C4D Tracer Object & Everything Explained in Detail - Cinema 4D Mograph.

hi guys it's robbie here and in today's video we are talking about the tracer object in the mograph menu so this is their continuation of a cinema 4d mograph menu object explanation so the tracer object is an object that creates spline following the animation of an object right so it follows the trail of an object or it can actually create plan using the point of an object so let me actually go ahead and demonstrate how it basically works so i'll go ahead and create my go to my mograph menu tracer object all right and i'll add for instance for now i'll add a sphere for us to see what the tracer is all about so it does everything so you are going to go through the parameters step by step so this is where you drag the tracer link this is where you drag the object that you want to trace in so in this case i'll drag the cube here all right so i have my cube here you can drop multiple objects it can be more than one object and now you can see the tracing mode is set to trace path for now we will change it from trace path and you change it to connect all objects right so we you see you can see all of a sudden it's created some spline connecting our points for us so you can see it's generated points for us instantly so that's basically what the connect all object does connect element also does work the same as well because it's one object but if i have multiple objects so i'll go ahead and create multiple copies of the cube in fact i'll use a clone object to do this so that it will be easier so i'll go ahead and create a mograph clone object come to mograph cloner and make this a chart actually reduce the size of the cube so that we see what's going on here so now instead of the cube i can actually go ahead and add the but i don't want to delete the queue from the tracer link and now you can see we have only the clone in here and if you see what's happening it's creating this plan for us let me actually go to filter and take off the work plane so that we see clearly you can see it's creating lines connecting us here so i'll go ahead and have the clone now you can see what's going on here so that's what the connect element and the connect object that they literally works um similarly but it has a bit of difference so i can go in here if i should go ahead and add more second you can see it's connecting our objects for us so we can create interesting um patterns using the tracer object on its own so basically that's what the connect object in the connected if it's one object like the clone um does but let me actually change it so i'll duplicate the clone and i'll make it editable so we have multiple copies of the cube in here and now you want to put that in the tracer so i actually delete the cloner then i'll select all of this by see the cloner editor size a lot so what i'll do is i'll lock the attribute of the tracer so when you click on this button here it will lock it so whatever i select it would it will still be there so then i'll select all of the cubes and i'll drag it and drop it in the tracer and now i'll unlock it so that you see what's going on so you see in the trees are now is set to connect element and what is doing it's all the cubes have actually dropped it's connecting the points of all the cubes right separately so they are all connecting separately but if i should go ahead and say connect all objects right and sometimes with the trees up that you need to sort of play backhand for sorry to refresh you can see now it's connecting all of the object the objects as one spline so you can see it's connecting the point and go ahead goes through to connect to the next object as well so basically that's the difference between connect all objects and connect elements the elements connect elements in one object but they all object connect every object including points in the tracer length so that's the difference now the next one is trace path and this particular one will need animation so with this one we have to have something which is animated so i'll go to this tab so i have this object here a sphere which i've reduced the segment and you can see it's moving and rotating so this is a normal sphere moving and rotating what i'm going to do is i'll select the sphere and i come to mograph effector and thermograph tree and our add tracer and when you hit play it's the tracing mode is set to trace path so if you hit play you can see now it's tracing the points of the sphere right that is basically all the points of the sphere which is being traced and that's because now in the trees when you come down here you can see we have sample i'll explain it a bit later we have active objects so if i uncheck this now nothing will happen because no the object is not active so this one always has to be on now the reason why it tracing the points of the ca is because it's set to trace vertex so if i should uncheck this you can see it will not trace diverted the point but you trace the object alone as one object you treat it as one object so just create one um trio for us and the next one is thinking so this one you use for taking particles and that one is a different situation altogether so let's see what happens right so basically that's how this one works now let's go back to the sample mode so the sample mode will be best illustrated if i use a different object so i'll go ahead and do a different animation so i'll use a cube i'll make it smaller a bit and i'll use a null object to rotate it so i'll move the cube up this a quick animation i'm actually doing make sure it's set to the right dimensions okay so now let's go ahead and animate the note so that the cube will rotate so i'll set the keyframe here and that frame let's see 40 i'll say shoot it's like 480 for e0 i mean it doesn't matter i just want something stream so i'll go ahead and hide this particular actually this one go into our tracer and i'll delete this here so now let's see the animation you have if you hit play you can see it's just a cube rotating like that so i'll drag the cube into our tracer link and now you can see it's creating following the trio of the here using the vertices so now i'll simply come in here into the trees actually on check the vertices i wanted to trace only the object so you can see it's tracing the object for us and now the sample mode that's what i want to try the sample step it's going to define so every frame so basically what he's doing is that every frame it draws a spline for us so you can see um if i shoot it every frame it draws a spline so that it follows smoothly by when you renew you increase the sample step it means you reduce the number of frames that you drop the sample so for now let me actually do something very significant so i will do it like let's say 20 and you can see you see the difference so if i hit play and see it drew it drew only two spline if i do let's see 10 right and see see the splice is drawing it's not accurate it sort of goes after every um 10 frames then it draws a line and you can use it smartly if there is something you want to do see what's going on so the more the sample step then the less the more jagged your your this thing will look your trail or your trail will look so that's basically what the sample step also um does so now let's go to the next which is uh handle colonize so this is how the tree and tracer object deals or handle cloning so with this one i'll go to a different scene so here i have a cube right let me actually um delete this so here i have a cube so let me actually uncheck so it's normal cube which i've cloned it on this particular um clone giving us three clones and i've cloned it radially