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1. 23 If any part of this agreement is found void and unenforceable it will not affect the validity of the balance of the agreement which shall remain valid and enforceable according to its terms Termination 24 This agreement shall automatically terminate upon failure by you to comply with its terms despite being given an additional period to do so In case of termination due to the aforementioned reason you are obliged to delete the program and all documentation and stop any commercial use of the software Furthermore upon request of the licensor you must submit written declaration that you are not in possession of any copy of the software on data storage devices or on the computer itself Information and notices 25 If you have any questions concerning this agreement of if you desire to contact Frank Willeke for any reason and for all notifications performed under this agreement please write to Frank Willeke 1706 sok No 17 1 35600 Bahcelievler Karsiyaka Izmir Turkey sales c4d jack de www c4d jack de 6973 SurfaceSPREAD 5 5 Alphabetical Index ELE 49 RE 6 e POPE EEE A 36 BEE 27 3 eege 2 Sie ei CGS E 8 49 6 B ee ee 2 A ENEE 5 O E A A EAA 43 eerste eege eaaa R 28 30 35 EE 26 31 ICH OD EE 48 Te 48 O A O O EE E ET 29 Add Path EE 37 EE 37 EE 21 22 59 A E e 44 Alphabetical Index 67 Eier 16 17 41 54 eebe 11 e EE 20 37 O E 62 Eege 33 APP at E 33 Apply to marks nnnnnnononeoonoeenne
2. Distance ee ei ei Oa 43 Distance from Camera 19 Distance Shader ne ee 42 A E E 24 RE glat To EE 12 52 59 Distribution ModifleL ccccnnnncccnnnnnccnnnnniconnnnns 7 14 26 40 Distribution Override Tag 7 38 RE legt re E DEE 9 Ree ae Yen ee 34 E A I 16 18 19 NS O tithe 33 Editor Weich nun weite ee ala 9 SE KEE 23 51 60 EL een ers 63 12300 2 cee Renn Ee A a 48 SILOM MCSA A ee are 62 Even EN Bent 33 EXDILESSION TAOS i 11 F O A 31 VADO A oa 62 Falter by Maternal rs ee 13 Filter by Modilier EE 14 40 TGCS oie een est 12 Tores een EE 50 BON aa eae a N ee er ee 20 53 Fractal Break EE 15 40 TraetalTunctlons se een en 30 FUSION Shader au Bean 8 39 42 G Genen 9 27 58 U 21 EE 47 Geo Eileen szene 15 E ee a 17 Globa MAUI St dial 46 A ea 42 EE E 39 Ci sed tnt ee 43 H A a r N 10 Hea GE 29 Merdare NY aoa co tetas see ee 63 INOS eebe dee ne 29 O ER aon ne EN nS IR AIR One ES REN CEN 22 I Conseil 2 a A alles 26 IK 11 Independent idilio 35 as AAA II nen 11 Installation sd tol 6 49 7173 Appendix Alphabetical Index A era 10 IS 29 35 AAA 15 23 24 25 33 Interactive Render Region csere a 39 EES 14 52 ig AA E 5 a AA 16 28 L Layer SHader sat bailas 8 39 55 Bayer KE 29 30 31 32 EE 27 Er Ile EE 65 Ee 8 IC ONS Can eek 62 LieenseApreemenl sisi cipal 49 64 A A Stale et 6 Limited warranty tele ds 65 EE Ee A he ta ee 37 A es 27 36 LOHNURBS sr ee ee aan 10 FONES a ea che
3. Shader Bigenschaften Bid Shader Efekt EG SurfaceSPREAD Farbton al 5873 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD 4 Fill a bookshelf with books Although SurfaceSPREAD specializes in creating landscapes it can also be used for other applications This tutorial by Knut Schr der shows how to fill a bookshelf with books and how to use the SurfaceSPREAD effects and shader to create a realistic result Part 1 Getting started The book consists of a HyperNURBS suitable object for the book cover and another object with only 3 polygons for the pages Both objects are grouped in a Null object This ensures that the SurfaceSPREAD Object handles the book parts as a single object The Null object is located at the lower front of the book That makes the spreading easier to control and also more comprehensive The shelf is also modeled quite simply For close ups we might need some more details but it should be sufficient for this example 5973 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD Only at the left and right ends of the shelving units do we need an additional edge loop to prevent the book from intersecting with the side panels In order to distribute the books along the shelves edge the polygons which will be used for distribution should only have a small depth Z dimension In the image you can see the selected polygon that we will use for distribution This polygon is the result of another edge loop that has
4. create a nice variation The fine tuning is done using the intensity slider 3 To apply even more variance for the book clones ES we can use the Random Scale effect A higher value for the X scale produces books of different thickness Again we do the fine tuning using the intensity slider After reactivating the SurfaceSPREAD Object the following result appears Using SurfaceSPREAD UNI IDEEN AULA III IHR ML 6373 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD Part 3 Shader To get some variation into the books textures we use the SurfaceSPREAD Shader within a Layer Shader to change the book cover s color A layer mask excludes the book s label from the coloring The SurfaceSPREAD Shader is applied in Hue layer mode Shader Effekt Ordner L schen eSPREAD Farbton Ebenenmaske Normal The result can look like this 6473 SurfaceSPREAD Appendix 4 Appendix 4 1 Frequently asked questions FAQ In this chapter you will find answers to frequently asked questions Q I bought and installed the plug in but it doesn t start A Please take a look into the Cinema 4D Console Shift F10 and see if there is an error message Send this error message to sales 4d jack de Q The plug in does not start and there s also no error message in the console A If you re using a Mac it may be that your disk permissions are not set correctly In this case try
5. y O a ee N 2 varaion email 24 VON ICI 16 7 Vertex Map E 13 24 40 vital Mera ae es 10 Vital Parents 10 SEENEN 21 Masa O OOOOOOOOO 37 E EE A AI 22 KEE 55 Zwischenpunkte cesses 37 NAY FOL Dessen 25 7373
6. 2 ds 10 1 3 7 SurfaceSPREAD Commande ANNER 10 2 Parametersin RE E 11 Zas Sua COS P READ O Dread 11 2 1 1 General 11 2 1 2 Distribution 14 2 1 3 Alignment 24 2 1 4 Effects 26 2 2 Distribution ModiNer wenns aa eier 29 2 2 1 Ignore Y 29 2 2 2 Spline 29 2 32 Cale Mode TEE 29 2 4 5 PREADSCADO ODJET aaa 30 2 4 1 General 30 3 Base Layer 31 T Sta Layer I EEN 32 5 Laver NDS NOISE rata 33 ENEE EIER iaa 34 Layer Type Matellal anne ea area 35 8 Shaping 36 8 1 8 Phong 36 Gis EE 37 8 5 1 Object 37 9 Structure38 10 Presets 39 10 65 Wire ODjett E 40 10 6 1 Type 40 10 6 2 Close Spline 40 RBC GN e gn Ee ER EEN 40 10 6 4 Number Angle Maximum LONGth c ccccseceesecsesecnesecnessncescnseeceseesesaeonsaesneatenenesees 40 10 65 SHOW VISUGIIZALION EEN 40 10607 AA PAS a e 40 107 DISHIDUHON Overide Tag seen ca 41 lwen EE Tel EE 42 10 8 1 Gradient 42 10 8 2 Source Data 42 10 8 3 Noise 44 10 9 SurfaceSPREAD Distance Shader ai ee een 45 10 9 1 Start 45 10 9 2 Depth 45 10 10 SurfaceSPREAD Road Rn le nee naeh 46 10 10 1 Asphalt 46 10 10 2 Marks 46 10 10 3 Tiremarks 47 Page 5 73 SurfaceSPREAD Contents 10 10 4 Cracks 47 19 1 1 SurfacesPREAD Data Nod 49 10 11 1 Object Input 49 IA A e uo 49 10 11 37 OD COUN OU an 49 19114 PO Der ee a 49 OFTES ROUN QUEDUE a einen a 49 10 11 6 Scale Output 49 10 1 1572 Global Mat OULDUL een 49 19 1138 Poly Normal el EE 49
7. TOTEIS UVW POSITION OUMU ita 49 JAR KR Weight ConstralntOUtPED EE 50 1011 42 WeilghtGeo OUtPUD aaa 50 10 11 12 Weight Performance OU ns 50 10 12 SuUrfacesPREAB COMIMGINGS ans re 51 10 12 1 Toggle Surface SPREADS ci ci 51 1012 2 Enable SUMacesPREADS dana 51 10 1243 Disable Surface SPREADS iia 51 10 13 S rfaceSPREAD HDrAFY li 52 10 13 1 Terms of Use 52 10 13 2 Installation 52 10 13 3 Usage 52 Se USINOS UA ces READ a 53 3 1 Create a forest on a o 53 4 Fa DOOK e wE BOOKS eege ee dee eege 59 FADD le EE 65 4 1 Frequently asked questions PAD ns een 65 5 WAST WI MOL e EE 66 or TOUDIeSACO ln Le DEE 66 5 3 1 Improving SurfaceSPREAD performance kk 66 5 3 2 Improving SPREADscape performance ococcococcoconennonenconenconenconenronenrnnrnronenconennonencnnons 66 5 3 3 Delayed refresh of SurfaceSPREAD Object ccccecsecsececeeeeeeeeesseeseeeesseeuseeeesesseseeens 66 5 4 License Agreement ccccsecccnencsccccvavceseucusesneneceneceeravaeausenesususeeneassravarausenasesususuesessansnavarses 67 Bids Alphabetical MO dae 70 Page 6 73 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Introduction 1 Introduction This chapter will give you an overview of SurfaceSPREAD explain the installation of the plug in and license file and introduce the components of the plug in 1 1 About SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD is a plug in for Cinema 4D specifically designed to distribute large amounts of object clones onto landscape scenes in a way
8. it is always the camera you re currently looking through If you do not want it to switch you can link a camera object here All performance filters will then refer to the linked camera regardless of that camera being active or not Distance from Camera This filter reduces the clone density with increasing distance from the camera This is especially useful for big landscapes While having rocks closely packed in the foreground it may be sufficient to have one rock every 20 meters for the background The viewer will mostly not recognize the difference The drawback is that this filter controls the clone distribution where the clones are seen by the camera In animations appearing or disappearing clones can occur thus making this filter more suitable for still images Min Dist Clones will be created only past this distance Max Dist No clones will be created past this distance Edge As it is the case with other filters e g Altitude and Slope this value prevents a hard border For example Max Dist is 500m Edge is 100m The clones will now be distributed with normal density from the camera until 400m distance Over the next 100m the density will decrease and starting from 500m distance there will be no more clones 2273 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object Camera Cone This filter is very handy and often produces a great performance gain It simply filters all clones that are outside the camera
