and that is to change the dynamic
shape or the collision shape to
something other than automatic something
more accurate than automatic because
this is the fastest simulation but the
least accurate so we're gonna change
this to static mesh and this is going to
take into account the hollowness of this
and won't allow for our dandelion
floaties to just kind of explode out all
over the place so that's all we need to
do with those colliders next we'll go
and make our little floaties dynamic
okay so we're gonna right click go to
simulation tags and go to rigidbody
because we actually want physics to be
applied to these floaties we don't want
physics to be applied to our colliders
we just need them to have the ability to
be collided into okay so let's go and
just hit play you're gonna see that but
not looking too good right and that's
because by default let me just hit
escape to stop the simulation go back to
zero and though the big problem is not
the the actual shape that we changed on
the round room but the collision options
here the inherit tag because right now
it's treating this cloner object as one
cohesive piece of geometry one cohesive
piece of dynamic geometry and keeping
every all the floaties as one group and
we don't want that we want each of these
individual floaties to to have their own
properties and have them be their own
floaties they can do whatever they want
with their own floaties free will so
we're gonna go and we're gonna need to
change the inherent tag to apply tag to
children this is going to allow for our
dynamics tag to be applied to all the
children okay next thing if I just hit
play you're gonna see that still nothing
nothing's happening nothing good changed
at all that's because we need to go to
this individual elements and currently
it's set to OFF but if I click this drop
down menu you're gonna see that we have
three options okay one is going to be
all and what all is gonna do I can just
show you right away is it's going to
treat all of these objects and bear with
the slowness of the speed here but it's
gonna treat all of these little objects
so you can see what's making up one
little floaty we have a couple Spears a
cylinder you know in the little top part
here is a bunch of clone as a clone
capsule with a sphere on the end of it
and you can see that basically
all of these objects are being treated
as individual objects but what we
actually want to do is everything under
this null we want treated as one
cohesive floating piece okay so what
that's gonna require us to do is instead
of choosing all we're gonna choose top
level so what that means it's gonna look
right immediately at the top level of
the immediate child of our cloner object
to see that object all of the children
underneath it it's gonna treat it as one
object and this is exactly what we want
but let's just make sure that's how that
works
and we're gonna hit play and
everything's gonna float out and fall to
the ground but you're gonna see that
okay at least all these little floaties
are your own cohesive piece okay so that
that was very important but the thing is
is that floaties don't fall they float
hence why I call them floaties so right
now they're just falling to the ground
so what I can do is remove all of the
gravity from the scene so that they
actually do floats so how you can do
that is by hitting command D and going
into your project settings and if you
navigate to the dynamics tab go to
general we have this gravity option
right here and by default it's got a
thousand centimeters in the gravity slot
but if we change that to zero and hit
play basically it's just gonna turn off
the gravity altogether it's like we have
a dandelion in space zero gravity
dandelion action and this this little
floaty is coming right at us so I'm
gonna stop and what we're gonna do is
you know you can see that there's not a
whole lot of control with the default
dynamics I hit play it triggers okay and
why that is is because in the dynamics
tab we have in the dynamics tab here the
trigger set to immediately so what that
means is that the dynamics is going to
trigger immediately when you hit play
immediately on frame one and one of the
ways you can get around
and if you want to trigger the dynamics
to maybe comment you know say you want
to trigger the dynamics at frame 60 well
you can do one thing and that is
keyframe the dynamics from turning on or
off so what I can do is just say you
know what I'm gonna turn the dynamics
off set a keyframe I'm gonna go one
frame ahead and on frame 61 that's when
the dynamics is gonna turn on so now
even though it's set to immediate
immediately on the trigger I can hit
play and the dynamics will be off okay
now watch what happens when we get our
playhead to play 61 now you can see we
triggered the dynamics but again it's
triggering all of the floaties all at
once so that's really not gonna help us
that much can't you it's a little bit of
art direction but not a lot right so I'm
just gonna bring that dynamic option and
turn it back on so for the trigger
instead of using the immediately setting
that's set there by default what we can
say is you know what when a object
collides into the floaties or whatever
object you have that is dynamic aside
we're gonna say you know what have that
actually trigger the dynamic so when
it's collided into trigger the dynamics
so what that means is now we can go and
create a wrecking ball aka your standard
sphere and we're going to change this
into a Collider so just like we have
these objects our stem or round room as
a Collider we're gonna do the same thing
with our sphere let's name this wrecking
ball all caps gotta have all caps and
we're gonna right click here go to
simulation tags and go to collider all
right so now check this out now when I
hit play nothing happens because it's
waiting these little floaties are
waiting to get collided into BAM and
have them kind of float away and have
the dynamics be triggered but the
problem with that is is the floaties are