on this one as well so i've animated the first one which is it's moving and rotating right so i'll go ahead and create a normal um theresa so i come to teresa with the first one so the theresa and it's the first one which is being selected the hierarchy the top of the hierarchy so if i should hit play and now you see how handle clone is is set to notes only so if i hit play you can see how the splines are drawn so basically what it's doing is that it sees only it sees this clone particularly as the node right so the way this clone has been um cloned like um six times on the count so it's basically taking every this clone as six so let me if i should actually um moving around you can see right in the center of each one each of this clone you can see it creates um one like trio for each of them so if you go ahead and animate it again and play it again you can see it's creating six different splines because because this is set to six right so it's now handling this as one node now you can actually when you go ahead and change it to immediate clones now let's see what happens so now it's handling the every so every particular cube right it's now having its own trail or trail as you can see every particular cube is having at first it was every clone this particular every clone was having its own trail but not every cube is having its own trio so this is how it handles multiple um objects so now if you go to the next clones of clone then now it's going to handle every vertex so everything within the clone will be i am calculated so every vertex everything will be calculated so this is basically how it handles um clones so next we have space and the space it's quite simple so with that one i'll use a different scene so i'll come in here and we use this um old scene that we had so you see if i hit play now the space is set to glow bar so if i hit play everything is normal but what happens if i should move um the tracer so for instance i'll move the tracer to somewhere here and i hit play it doesn't really affect it as much it will you see nothing really happens if everything still follows the object i won't do and bring it back but now if i change it to low car and move it let's see what happens you can see where it's affecting the position of the spline so those are the two so the global try to stay relative to the object while they look at it's um always relative to the i think tracer itself so when you move it sets look and you move it your trees your trees are to move as well so that's the difference so the next is our limits right the limit is so as you see let me actually bring it back to global so that let me reset this one and bring it back to global so you can see once the thing is playing we even after the at the end of the animation this line keeps staying there and it doesn't um vanish so sometimes this is what you you might want and it's fine but there are times that you want to throw like make it follow like a tail or something right so when the um animation and the slide through must like sort of follow it like that and there are two ways you can do it so if you wanted to follow the animation all right then like it's from you choose that instead of setting it's numb so when it's done it means that the spline will forever be there but when it's set to from end then with that one you can define the frames that you want the true to follow so right now it's set to just one frame so i'll increase it to let's see 20 frames and now i'll hit play and you can see it follows the um cube and now when the cube in this line through you know animating and and so that's what they're from in does it gives you that trio that follows it and in you can set the the frames that you wanted to start you can actually make it let's see six and you'll be shot you'll be quite short and make it 30 and that would be very long before it moves and all that and the same thing applies to the from start but that one it draws the spline actually let me go back and set it to let's see 10 and let's see it's play so that one draws the like the first few frames of the spline for you and now it doesn't follow your animation so those are the two difference typically the one which is mostly used is the front end and the none so that's the difference between the limits and the amount is the frame rates that the frame that you want and this line to be drawn or followed now the types let's go down here and go to the type so now the type of spline that it's creating is a linear spline so let me actually change it to from start to let's see from end and now increase the frame rate to [Music] the amount of frames to 25 and now let's hit play to see what happens you see it the spline that is creating is very um um rough at the edges and because it sets linear right so the spline type is linear so it's straight lines creating so if you set it to one or continue training of this ship so i set it to let's see bezier and now let's hit play i mean it's still the same linear i like you can't see the smoothness in it so before that one you can get the smoothness you have to come to the intermediate points and that's where we choose the how smooth or how it's defined so i'll choose uniform and i can see now we have smooth um path created if you play again can see now apart is smooth and you know we can also close spline which will close the spline even before it's done drawing so that one might not be necessary depending on what you are doing but if it can also be useful in some situations so that's here and down here is the number of inter so there with the uniform it's set to eight if i actually set it to one you can see all zero you can see it's not getting not enough interpolation so now it's not smooth again so the more you add it you can see now it gives you a bit more um smoothness and the these ones too are actu actually for instance angle and maximum that's when you set it to like let's say subdivide you can see it gives you this um option for you to control the angles and and that the last thing is reverse sequence so um this one will be a bit difficult for me to explain but let me actually use for instance um a sweep object so i come in here where actually i'll create a sweep object and i'll make it a child of the the tree i'll make the trees a child of the sweep and i'll use um let's see i'll use the inside and i'll actually let's see what happens so i'll make the inside a bit smaller and i come into the strip and i'll come to the object detail and the scale i'll make it smaller so you can see where our end of the trail list and the way it begins my if i come into the theresa and i come down here and i say reverse angle you can see now the end and the beginning of our trio changes so this is um quite technical when you are working with something and you want the ending in the beginning that's where you see the difference so it reverses the angle of the of the spline right so you can actually use it in some situations to do some interesting stuff so basically that's all about the trace object and it comes it's very very powerful and you can use it smartly to do a lot of interesting things thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: PixelAffair

Views: 18,357

Keywords: Cinema 4d, Maxon, After effects, Adobe, motion, motion graphics, 3d, 2d, Animation, mograph, tv, opener, ident, vfx, film, ghana, africa, design, motion design, art, artist, blender, maya, blender ghana, c4d, cinema 4d ghana, gh, Nigeria, cg, cg africa, computer graphics, rs, Redshift, deformer bodypaint, uv paint, Texturing, materials, material, trace, tracer

Id: DMIOhdGR9Wg

Length: 19min 4sec (1144 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 27 2021