9. much sense for landscape scenes but it has several uses If Mi you want to distribute a huge amount of objects e g trees in the background of a scene it is advisable to use sprites Sprites are simple planes 1 polygon with an alpha image of the tree mapped on it These planes have to be facing the camera of course and that is where this alignment mode comes in handy Target Link an object here The clones will target to this object with their Z axis Up Vector Optional If you link an object here the clones Y axis will target it Use this to stabilize the clones alignment if necessary 9 1 3 9 Static Alignment This parameter group is only visible in Static mode Alignment This vector defines the HPB alignment for all clones 2573 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 5 1 4 Effects This tab offers a multitude of possibilities to influence the created clones 5 1 4 1 Static Offset Use to move your clones from their original position on the surface The translation can either be applied along the X Y and Z axis using a vector or along the surface normal using a single value The latter is especially useful to control how deep the clones penetrate the surface 5 1 4 2 Random Offset Along Normal With this effect the clones can be offset along the surface normal by a random value Intensity Intensity of the effect Min Max The minimum and maximum offset Seed The seed of
10. Breakup distribution with different scale values 1773 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 1873 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object Invert Activating this option will invert the effect of the filter Normally the filter creates a sort of veins where no clones are created With this option activated clones only appear on the veins Altitude With this filter you can constrain above or below or both a certain altitude level An example of the maximum altitude would be the tree limit as it can be seen in the mountains where trees only grow below a certain altitude Above that height will possibly be more bushes or rocks This phenomenon can easily be simulated with the Altitude filter Maximum active Enable Minimum Enable Maximum Activates the respective filter function Of course both functions can be active at the same time Min Altitude If the Minimum option is activated all clones below this altitude will be filtered Max Altitude If the Maximum option is activated all clones above this altitude will be filtered Edge Controls the rate at which the clone s weighting is reduced above or below the Min and Max altitudes respectively This produces are more realistic result since it prevents a hard border 1973 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object Global By default the Altitude Filter references the local coordinate system of the surface geometry Activate this option to reference the fi
11. Disk Utility and Repair Disk Permissions Further information on this topic can be found here http docs info apple com article html artnum 25751 http kb wisc edu helpdesk page php id 3810 Q I want to test the demo version but it doesn t load A The demo version of SurfaceSPREAD only runs in the Cinema 4D DEMO This can be downloaded from http www maxon de Within this demo you can test SurfaceSPREAD without restrictions If you register the Cinema 4D DEMO at Maxon you can even save your scenes for 40 days thus giving you the functionality of a SurfaceSPREAD full version Q I run a render farm and want to use SurfaceSPREAD for the clients Do I have to buy a license for each machine A No you can use SurfaceSPREAD on any number of NETrender clients and servers without having to purchase individual licenses You only have to buy a license for each workstation normal Cinema 4D application that you want to use the plug in on 6573 SurfaceSPREAD Appendix 5 What will not work Surface geometry as a child object of the SurfaceSPREAD Object The SurfaceSPREAD object as a child object of its own surface geometry Both constellations are not supported Cloning a landscape on itself or looping the result of SurfaceSPREAD back into SurfaceSPREAD are not possible Cloning emitters Particle emitters can not be cloned in Cinema 4D This also applies to SurfaceSPREAD 9 3 Troubleshooting 9 3 1 Improvin
12. Here you can constrain the clones to certain altitudes or slope levels or apply a natural fractal distribution Performance Filters don t add to the look of the scene but improve the memory usage editor performance and preparation time for rendering Here you can filter clones that are outside the camera s field of view behind mountains or very far away from the camera All filters from all groups can be combined with each other It is important to understand that filters do not eliminate existing clones but prevent them from being generated in the first place Therefore all filters always improve performance and memory usage Several hundred clones in standard distribution No filters are active 1473 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 4 Standard Filters Constrain Here you find standard filters as found in most other cloner objects or plug ins Polygon Selection Link a polygon selection Selection Tag here to let clones only appear on the selected polygons Polygon selections only allow hard constraining of clones so there is no way to control the distribution density Vertex Map Link a vertex map Vertex Map Tag here to selectively control the clone density You can create a vertex map with the tool Live Selection or using the Paint Tool that comes with the Mocca module The value of a point in the vertex map directly applies to the clones weighting The higher the value is the mor
13. all SurfaceSPREAD Objects in the scene 15 12 3 Disable SurfaceSPREADs This command deactivates all SurfaceSPREAD Objects in the scene This is very useful if you don t need any clones at the moment because you want to concentrate on other elements of your scene vi o ar 5 A 4D and Vray Proxy Objects Rocky Riverside by WWW c4d Jack de Rendered with VrayFor 5173 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Library 15 13 SurfaceSPREAD Library The SurfaceSPREAD Library is a result of the cooperation of www c4d jack de and www 3dplants com It contains a respectable selection of plants made by 3dplants com 15 13 1 Terms of Use The library is free of charge for all SurfaceSPREAD customers With the purchase of a SurfaceSPREAD license you are also granted the private and commercial usage rights for the models and textures contained in the library in the following called content Excluded from these usage rights are of course the reproduction of the content and its distribution on electronic storage media not including your own hard drive of course and on the internet In particular not selling the content in online shopping systems etc 15 13 2 Installation Download the ZIP archive containing the library file from www c4d jack de you should have received the download link and your personal password along with your license file To install the SurfaceSPREAD Library unpack the lib4d file contained
14. been cut with the knife tool To define where the SurfaceSPREAD Object should create the book clones we select the polygons in the front middle of the shelves and store the selection in a Polygon Selection Tag 6073 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD Part 2 SurfaceSPREAD The book the two book parts grouped in the Null Object is made a child object of the SurfaceSPREAD Object To be able to set the parameters more quickly we deactivate the SurfaceSPREAD Object Tab General 1 We drag the bookshelf object into the link field Object of the SurfaceSPREAD Object 2 We increase the Max Count parameter to 1 000 000 This number seems absurd but the filter settings will reduce the amount of clones drastically resulting in only about 110 clones 6173 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD Tab Distribution 1 We drag the Polygon Selection Tag from the Object Manager into the link field Polygon Selection 2 We activate the filter Minimum Distance and set the value to equal the book s width Tab Alignment Since the shelving units are just planar polygons we can leave the alignment mode at its default value None Position only 6273 SurfaceSPREAD Tab Effects 1 To prevent the books from appearing too near to the shelving units edge we can control the distance using the Static Offset effec 2 Small values in the effect Random Alignment