going everywhere they're rotating out of
control and again this is not very
realistic at all now
I can be a little bit less heavy-handed
on this of course and maybe go like this
and this will trigger the the floaties
but again you're seeing the influence of
the wrecking ball sphere actually
pushing the objects away so it doesn't
look very natural it doesn't look like
these objects these floaties are just
releasing from the dandelion and
floating away they're actually being
collided into by something so this is a
little bit closer we can art direct a
lot more but again I don't want to see
that the objects look like they're being
bashed into by something okay so there's
one very important setting to change our
wrecking ball from being a wrecking ball
to being a trigger in located all
lowercase you're very nice softer kind
of thing so just a dynamic trigger okay
and that is to go into our dynamics tag
here and onto the dynamics option here
instead of on or off we're gonna use
ghosts very spooky ghosts you're gonna
see a little cute ghost guy right there
on the on a little tab right that are
the tag right there and the ghost
dynamics is something I just recently
discovered and it totally changed it
blew my mind I've been living my life
spin alive this entire time but
basically what the ghost dynamics allow
you to do is if I hit play and if I just
gently move this sphere you can see that
you it's not actually running into it
it's not actually pushing the the
floaties it's actually just triggering
the dynamics to be activated on those
individual floaty pieces so this is a
game changer like this totally makes
dynamics a completely art directl thing
okay but the problem is is that you know
probably thinking like what's all well
and good EJ you're you're moving a
sphere around and triggering things
things but at the end of the day how can
you actually keyframe that you'd
actually have to like keyframe the
sphere and set some keyframes manually
and all that good stuff will no no you
actually don't there's a really really
cool thing to come
really take full control and art
director will control over dynamics
using basically it's the after-effects
equivalent of motion trace and if you've
used motion trace before what motion
trace does is basically records your
movement your mouse movement in your
comp and records it out as keyframes
over time now the cinema 4d equivalent
to motion trace is a little thing called
cappuccino delicious drink in amazing
workflow enhancer inside of cinema 4d so
here's the cappuccino window this allows
us to basically convert a movement of
our object through our mouse movement in
the viewport and record it all as
keyframes so there's a few important
things to set up before we get started
number one is what it even says what
what do you want from me this cappuccino
is busy what do you want what do you
want to record in that in that mouse
recording that's gonna happen and really
all we need to record is position
because I'm just moving this trigger
sphere around in the scene so positions
what I want and then this rewind time I
want to uncheck that okay and that's
very important now I'll get to that very
shortly next thing we need to do is just
make sure that the range is the project
so the full project range all the
keyframes and then once we're all set up
there start at current time is checked
on we're just gonna say start real time
and nothing's gonna happen until you
click and hold down your mouse key and
start moving the sphere or whatever your
trigger object is around and it's going
to I'm just gonna move this around and
trigger these objects that I'm just
gonna release my mouse button and it's
gonna stop the recording of the
keyframes and the movement of my mouse
but you're gonna see all these keyframes
that cappucino recorded my mouse
movement in the viewport recorded them
as keyframes and a key on every single
frame which is amazing which is super
super cool
that now this is a way that you can art
direct and trigger individual little
floaties or individual objects to have
dynamics be triggered on it in
you know coordinated or synchronized
something like dynamics with a camera
move like what we have right now a
sweeping orbiting camera move now say
you're like well I'm not done yet I
wanna maybe I want to you know move this
sphere up and maybe I want to have these
little top floaties up here be triggered
next well that's where this rewind time
is checked off because typically if you
had rewind time checked on when you
release your mouse button the playhead
would go all the way to zero and you
couldn't just you know continue or
resume your animation or continue
resuming movement of your your sphere or
whatever object you're you're recording
your mouse movement for so now what we
can do because we didn't have rewind
time we can just resume from where we
left off all I have to do is say hit
start real time again and I move my
sphere up here so I'm just gonna click
and hold hold down my mouse button and
now you can see that it actually
connected the keyframe from the bottom
to the top so typically you might just
want to let me let me just go back to a
few frames there and I'm just I can
actually rewrite over these frames as
well so I'll just maybe move it over
here okay and hit start real time and
now I'll move this up and you're gonna
see that the diet dynamics already
triggered again so let's let's just redo
this shall we so let's just hit play you
can see all the playback movement
happening and then right about there I'm
gonna stop okay and now I'm gonna hit
start real time and now I'll move this
sphere around I'll move it up making
sure I don't actually connect with any
of the underlying pieces but I can come
to the top here I can even stop and
bring up my four up view and say you
know what maybe we go all the way to the
front use our four up view go to go to
the top here maybe and maybe just shave
off all the trigger all
little floaties on the top okay so this
