Hi Michael,

Interesting. I am a newb with text, decals, etc.

Can the defects be seen in the curves (ai paths)? Or only after extruding.

I will follow your suggestion – 10X.

I am struggling a bit with "Project" and may return with queries if I cannot work thru it.

Thanks.

Leonard

Hi Leonard,

> Can the defects be seen in the curves (ai paths)? Or only after extruding.

It can be hard to see the problem areas, but sometimes turning on control points will help.

So for example with your particular M, if you turn on control points (Edit > Show pts) you can kind of see there is a greater density of points in those areas where there are also some little segments:



That extra density in areas where you wouldn't really expect a whole lot of detail can be a clue of extra segmentation in those spots.

You can also clean up this kind of stuff with little segments by using the Rebuild command, it will do stuff like take 2 little segments that are touching each other close to being smooth and instead build one single larger segment in place of them.

I guess I should probably be doing an automatic rebuild process in more cases. I've tended to be somewhat conservative about doing automatic changing type stuff since part of rebuilding or reconstructing things can involve minor changes in the shape as well... But I've been gaining more confidence that the rebuild mechanism is working well so I can probably start to incorporate it in more places in v3.

re: Project - do you have a particular model that you can post that you're having difficulty with?

- Michael

Hi Michael,

""""""""I guess I should probably be doing an automatic rebuild process in more cases. I've tended to be somewhat conservative about doing automatic changing type stuff since part of rebuilding or reconstructing things can involve minor changes in the shape as well... But I've been gaining more confidence that the rebuild mechanism is working well so I can probably start to incorporate it in more places in v3.""""""""

WHen you do this, could you also consider a means to "turn it off!" Alot of the stuff I do requires me to keep as it is...I love the rebuild tool and use it regularly, but with particular analysis.

I understand it will be good for MoI's overall goal, and not have to require common fast operations to be hunting/knowing more advanced techniques... But I would have regular situations where this could present problems for me.....I would like the ability to continue to work some of this stuff manually....

Thanks.

Hi Burr, well I was thinking of doing it in pretty specific targeted circumstances, like possibly when you are importing an AI file, also possibly within the Text command on the curves that were extracted directly from the font information.

I wasn't really thinking about it happening just all the time automatically...

It's more like if I can do it at some key points where the messy data might be getting initially created.

- Michael

OIC.... Jumping off the bridge to quick for me! Seems about par....:o

Hi Michael,

The Project method is what I prefer to use but, after the numeral (ai path) is projected onto the surface it does not appear in C4D. I thought the numbers/text would import as a curve that allowed for a separate color than the surrounding button. Does it need a separate id before exporting?

The Boole Merge method works well but is much more work and seems to require identifying each part before exporting. Without the id for each part, the parts are merged back into a single object (pic below).

Attached is a file testing Project and Boole Merge.

Leonard

Hi Leonard - when you project a curve on to a surface, it creates a new curve object, the surface itself is not modified in any way yet. The curve hugs the surface but it is totally separate from it at this point, for example you can just drag it off to the side and see that your original surface is there untouched.

If you want to have separate colors for different areas of a surface, you'll need to actually cut the surface up to make it into separate independent pieces that can then have individual properties assigned to them.

You can use the Trim command for that using the projected curve to slice the top of the button, or like you already showed doing a Boolean Merge using the original planar object without doing any separate projection will work for that.


> Without the id for each part, the parts are merged
> back into a single object (pic below).

They don't have to be - there is a setting for that which you can turn off. Go to Options > Import/Export and uncheck the option that says "Combine same named objects" here:



Then when you export after that, you should see that the objects are individually selectable inside of Cinema4D, even though they have the same name label assigned to them.

There are some other ways you can do it as well - in your case the objects are being combined because they have the same name label, so if you assign a different name label to each piece (or removed the name labels altogether by giving them blank names) they would then not be combined even with that setting turned on.

You can also do Style assignments as well, which will then control material assignments of the different polygons in Cinema4D. That allows you to set up different colors on different parts of an object without necessarily needing to make it into separate top-level objects.

For example if you make a box, and set the sides to have Style = Red, and the top face to have Style = Blue in MoI, then when you export that to OBJ format and bring it into Cinema4D there will be some materials named "Red" and "Blue" in the materials list there, and the polygons will be assigned to each of those. So you don't need to select or assign any materials in that case, that's all done already and you can just edit the materials to change the way they look. You may want to use the Riptide plugin for this since it brings in the material colors which the default Cinema4D OBJ importer does not do (but the default one will still maintain assignments though).

- Michael

Good explanation. Thanks, Michael.

I will try the Project/Trim/Style next.

Leonard

Michael,

The Project/Trim/Style worked great. So fast!

Cheers,

Leonard

That's turning out great Nigel!

One note - you can also apply details like that as texture maps inside of Cinema4D as well that will then show up in the rendering instead of modeling them as actual geometry. That can sometimes be a faster way to do it.

But making them as geometry can kind of give a nice crisp appearance though too.

- Michael

Nigel and I thank for the compliment, Michael. The design below is final but the materials need more work.

Yep, I do a lot of mapping to objects in C4D. The truth be told, I am not relaxed modeling in C4D and I have been using it for years. Most of the time, I will 3D model from 2D drawings in VectorWorks which gets ported to C4D via an exchange plug in. MoI, I find, is a pleasure to work with and the mesh, for some objects, is better than VW. Anyway, this was a chance to explore tools I normally do not use and will be able to put to use in other ways.

Leonard