15. change the normal alignment by mixing the direction along which the clones Z axis is aligned with another direction That second direction can be defined with the Axis parameter This option is especially useful for forests on mountainous landscapes You can align all trees to the terrain s polygons normal and then use the Mix slider to bend the trees back into the Y direction until they point almost straight up This way you get a realistic forest with trees pointing up imperfectly yet still influenced by the terrain s topology 2473 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object Axis Here you select the direction using global coordinate system towards which you can to point the clones Z axis The Mix slider will then blend between the surface normal and the selected direction There are several options available X Axis Y Axis Z Axis Uses one of these axis as direction The setting Y Axis makes sense if you want to plant trees on a landscape Spherical Uses the direction from the surface geometry s origin to the clone s position Thinking of the tree example you could use this option if you want to plant trees on a whole planet e g a spherical landscape object Custom Direction When this option is selected you can define a custom direction vector 5 1 3 2 Target Alignment This parameter group is only visible in Target mode At first view the target alignment does not seem to make
16. look more knobbed Terrain with 1 000 000 polygons made only from noise layers 3373 SurfaceSPREAD SPREADscape Object 11 Layer Type Spline If you need a direct influence on the terrain to create things like river beds or road fundaments or if you want to setup a whole mountain chain this layer type is for you Pro Tip When using the mix mode Set Spline Height a kind of spline sculpting is especially possible This layer type was essential for the image Autumn Road that you see on the title page of this manual This layer type offers the following parameters 11 1 1 1 Spline Link a spline object here that you want to use for sculpting Changes to the splines are recognized by SPREADscape automatically Of course you can also use segmented Splines e g Text Spline 11 1 1 2 Accuracy A spline layer has to sample a number of positions along the linked spline in order to work properly With this parameter you control the number of samples that are being recorded Generally a greater amount of samples is required if you decrease the radius see 2 4 5 3 or increase the subdivisions of the SPREADscape Object Pro Tip This parameter is critical for the performance of a spline layer The higher the value the more precise the spline will be reproduced on the terrain Values that are too high will likely cause a significant performance decrease thus slowing down your workflow You should ch
17. of each Detail Layer s attributes you will find a parameter group called Shaping It provides you with a shaping curve and shaping presets found in the Shaping tab For further information please read chapter 2 4 7 Shaping 3273 SurfaceSPREAD SPREADscape Object 10 Layer Type Noise These type of Detail Layers are the classic element of a terrain generator With a few Noise Layers and different settings you can create an infinite variety of different landscapes with very little work This layer type offers the following parameters 10 1 1 1 Noise Type Here you can choose from the same fractal functions Noise types that are also offered by the base layer Turbulence Wavy Turbulence Noise and Ridged Multifractal Each of these Noise Types has a characteristic look and is suitable for various types of landscapes 10 1 1 2 Scale This parameter scales the fractal function You can create anything from mountains to pebbles 10 1 1 3 Octaves The higher this value is the more detailed the fractal structure will appear Very high values may decrease the performance 10 1 1 4 Shift Move the fractal structure along the three axis of the object Moving it along Y will cause a nice and soft variation 10 1 1 5 Absolute This value is only available for the fractal function Turbulence It prevents the function from returning negative values In practice it makes the structure
18. the terms given below 82 The acquirer of the commercial right of use in the following called user may duplicate the software as far as the duplication is necessary for using the software As necessary duplications are regarded Installing the software on the used hardware and loading the software into the working memory 3 Furthermore the user is entitled to make a backup copy of the licensed software 4 Further copies are not permitted This also includes making hard copies of the program code or documentation on a screen as well as on a printer or as copies in any form Multiple use and network operation 5 The software may be used for working on the one computer on which Cinema 4D is registered with the serial number the software license is registered on 6 Using the software on server or client machines in a NETrender network is permitted independent from the number of render clients Use and sharing in public networks is not permitted Transfer of license 7 You may not rent lease sublicense or lend the software or documentation You may however transfer all your rights to use the software to another person or legal entity provided that you transfer this agreement the software including all copies updates or prior versions as well as all documentation to such person or entity and that you retain no copies including copies stored on a computer and that the other person agrees that the terms of this agreement re
19. with closely located objects having similar values Seed This parameter is only visible if Use Noise is deactivated It is used to create an almost infinite amount of variations Distort By default the same random scale value is applied to all three axes of the clones If you activate this option a different random value will be used for each axis thus distorting the clones This parameter is only visible if Use Noise is deactivated Noise Scale This parameter is only visible if Use Noise is activated Defines the scaling for the noise structure Noise Variation Varies the noise structure enabling you to create almost infinite variations If animated it also creates very interesting results 6 1 1 7 Scale by Vertex Map If you want to control the clones scaling on a local basis use this effect Link a vertex map here and turn up the intensity Intensity The effect s intensity Vertex Map Link the vertex map here that should be used for scaling 2773 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 7 Scale by Material This effect manipulates the scaling according to the brightness values of the color channel of a linked material Intensity Controls the effect s intensity Material Link a material here that should be used for the scaling 7 1 1 9 scale by Modifier This effect scales the clones dependent on Scale Modifier Objects If a clone is located within the range of a Modif
20. 0 returns the color from the left end of the gradient 100 returns the color from the right end All values between 0 and 100 return the colors from the corresponding positions in the gradient Filter Distribution Modifier This mode uses the weighting that has been calculated by the Filter by Modifier filter for picking a color from the gradient That way you can easily apply e g a different green to trees at the edge of a clearance in the forest mages using the same source data but with different gradients Filter Material This mode uses the weighting from the Filter by Material filter for picking a color from the gradient Geo Filter Fractal Breakup This mode gets its data from the Fractal Breakup Geo Filter 4373 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Clone Shader Geo Filter Altitude This mode uses weighting results from the Altitude Geo Filter That way you can apply e g a different green to the trees near the tree limit Geo Filter Slope This mode you guessed it uses weighting results from the Slope Geo Filter 15 8 3 Noise This parameter group is only visible of the data source Noise is selected 15 8 3 1 Noise Scale Greater values produce a more detailed color variation of the clones 15 8 3 2 Noise Variation Change this value to produce an infinite amount of different variations rendwhore by Jan Wesbuer 4473 SurfaceSPR
21. 1 Installation of the Plug in Unpack the plug in ZIP archive into the plug in directory of your installation or demo For example c Program Files MAXON Ril plugins Ensure that the directory structure is maintained when unpacking the ZIP archive 1 2 2 Installation of the license file Copy the file surfacespread lic into the SurfaceSPREAD directory e 9 C Program Files MAXON R11 plugins SurfaceSPREAD When you start the next time the SurfaceSPREAD components will be available If you use R11 5 or higher you can alternatively put the license file into your User Folder You can easily find your User Folder by opening the preferences page Common and clicking the button Open Folder Tree Planet by www c4d jack de Rendered with VRAYforC4D and Vray Proxy objects 873 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 1 3 Components SurfaceSPREAD consists of the following components 1 3 1 SurfaceSPREAD Object The SurfaceSPREAD Object is the heart of the plug in It duplicates and distributes any 3D model input object onto landscapes and other surfaces The SurfaceSPREAD Object offers a wide selection of straightforward parameters that can influence the distribution alignment scaling and display of the clone objects clones as well as maximize the overall speed and performance of the software SurfaceSPREAD uses a specially developed filter system to control the distribution of the clones Am