is really handy to be able to just like
you know tee up you're next you're next
mouse control movement here or he frame
recorded movement here and just say
start real time and just trigger the top
you can see all the little pieces
trigger on the top and I'm even working
in my front view so we can also just go
fullscreen here and again I can still
try to coordinate this and synchronize
this with my camera move so maybe you
know have this float around and maybe
when the camera you know brings these
over these top ones its top floaties in
view let's go and just move the sphere
this way again tee it up for the next
move so right here and then basically
when my orbit comes to around here I'll
trigger these little floaties on this
side hit start real time
let's just go fullscreen on our
perspective view and let's go down and
we're triggering those ones and
triggering these ones down there one
really handy thing is like once your
once your trigger your ghost object your
spooky ghost sphere gets in the way it
really helps to be able to go into the
basic tab and just turn on x-ray so you
can actually see through okay so that's
very important let's just start real
time again and let's just continue
moving this moving grooving triggering
these ones and then going down and say
we want to trigger this back you know
these ones right here these little
floaties I could just move again teeing
up my next recording and you something
like that you can see now I just
triggered these back pieces and like
just this is just so this is just so
huge to be able to art direct stuff like
this to art direct something as you know
pre simulated as as dynamics
and just be able to art direct that is
such a huge thing to coordinate it with
a camera move you can you can trigger
exactly the objects you want whether it
be you know something like this where
you're doing some floaties or if you're
even using a Voronoi fracture in
triggering fracturing of different parts
of your object and you can even have
instead of just having one sphere being
a trigger you can have multiple spheres
being little spooky ghosts and going all
around you could have you know the four
or five spooky ghosts like in pac-man
and have Maul scare in the crap and
making scaring the crap out of in making
the objects dynamic so again I could
spend a lot more time on this cleaning
this up and really making this
coordinate more with my camera move but
hopefully this kind of opens your eyes
to the possibility of what you can do
with cappuccino with ghost bodies and
triggering triggering animations and
triggering dynamics then one last thing
like nice finishing touch is you know
this is all well and good we have our
sphere going around and just want to
make sure that our trigger actually
doesn't render if I just hit render here
and this goes through our scene here
what's gonna happen is this is actually
gonna render out the sphere okay
so you see the sphere right there so
what we're gonna do is just click the
little bottom dot here to hide it from
render okay so that's very important so
you don't have some random freaking
sphere going throughout your scene and
flying around we don't want to see it so
hide it from view but one finishing
touch is to you know make our dynamic
simulation look a little bit more
interesting because right now they
trigger and they kind of float away and
there's some rotation here but what we
can do is really have a lot of fun
utilizing particle forces because
particle forces can react with dynamic
objects so we can add some turbulence we
can add some wind and actually control
the direction of where these little
floaties are floating too so on the wind
áformer you can actually see
if I just move this up you can see this
little arrow where of where the wind is
actually pointing hopefully you can see
that this little arrow there so what we
can do is just rotate this so maybe we
have the so there's the arrow wasn't
lying told you and I can basically angle
the fan of the wind object to blow these
little pieces maybe more towards my
camera okay as the cameras going through
and this turbulence will help add some
nice little undulation to the movement
as well so let's just see what this
looks like without changing any of the
default settings there so I'll just hit
play so you can see our fan going
there's a spooky ghost and now you can
see the winds reacting we have a little
bit more turbulence happening as well
maybe we crank up the turbulence to
maybe 59 now you can start to see the
nice undulation a lot more organic
movement coming from our dynamic objects
as well something else we can do is
maybe go into the collision tab and up
the friction maybe we add a lot of
friction to these little pieces so maybe
I mean because with these little
dandelions at least they're so fuzzy
it's so fluffy they they kind of stick
together anyway so uh upping the
friction will help as well as even
adding a friction object particle object
to add that more realistic motion to the
floaties so you go adding the turbulence
adding the wind really really cool stuff
to be able to really add a lot of cool
finishing touches to your dynamics and
again all art directl using the spooky
ghost dynamics and using a you know any
kind of object as a Collider ghost
Collider and using cappucino to then
record your mouse movements to have full
control over a dynamic simulation so
hopefully you find a lot of good uses
for this workflow and really can't wait
to see what you come up with
have fun with your floaties alright so
that's how you can easily trick
dynamics using ghost bodies inside of
cinema 4d if you have any questions on
this workflow please ask them in the
comment section below if you create
anything using this technique using your
little spooky ghost dynamic triggers be
sure to share them with me on Facebook
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appreciate all you guys watching out
there and I'll see you in the next
tutorial bye everybody