Create An Awesome Array Of Shattering Strings

Create An Awesome Array Of Shattering Strings

on Feb 6th 2012 with 15 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: After Effects, and Cinema 4d
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Run Time: 36:17 min
Download Source Files

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

We’ll be starting in Cinema 4d to create text fragments and use XPresso to export the Mograph positional data to After Effects. From there, we’ll jump over into After Effects and use expressions to connect 3d nulls to 2d data points… We’ll also be using a macro in Microsoft Word to edit multiple lines of expressions. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Cinema 4d user or strictly an After Effects user, today’s tutorial should be something helpful for everyone!

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .mp4

File size: 77.3 MB

 
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I am a self taught freelance motion graphics designer. I continuously push myself to learn new techniques and styles to keep me mentally active and bring new life to my work. I have learned a lot from the online community and I look forward to being able to give back.  

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  • http://www.jonbagge.net Jon Bagge

    Great tutorial, I really like the paper-look effect.

    However I think you can do everything without having to copy-paste expressions to an external editor. If you have 68 nulls in your comp, put one beam effect on a layer below. Have it reference the position of layer ‘index-68′. That will be the 68th layer above, or the first null. Then just duplicate this layer 68 times. Each of the 68 beam layers will then reference the 68 null layers above.

    Jon

    • http://www.cmimagery.com Kevin Snyder
      Author

      Jon,

      I tried some different variations of your idea, but couldn’t get it to work. Please let me know if you can. I’m always interested in ways to streamline my workflow. Thanks.

  • http://matanarbel.com Matan

    Nice tutorial man.

    it would be nice if u would have mentioned where to download the script since its a freebe :]

    you can get the script here:
    http://www.per-anders.net/w/index.php?title=Generate_nulls_on_Mograph

    If anyone is looking for it.

    • http://www.cmimagery.com Kevin Snyder
      Author

      Thanks for finding the file! I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I got it. It is a really handy file…can’t imagine working without it. Thanks again.

  • chris

    Isnt the mograph tracer more efficiant for creating the lines?

    • http://www.cmimagery.com Kevin Snyder
      Author

      Chris,

      Mograph tracer is awesome, but I have not been able to find a way to allow all the Mograph particles to be attached to a single point using the tracer. There may be some XPresso magic out there to make it work, but I have not discovered it yet…

  • DizaBlah

    Anyone know where I can get the Word macro? It doesn’t seem to be making itself very apparent or my google-fu is for shit

    • DizaBlah

      I found it here: http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/110490-Replace-character-with-number-sequence

      Sub AddSequence()
      Dim n As Integer
      Application.ScreenUpdating = False
      Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
      With Selection.Find
      .ClearFormatting
      .Text = “@”
      .MatchWholeWord = False
      .MatchWildcards = False
      Do While .Execute
      n = n + 1
      Selection.Text = n
      Selection.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseEnd
      Loop
      End With
      Application.ScreenUpdating = True
      End Sub

  • DizaBlah

    Also, all of my lines are annoyingly in front of my exploding text. I know it’s something really dumb on my end. any suggestions?

    • DizaBlah

      heh, figured it out. Special pass render. Knew I was missing something

  • Oliver Banasiak

    The Word Macro isn’t working for me. When I click run after editing the macro for the right name to change, nothing happens.

  • joedev

    where do i find the project file?

  • Phoenix

    can u give me the main material thx!

  • Haspy

    Please help, this tutorial so necessary for my final project in university, but i cant find clone_info_hierarchy.c4d, will you help me?!