22. 21 Post SUDOIVISION ae ea 34 PESO CIV Ee BEE 34 A Ern 27 36 49 Ne ACY Sees cs i ae en 66 EE eeh ee 43 PONE N Acca A Eet 31 Proximal Shader as 42 R A A A 31 TER Ur rr WEG 39 45 Random Alienment 2 2 a 23599 Random Offset Along Normal 23 Eelere EEN 24 45 55 REIFEN are een asien 27 31 32 render farm 2 0 0 0 cece ccc ee ccceessesccessecceeesesceeeeseeseeeeseeees 62 Fender nstaness AAA Bie tel St ene 10 AA EE E 19 St UN E sure 2 Ridsed Multifractal scada 28 30 106 8 E est eege 28 TACT A ed 27 TOA stele he ee ek 217 road mark nss a a nr 43 R da Shader seat ze lat en a ae tet 43 E WE ER EEE RER ears AI E eat 34 De uge E 46 S ENEE 27 36 A EEE E 24 28 30 34 35 44 45 46 Scale by Material 2 2222 a 29 7273 Appendix Alphabetical Index Scale by ee EE 25 Scale by Verlex Map anne 24 Scale Dy Welle ES 25 Wl Ee e RT EE 7 26 EE ee 9 11 23 24 BEE EE ara seen 26 31 SEIECHON B las nn et bee 10 Selection Tasas lod 13 Set Spline STE elas 29 BN EE 10 Cie 55 Shade EE 8 39 Shape CUVE une rs 33 Si 29 33 KE pce ae arcane ee 28 30 35 Show VISUALIZATION aussen 37 SIG Marks ze ee 43 KEE 27 34 EEN 55 OPS rss esse 18 41 STEE nL ee 32 44 SOUL EE 39 SAC SEs eek eR a ls ads 10 ei UI TT E E 22 SPINE ea a ee ed 26 29 31 SPUNE KEE 37 SPREADrock Object u see 7 34 SPREADSCaH adie ee de 63 SPREADSscape Object a Tsad Standard lt 13 SE 42 STO alada ita da 21 SACAN ANEN a ee 22 As E EE 23 A A A 18
23. Distance filter The Distribution Override Tag is the ideal solution for this problem Attach it to one or more of the original objects that you want to clone and override any distribution setting from the SurfaceSPREAD Object with custom values that will only apply to clones of that particular object All filter types that you already know from the SurfaceSPREAD Object are available except for Polygon Selection in the Standard Filters 2 1 2 1 Override Each parameter set in the Distribution Override Tag comes with an Override option If this option is activated the settings from the tag will be used for distribution If it s deactivated the settings from the SurfaceSPREAD Object will be used 4173 Distribution Override Tag SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Clone Shader 15 8 SurfaceSPREAD Clone Shader The SurfaceSPREAD Shader is a normal channel shader that can be used in all channels of the Cinema 4D standard material as well as in the special materials of VrayForC4D Of course it can also be combined with other shaders or textures using a Layer Shader or a Fusion Shader The shader s task is to visualize data that was calculated by SurfaceSPREAD You can apply color depending on results of the SurfaceSPREAD filters or you can use a random color FE for each clone The latter is very useful for applying a rr different color to each tree in a forest Which colors are available to the clones can easily b
24. EAD SurfaceSPREAD Distance Shader 15 9 SurfaceSPREAD Distance Shader The Distance Shader can be compared with a Proximal Shader that refers to the distance between the active camera and the geometry surface It is very suitable for use e g as a mask in the Fusion Shader to blend between two different textures or shaders That way you can e g create a material for a mountain that if seen from greater distance shows a non tiling procedural structure but in a close up will show a photographic texture 15 9 1 Start The shader activates starting with this distance from the camera All parts of the geometry that are nearer to the camera will get the color of the gradient s left end 15 9 2 Depth This parameter controls the spatial depth of the gradient Starting with the distance defined by the Depth parameter the shader picks a color from the gradient All parts of the geometry that are further from the camera than Start Depth will get the color from the right end of the gradient 4573 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Road Shader 15 10 SurfaceSPREAD Road Shader The Road Shader generates a procedural road It provides detailed parameters for the character and condition of the asphalt as well as for road markings tire abrasion and surface damage In most cases you won t need to create cumbersome combinations of numerous Tiles Noise and Layer shaders anymore which are difficult to operate The SurfaceSPREAD Road Shader does it
25. EADscape gives you a base layer and up to 6 detail layers Each of these detail layers can receive its contents from one of several fractal functions a spline or a material Mixing the layers with each other is done using different mix modes which can be separately selected for each layer This way you can e g combine the mountains from the base layer with smaller hills from the detail layers add a river bed or a road with another detail layer type Spline and add other details When experimenting with the SPREADscape object you will get used to this workflow pretty easy 7 4 1 General This tab holds basic parameters for the landscape such as dimensions and subdivision Furthermore you control the active detail layers here as well as load and save preset files 7 4 1 1 Size Define the basic dimensions of the landscape here The final height may differ from the value set here due to the settings in the detail layers 7 4 1 2 Segm Width Length Use these values to set the subdivision of the landscape Higher values produce more detailed terrain but also increase the time needed for calculation As a rule of thumb use as much as necessary but as little as possible 7 4 1 3 Use Caching Generally this option should stay activated since it significantly increases the editor performance and shortens the preparation time when rendering an animation If you deactivate this option the SPREADscape terrain will be
26. SA de a ee er Tee eee ne 33 35 UIC HUNG sa een ee Na 35 SUDAIVISION a a ee aateteass 27 SUHAN e EE 34 iS EOE S 18 SurfaceSPREAD cnnennn 5 58 61 63 SurfaceSPREAD Clone Shader 39 SurfaceSPREAD Commandes 48 SurfaceSPREAD Data Node 8 46 SurfaceSPREAD Distance Shader 42 SUrlaceSPREAD Ihbraty ua ne ade 50 S urlacesPRBAD Library ana 8 49 SurfaceSPREAD Object 7 9 50 SurfaceSPREAD Road Shader ooooccccccnnnnoncccncncnoniniconons 43 SurfaceSPREAD Shader ooocccccncnnnncccncnnnonininoccnnnononinicinans 8 s rfacespread De nalen 6 System requirements ooccccccnncnnnnnnnonnnnnoninoninoninininonos 2 T A IA 58 ad o ie 38 EN A N 21 22 Tarpe A ine 22 PP et 49 TESTIS OF Use ee eu 64 thanks nee ee 2 Th nk nsPartieles us Bass alien 46 47 LINE OT AAA ee ner 11 A ee 43 BE da EE EE 44 sl A a a a 44 A earner te 48 TP CIM PEE rannen EE 47 SurfaceSPREAD Appendix Alphabetical Index Track EE 44 Transfer of Dcense 64 W Trouble 2 8 ande 63 Is a Aa 28 30 HEEN 65 A ea 35 Wavy Eege 28 30 35 E ER 28 35 37 A dE 18 Miles nr 27 43 ZZ a MW Ju AM e E 7 10 37 U A NAE EEE E E E E A T 10 KEE KE Vgl E Ee EE 62 A A 21 22 A A 49 A oP E OE 19 Usein Te onen aan aan 19 A EE e EE 24 Use Phone Normals ee 21 O 22 Us ZAS O tias 18 A Ae ae aah thins tle ots 8 11 46 IS ee nenne Crs ee 6 UAV POSTION EE 46 Y
27. Seite 1 73 All rights reserved This manual and the associated software are copyright protected and must not be reproduced transmitted duplicated distributed or translated into other languages without permission of the original author first Although software and manual have been made with all possible care and accuracy errors can never be completely prevented due to the multiplicity or different hardware and software configurations Therefore the author does not take responsibility for damage caused by software failures or by wrong descriptions in this manual System requirements Maxon Cinema 4D R10 1 R10 5 R11 0 R11 5 PC 32 Bit 64 Bit Mac Intel 32 Bit 64 Bit 64 Bit recommended Compatible with VrayForC4D Copyrights and trademarks MAXON und Cinema 4D are registered trade marks of MAXON Computer GmbH C O F FE E is a trade mark of MAXON Computer GmbH and MAXON Computer Inc Adobe and Photoshop are registered trademarks of Firma Adobe Systems Inc V Ray is a registered trade mark of Chaos Group Ltd VRAYforC4D is a product of LAUBlab KG All further products or brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders Very special thanks to Frank c4d jack Willeke creator of SurfaceSPREAD Special thanks to Cactus Dan Libisch Renato Tarabella Matthias Bobtronic Bober and Sebastian Don El Greeko Rath for exemplary technical support Dagmar Patzer fr
28. Select the desired fractal function here You can choose from Noise Turbulence and Wavy Turbulence 14 1 1 6 Scale You can change the structure s scaling along the 3 dimensions separately with this parameter 14 1 1 7 Octaves The detail of the structure can be controlled with this parameter Very high values may cause a slight performance decrease 14 1 1 8 Shift With this parameter you can move the structure in a three directions creating an infinite amount of variations of a rock 14 1 1 9 Absolute This option is only available for the Turbulence fractal function It changes the look of the structure making it more knobby 14 1 1 10 Details This group offers the same parameters as the normal structure Use these to add more details to the SPREADrock geometry without changing the basic structure of the geometry 3873 SPREADrock Object SurfaceSPREAD 15 Presets If you like the rock you ve created you can save it s parameters into a rock file and load it again when needed 15 1 1 1 Load Save These buttons open the standard load save dialogs Examples of different SPREADrocks 3973 SurfaceSPREAD Wire Object 15 6 Wire Object The Wire Object is a little bonus object in SurfaceSPREAD It creates a selectable type of spline Linear B Spline Cubic Akima Bezier along any number of objects Just take a FF Guer couple of Null objects we call them Pat
29. ader 15 10 2 6 Soften The higher you set this value the more blurry the edges of marks will be This parameter often help with anti alias problems on more distant parts of the road 15 10 2 7 Breakup Intensity Increase this value to add damage to the marks 15 10 2 8 Breakup Sharpness Lower values will produce a soft variation in the marks opacity Higher values will look like the marks have been damaged or ripped off 15 10 2 9 Breakup Scale This parameter controls the size of the marks damage 15 10 2 10 Blend Use this parameter to control the opacity of the marks 15 10 2 11 Blend Along Road With this parameter you can selectively control the marks opacity along the road 15 10 3 Tiremarks This layer creates high traffic traces on the road as they are found in the real world Use this setting to make the road look as if many cars have driven on it 15 10 3 1 Scale The overall scale of the Tiremarks layer 15 10 3 2 Track Size The distance between the two tiremarks on each lane 15 10 3 3 Tire Width Increase this value to get thicker tiremarks 15 10 3 4 Soften The higher you set this value the softer the tiremarks falloff will appear 15 10 3 5 Blend This parameter controls the opacity of the tiremarks 15 10 3 6 Blend Along Road Use this parameter to selectively control the tiremarks opacity along the road 15 10 4 Cracks You can often see cracks at the
30. ail layer is mixed with the underlying layers here You can choose from the following mix modes Add The detail layer s content will by added to the underlying layers This is the standard method to combine several layers with each other Multiply The underlying layers will be multiplied with the current layer If the current layer has a low value all underlying layers will be lowered as well Lowest The lowest value is used the higher value will be ignored Good choice to cut off the top of mountains or to create elevated plains Experiment with the Offset parameter 2 4 3 4 Highest The highest value is used the lower value will be ignored Perfect for filling valleys and river beds with mud sand or rubble Again experiment with the Offset parameter Set Spline Height This mode only works the Spline type of detail layers It directly attaches the terrains surface to the spline enabling you to create elevations as well as depressions This is the ideal mix mode for road foundation or dirt tracks Experiment with the position of the spline points 9 1 1 3 Height This parameter controls the intensity of the effect the current detail layer has on the terrain If the value is 0 the detail layer has no effect 9 1 1 4 Offset If your landscape gets too high due to some of its settings you can correct that using this value without losing the effect of the Height parameter 9 1 1 5 Shaping At the bottom
31. all for you and in most cases renders faster than an equivalent self made shader combination Since the road markings and tiremarks go along the V direction in UV space the Road Shader is ideal for being used on streets that were created using a SweepNURBS The Road Shader is divided into several layers which are explained in the following 15 10 1 Asphalt The Asphalt layer is the basic layer of the road Many styles are possible ranging from concrete to tar 15 10 1 1 Asphalt Color The basic color of the asphalt 15 10 1 2 Granularity Higher values make the asphalt look more coarse 15 10 1 3 Blotchiness This parameter creates a variation in asphalt color and brightness increasing the realism 15 10 1 4 Darkness This parameters adds variations in asphalt brightness and makes for a dirtier look 15 10 2 Marks This layer paints road marks on the street The marks can also be damaged 15 10 2 1 Marks Color The marks color Normally this will be yellow or white 15 10 2 2 Centermarks Count The count of centermarks in V direction A value of 1 creates one continuous stripe Higher values will result in a dashed line 15 10 2 3 Centermarks Width The width of the centermark 15 10 2 4 Distance The distance of side marks from each other or in other words the width of the road 15 10 2 5 Sidemarks Width The width of the sidemarks 4673 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Road Sh
32. ator Alpine panorama smooth meadows prairie rivers lakes or roads the SPREADscape Object enables you to create terrains with a million polygons in just a few seconds You can design almost any style of easily modifiable landscape SPREADscape utilizes a special layer system Build your terrain from up to seven layers each layer adding more detail or characteristics to the landscape For every layer you can use different fractal functions or design your landscape using bitmaps shaders or splines 1 3 3 SPREADrock Object The SPREADrock Object is an additional object that creates a parametric rock or stone With a few parameters you can create an almost infinite amount of different rocks which can of course be cloned using the SurfaceSPREAD Object If you are creative you can use SPREADrock for entirely different purposes With some keyframes and the right material even explosions are possible 1 3 4 Wire Object The Wire Object is a little bonus useful for everyday modeling and animation It simply creates a spline along any number of sub objects That way you can e g clone Null Objects on a surface using SurfaceSPREAD and together with the Wire Object and a SweepNURBS cocoon an object with strings or wire 973 SurfaceSPREAD Object SurfaceSPREAD 1 3 5 SurfaceSPREAD Shaders SurfaceSPREAD comes with several channel shaders that can be used in any material channel of the Cinema 4D standard material or in other ma
33. create a forest on this landscape Before generating a forest you first have to add a SurfaceSPREAD Object from the Plugins menu to our scene To begin with add a tree model to your scene You need at least one tree that you want to clone Of course you can use any model This example uses a tree from the SurfaceSPREAD library 5373 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD Make the tree a child of the SurfaceSPREAD Object Nothing will happen You first to tell the SurfaceSPREAD Object which geometry the clones should be generated on Drag amp Drop the landscape into the link field Object of the SurfaceSPREAD Object Now you ll see the first tree clones on the landscape It is likely that the trees will not be the correct size Use the parameter Base Scale from the Effects tab of the SurfaceSPREAD Object to correct the trees scaling 5473 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD The trees are now correctly scaled You will also probably notice some trees intersecting each other Eliminate the intersecting trees using the filter Minimum Distance from the Distribution tab The editor should now look something like this 5573 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD If your editor performance starts decreasing jerky camera movement longer delays after changing a parameter of the SurfaceSPREAD Object switch to a simplified display e g Box Wireframe To decr
34. e clones will be created on the polygons neighboring the point Using the Invert checkbox you can invert the vertex map s effect Easy to use clone distribution with a vertex map Filter by Material Here you can link a material to control the clone density The material s color channel is evaluated In the channel you can use shaders as well as bitmap textures SurfaceSPREAD will always use UVW mapping when evaluating the material You can control the intensity of the filter and also invert it Material distribution with a bitmap Material distribution with a checkerboard shader 1573 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object Filter by Modifier In this filter you can link any number of Distribution Modifier Objects which you can freely place in your scene Clones within a modifier s radius will be filtered according to the modifier s parameters That way you can easily create clearances in your forest The total intensity of all modifiers can be set in the filter all other parameters can be found in the Distribution Modifier Object By linking a spline into the Distribution Modifier Object you can easily create paths through a meadow or keep your roads clear of trees Minimum Distance This filter is extremely useful if clones are intersecting each other or are overcrowding in certain areas of the surface geometry Set a minimum distance and all clones that are located nearer to each other than this value will be
35. e defined using a color gradient Important The SurfaceSPREAD Shader has to be rendered in order to show the results Therefore the shader results won t show up in the editor view If you want a quick preview you can use the Interactive Render Region of Cinema 4D That way a preview rendering in the editor is automatically generated when you make changes to the shader 15 8 1 Gradient A color from this gradient is applied to each of the clones Define all colors here that should be available to the clones 15 8 2 Source Data The shader can evaluate different data sources Most of them are derived from the SurfaceSPREAD Object s filter system The following data sources are available Random In this mode a random color from the gradient is applied to each clone Use a gradient in different green and green yellow colors for a forest for example Noise This mode also applies a random color from the gradient The difference is that this mode does not use hard random numbers for picking the color but makes its choice on the basis of a 3D noise field depending on each clone s position That way you don t get a totally random result the clones will instead be colored in groups 4273 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Clone Shader Filter Vertex Map The clones get their color from the vertex map linked in the Vertex Map Filter of the SurfaceSPREAD Object or in the Distribution Override Tag A vertex weighting of
36. e parameters control the quality of the selected intermediate point interpolation Generally more intermediate points produce better quality while fewer intermediate points give better performance 15 6 5 Show Visualization Here you can activate the visualization for Path Objects and tangents 15 6 6 Add Path Objects In this section you will find buttons with which you can directly create a new Path Object If the Spline type is set to Bezier you will find separate buttons for Path Objects without tangents with one tangent or with two tangents 4073 SurfaceSPREAD 15 7 Distribution Override Tag The Distribution Override Tag offers the interesting possibility to manipulate the clones distribution on an object basis Think of a mountainous landscape with bushes trees and rocks The trees can only grow until a certain altitude level natural tree limit The bushes may even grow in greater altitude but also have a limit Rocks may even occur on the highest summit However trees and bushes may grow on relatively steep slopes where no rocks are to be found because they would roll down the slope As you noticed trees bushes and rocks need quite different distribution settings Of course you could use a separate SurfaceSPREAD Object for each of these objects but that makes for a more complicated workflow Also you would not be able to prevent the intersection between different kinds of objects using the Minimum
37. ease the memory usage you can also use the filter Camera Cone This filter eliminates clones that are not located within the FOV of the editor camera 5673 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD Increase the number of clones to create a dense forest Now you can of course apply additional filters such as the Altitude Geo Filter to keep the trees off the mountains The editor may now look like this 5773 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD Add an infinite light source as the sun or use a SKY object SS Now render the scene Please note that a large number of detailed tree models can easily produce millions of polygons Therefore don t use too detailed models and utilize a 64 Bit operating system If you own VrayForC4D create a Vray Proxy object from the tree and clone the proxy object instead You have now created a simple forest This example has only shown the most basic approach Of course you can make the forest much more realistic by using effects e g Random Scale and Random Alignment It would also be a good idea to utilize the SurfaceSPREAD shader in the material for the trees leaves in order to color each tree s leaves in a unique color If the leaves of your trees use a bitmap texture just put the bitmap texture into a Layer Shader In the layer shader put a SurfaceSPREAD Shader on top and set its layer mode to Hue to change the color of the bitmap
38. eck from time to time if you can decrease this value without noticeable quality loss 11 1 1 3 Radius The radius around a sampled spline point In practice this value defines the width of the river bed or road fundament you re creating 11 1 1 4 Falloff This spline curve defines the profile that the spline will form on the terrain 11 1 1 5 Radius This spline curve changes the radius of the spline samples in the course of the spline 11 1 1 6 Refresh If the shape of the linked spline depends on other objects in the scene SPREADscape may sometimes be unable to notice if the spline has changed In this case click this button to force a recalculation of the terrain In case the SPREADscape Object s Caching option is deactivated it will be automatically reactivated Two examples for Text Splines in a Detail Layer of type Spline 3473 SurfaceSPREAD SPREADscape Object 12 Layer Type Material Maybe you already have a height map generated in another A software or a topographical map of a real landscape In Geet Ces LTH that case you can create a Material put the bitmap into its color channel and use it in this type of SPREADscape detail pan layer to shape the landscape on the basis of the bitmap sine tme C a end ege Pro Tip Of course you can also use almost any channel Br shader available in Cinema 4D That way you can e g use a simple Cinema 4D Sunburst shader to create an DH imp
39. eeesssssssseseserereeeesssssssee 45 ES 01 0 ee ee ee 43 O AP een 43 Asphalt Color tedio ronda 43 Attribute Manager ococccccccnnnnnnononnnncnnnnnnnnncncnannnnnnnnonnnnnnnos 9 EE 11 GENEE 21 Ee 22 B Backface Culling oooooooonnnnnnennnsesessssenenennneeeesssssssee 20 IS aR meee Ree ne 28 A 24 51 Basica ustedes 34 Basic SUDAIVIS 100 34 IT asco 37 DICH WEE 42 A AEST ETET 44 45 Blend Mode uns een era 29 A A 43 eegene 56 7073 Appendix Alphabetical Index E ee ee 10 Breakup Intensttv 44 Breakup Eege 44 Breakup Sharpness aa een 44 TS PUTING esra E E 37 C CAD IGANG IG sn A 10 RE ee ee 11 27 31 32 CIE o A EEE 19 Camera CONO ee 20 53 EE 28 CSL CLIN ALK Seesen een een een 43 channel dis 39 A 51 A reo Dare ee 63 Cinema 4D DEM a 62 eC EE 62 Ee 27 A 9 Eet 9 Cloning emitters 63 LOSS Fo NS een 37 COMME E 8 48 COMPONEN Sesto rotores 7 A E 62 CONSTA EE 13 47 COn ea 3 E TA ee ee 2 Correction Angle ccoo lrricaoan licencias 20 nn 43 EE 44 COVERARS HEET 44 EE 44 Create In tano illo 10 Crd coloca eses 2 A A 37 Cuyo NEE 33 Custom Direction 22 D ENEE eege 43 Rn 43 Dale Node esse en ger 8 ENEE ee 48 An NENNE EEE BEIN A 18 Delayedrelfesh neunten 63 demo version ninos 62 Dep ee 42 RN EE 15 Eeer 21 29 RE 35 AMENA ia 27 34 A 21 22 Ds EE 18 realer 48 Disk Permissions occcnnnoccnnnnnoccnnnonaccnononarononaniroconanariconos 62 po AA A 62 PP res 10 A 14 42 SurfaceSPREAD
40. ene hierarchy This is important for Cinema 4D to evaluate the objects in the correct order If the SurfaceSPREAD Object comes before the geometry object it will adapt to changes in the geometry with one frame delay 6673 SurfaceSPREAD Appendix License Agreement 5 4 License Agreement A note to the user With the usage of SurfaceSPREAD in the following called software a contract is concluded between you in the following called you or the user and Frank Willeke the licensor When using the software you accept all terms and conditions of this agreement In the case of non acceptance of this license you are not permitted to use the software and have to delete all copies of it Subject of this agreement is the right of use of the software SurfaceSPREAD by Frank Willeke as well as the provided manual in the following recapitulatorily called software With the conclusion of this agreement you acquire the right of use according to the license described below The software itself as all copies you create from it remains property of the licensor After paying a one time license fee you get full commercial rights of use and will be eligible for warranty and service The commercial version will be personalized delivered by e mail and is not restricted in any way Use of the software 1 The acquirer of the commercial right of use may fully use the software for any commercial purpose according to
41. filtered p u No intersection of clones thanks to the Minimum Distance filter lw d Ch Landscape by www c4d jack de Rendered with VrayForC4D and Vray Proxy objects 1673 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 5 Geo Filters Fractal Breakup In nature objects like stones trees and flowers are not distributed with uniform density and occurrence There is always a natural variation This variation can be simulated with the Fractal Breakup filter Fractal Breakup filters clones using a turbulence function producing a natural looking variation of the distribution density The turbulence function relates to the clones position in space local space of the surface geometry to create a continuous fractal pattern Because of this changes in the geometry caused e g by animated deformers will affect the distribution Intensity Controls the filter s intensity Higher values will cause more clones to disappear Detail This parameter works like the Octaves value of a noise Shader Higher values produce more and finer variation Very high values can cause a decrease in performance Suitable values are mostly between 1 and 5 but may depend from the landscape s dimensions Noise Scale The scale of the turbulence field Very low values produce clearly visible patterns while higher values give seemingly chaotic results The more clones you have the more distinguishable the pattern will look Fractal
42. g SurfaceSPREAD performance The most common reasons for low performance in the SurfaceSPREAD Object are clones with many polygons This compromises the editor performance e g by overloading the OpenGL graphics card memory with too much geometry You can e g reduce the polygon count of the original objects by hiding some sub objects in the editor view You can reduce the editor subdivision of generator objects and splines by using a Display Tag Furthermore it helps to switch the clone display to a bounding box wireframe display in the SurfaceSPREAD Object You can also reduce the clone count in the editor by decreasing the Editor Weight parameter s value 5 3 2 Improving SPREADscape performance The most common reasons for low performance in the SPREADscape Object are Landscapes with very high polygon count detail layers of type Spline with very high accuracy detail layers of type Noise with many octaves Complex shaders in materials linked in detail layers of type Material may also affect performance Use a Display Tag to reduce the editor level of detail of the SPREADscape geometry This also reduces the sample quality in Spline detail layers automatically 9 3 3 Delayed refresh of SurfaceSPREAD Object If you animate the surface geometry of SurfaceSPREAD e g by keyframing position rotation or scale or using deformers ensure that the SurfaceSPREAD Object comes after the geometry object in the sc
43. gh your meadow or keep your roads tree free You can also use segmented splines 7 2 2 1 Accuracy This parameter controls the amount of samples that will be calculated along the spline Lower values offer better performance while greater values will maintain the shape of the spline more precisely 7 3 Scale Modifier The Scale Modifier is used in the effect Scale by Modifier in the SurfaceSPREAD Objects It changes the scaling of the clones that are located within the modifier s range As always the effect s intensity depends from the distance between clone and modifier as well as from the settings in the Modifier Object Like in the Distribution Modifier the Scale Modifier can also use splines Park by Holger Sch mann Rendered with VrayForC4D and Proxy objects 2973 SurfaceSPREAD SPREADscape Object 7 4 SPREADscape Object The SPREADscape Object is SurfaceSPREAD s mighty terrain generator Use it to create anything from soft hilly landscapes to mountains cliffs rivers or road scenes or totally abstract landscapes All with minimum effort The SPREADscape object offers far greater capabilities than the Standard Landscape Object found in Cinema 4D SPREADscape uses a novel layer system which you may have seen in a slightly different form in other landscape generators or 2D graphics applications Using the layer system you build the terrain by stacking up to seven layers and mixing them with each other SPR
44. h Objects make p them children of the Wire Object and you will get a spline that is controlled by the Null objects If you clone Null objects on a surface using the SurfaceSPREAD Object you E can link a Wire Object as Virtual Parent in the SurfaceSPREAD Object and get instant spaghetti hair balls or cable tangle Pro Tip You can make good use of the Wire Object in everyday modeling as well as in as animation For example you can use animated Null object to create an animated spline without the restrictions of PLA animation Bezier Splines Since version 1 00 17 it is also possible to create Bezier splines This is done by assigning child objects to the Path Objects to control the spline tangents A Path Object without a child will create a hard spline point A Path Object with one child will create a soft spline point with controllable tangent A Path Object with two children will create a spline point with two controllable tangents The parameters of the Wire Object are exactly the same as in all other standard splines The Wire Object used as Virtual Parent in the 15 6 1 Type Select the desired spline type here Linear Cubic Akima B Spline Bezier 15 6 2 Close Spline Activate this checkbox to close the spline The two ends of the spline will then be connected 15 6 3 Intermediate Points Set the desired interpolation for the intermediate points here 15 6 4 Number Angle Maximum Length Thes
45. h the clones density is continuously reduced to prevent a hard border producing a more realistic result Use Phong Angles By default the polygon normals are evaluated to determine the slope angle The results get a bit finer when you active this option Of course a Phong Tag must be present on the surface geometry for this to work If the surface geometry does not have a phong tag attached this option does nothing Direction Use Z axis of By default the surface geometry s Y axis is used to measure the steepness of the surface If the direction is set to Custom Direction you can link a Null Object whose Z will then be used That way you can intuitively distribute more trees on the sunny side of a mountain or moss on a tree s wetter side 2173 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 5 1 1 3 Performance Filters The filters in this section are not used to achieve a nicer image or a more realistic distribution They serve to reduce the memory usage and may increase editor and rendering performance by filtering clones in areas where they are not needed Use in Renderer If this option is activated performance filters will also be applied when rendering If it s deactivated all performance filters will be skipped by the renderer Use Camera All performance filters depend on the camera in some way By default the active scene camera is used if there s no active scene camera the editor camera is used Either way
46. ier Object it will be scaled The parameters of the Modifier Object define how the scaling is performed Intensity Overall intensity of the scaling effect Modifiers Link any number of Modifier Objects here 7 1 1 10 Scale by Weight This effect scales the clones on the basis of weightings calculated by the filter system Distribution tab The sliders control the influence of each of the filter groups The checkboxes define which of the filters should be taken into account at all Se Landscape by Michael Auerbach Rendered with AR3 and render instances 2873 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Modifiers 7 2 Distribution Modifier The Distribution Modifier is used in the standard filter Filter By Modifier that is located in the Distribution tab of the SurfaceSPREAD Object Clones that are located in the range of the Modifier Object will be filtered The probability of a clone being eliminated depends on the distance between 7 clone and modifier as well as from the settings in the Modifier Object 7 2 1 Ignore Y When this option is enabled only the distance of clones and modifier on the XZ plane are taken into account The Y position of the modifier or a linked spline will be ignored 7 2 2 Spline Here you can link a spline object SurfaceSPREAD will create a number of samples along this spline of which each sample will work as a normal modifier This way you can easily create a path throu
47. in the ZIP archive into the folder MAXON Cinema 4D R10 library browser Cinema 4D R10 or into the folder library browser in your Maxon user folder Cinema 4D R11 and higher You can easily find your user folder by opening the Cinema 4D preferences menu Edit and click the button Open Folder that is found on the Common page After you successfully copied the lib4d file restart Cinema 4D 15 13 3 Usage If you open the Content Browser SHIFT F8 you should find a new catalog in the Presets group called SurfaceSPREAD Library www 3dplants com Browse the object preview images If you want to use an object drag it from the Content Browser into the Object Manager using your mouse The appropriate material will be created in your Material Manager automatically Field of Cacti by www c4d jack de Implemented with 3D models from the SurfaceSPREAD Library The color variation of the cacti was made using the SurfaceSPREAD shader 5273 SurfaceSPREAD Using SurfaceSPREAD 3 Using SurfaceSPREAD This chapter provides you with some simple instructions for getting started with SurfaceSPREAD Not only the basics but also hints that will make you a SurfaceSPREAD expert in no time 3 1 Create a forest on a landscape We assume that you have already created a landscape maybe with a SPREADscape Object using a Relief Object or with the standard Landscape Object of Cinema 4D You now want to
48. is because a lower weighting reduces the clone s probability of being created 2 1 1 General This tab holds the basic settings 2 1 1 1 Object Link an object here on whose surface you want to create the clones You can use a normal polygon object here as 7 well as SPREADscape standard landscape objects relief objects HyperNURBS primitives such as plane sphere cube platonic disc pyramid and capsule The linked object can be animated e g using deformers 2 1 1 2 Clone on The default setting Polygons produces a distribution of the clones on random positions on the surface of the linked object red L t ter gret Ce Set this parameter to Polygons Centered to create a clone on each polygon s center Attention This can produce a large number of clones making Cinema 4D react slowly or not at all until all clones are generated You should be especially cautious using this function on 32 bit machines 2 1 1 3 Max Count Defines the maximum amount of clones If you don t use any filters you will get exactly this number of clones In practice the amount of clones created is usually greatly reduced by the filters This parameter only applies when Clone On is set to Polygons 2 1 1 4 Editor Weight With this parameter you can reduce the amount of clones displayed in the editor in order to improve performance It decreases the clones weighting and not directly the amount of cl
49. ithout making a significant diffen ag amp dmetheteendered image This significantly reduces the memory usage especially with clones that contain many polygons 2373 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 9 1 3 Alignment The parameters in this tab are used to control the alignment of the created clones Mode Here you can choose from the following modes None Position only The clones are not rotated in any way so they simply inherit the alignment of the original objects they have been cloned from Normal The clones are aligned along the polygon normal with their Z axis Please note Z axis Trees have to point along their local Z axis Simply put them into a Null Object that is properly rotated Target All clones will point their Z axis to a target object Static All clones are being aligned according to a static vector 9 1 9 1 Normal alignment This parameter group is only visible in Normal mode Use Phong Normals When this option is activated the clones will be aligned along the surface geometry s phong normals If the geometry does not have a phong tag or if this option is deactivated the polygon normals will be used Up Vector By default SurfaceSPREAD picks an Up Vector for each clone automatically to ensure a stable normal alignment If you want to define an Up Vector yourself link an object here The Y axis of each clone will then point to this object Mix With this slider you can
50. lter to the global coordinate system This is very useful if you have several landscape objects or SPREADscape objects at different height levels and want to distribute the clones consistently over all surfaces Mode Generally the Y axis points upwards so it can be regarded as the height axis If required you can select another direction here The Distance from Origin is especially interesting because it does not produce a linear but rather a spherical behavior so you can even use the Altitude Filter for mountains on a whole planet 2073 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object Slope The Slope Filter is another method for creating realistic object distribution on landscapes It constrains the clones depending from the terrain s decline For example Rocks can not lie on very steep slopes because in reality they would roll down Trees however can root on relatively steep slopes And there may be some bushes that can grow on even steeper slopes but are not found on flat plains All of these criteria can be easily addressed with the Slope Filter Maximum active Minimum active Enable Minimum Enable Maximum Enables the respective filter function As with the Altitude Filter both functions can be active at the same time Min Slope Max Slope Use these parameters to set the desired threshold for the steepness of slopes of the terrain Edge As with the Altitude Filter an area can be defined in whic
51. ly a multitude of shapes to your terrain Either create your own shaping curve or use one of the preset curves 13 1 1 3 Curve Preset Here you can fine several shaping curve presets Among these are standard curves like Glaciation Canonization Plateau Terraces and more 13 1 1 4 Apply Click this button to apply the selected curve preset The previously set shaping curve will be lost 13 1 1 5 Apply Shaping By default the shaping curve is applied to the terrain after all detail layers have been calculated Using this parameter you can insert the shaping curve at an earlier point of the layer stack That way you can displace the curve s shaping by successive detail layers 13 1 1 6 Even Border Strength Use this parameter if you don t want a continuous landscape but rather a single mountain The value seamlessly blends between landscape and mountain 13 1 1 7 Edge Curve This curve controls the edge intensity and therefore the mountain s falloff 13 1 8 Phong This tab simply holds the same parameters that you already know from the Cinema 4D Phong tag Generally you will not have to change anything here 3673 SurfaceSPREAD SPREADrock Object 13 5 SPREADrock Object The SPREADrock generates a parametric rock The time consuming process of manual modeling different rocks for a bigger scene is now a thing of the past thanks to the SPREADrock Object Pro Tip Experi
52. main valid and this his acceptance is communicated to the licensor 8 You are obliged to carefully store the terms of this agreement Prior to the transfer of the software you should inform the new user of these terms In the case that the new user does not have the terms at hand at the time of the transfer of this software he is obliged to request a second copy from the licensor This can simply be done by downloading this document from the licensor s website 9 After transfer of this license to another user you no longer have a license of this software and have no rights of use anymore The commercial right of use can be re obtained by paying the license fee again 6773 SurfaceSPREAD Appendix License Agreement Recompilation and changes of the software 10 The recompilation of the provided program code into other code forms as well as all other types of reverse engineering of the different phases of software production including any alterations of the software are strictly not allowed 11 The removal of the security against copy or similar safety system like password protection encryption is not permitted 12 Copyright notices serial or version numbers or other identifications of the software may not be removed or changed The software is owned by the licensor and its structure organization and code are the valuable trade secrets of the licensor Limited warranty 13 The parties to this agreement agree that at presen
53. mentation with the SPREADrock Object parameters will reveal applications for this function beyond mere rocks 13 5 1 Object Here you find the basic parameters of the SPREADrock Object 13 5 1 1 Basic Shape Here you can select if you want to use a sphere a cube a pyramid or a custom polygon object 13 5 1 2 Polygon Object If you selected Custom Polygon Object as the basic shape you can link a polygon object here 13 5 1 3 Size Set the basic dimensions of the rock here if you are using one of the preset basic shapes 13 5 1 4 Scale If you use a custom polygon object you can adjust its scale here 13 5 1 5 _ Orientation This controls the rock s orientation by flipping the geometry to the selected axis To clone a rock with the SurfaceSPREAD Object it s a good idea to set this to z and activate the Drop axis option 13 5 1 6 Drop Axis By default the origin of the rock is located in the rock s center This option moves the origin further down making the realistic distribution on a surface easier 13 5 1 7 Subdivision Basic Subdivision This parameter is only visible if you use one of the preset basic shapes Define the geometry subdivision here Anything from Low Poly models with only 20 polygons to High Detail meteoroids with several million polygons is possible A higher subdivision always produces more details while a lower subdivision offers better performance 13 5 1 8 Pre S
54. n Output Type Real Outputs the weight of the Constrain Filter e g Vertex map for the specified clone 15 11 11 Weight Geo Output Type Real Outputs the weight of the Geo Filter for the specified clone 15 11 12 Weight Performance Output Type Real Outputs the weight of the Performance Filter for the specified clone An example for the usage of the Data Node is the combination of SurfaceSPREAD and ThinkingParticles You can e g make the SurfaceSPREAD clones work as TP emitters Sutace SPREAD Data This setup places a TP emitter on each of the created clones and aligns the particle stream along the clones Z axis The result looks like this 5073 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Commands 15 12 SurfaceSPREAD Commands There are also three useful commands that help you control bigger scenes with multiple SurfaceSPREAD objects The commands are located at the bottom of the SurfaceSPREAD submenu in the Plugins menu They don t create any objects or tags but perform an action when clicked If you like those commands it s a good idea to integrate them into you Cinema 4D layout The commands are quickly explained here 15 12 1 Toggle SurfaceSPREADs This command toggles all SurfaceSPREAD Objects in the scene That means currently inactive SurfaceSPREAD Objects will be activated and currently active SurfaceSPREAD Objects will be deactivated 15 12 2 Enable SurfaceSPREADs This command activates
55. ng the software or documentation The foregoing states the sole and exclusive remedies for the licensor s or its suppliers breach of warranty except for the foregoing limited warranty The licensor and its suppliers make no warranties express or implied as to non infringement of third party rights merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose In no event will the licensor of its suppliers be liable for any consequential incidental or special damages including any lost profits or lost savings even if a representative of the licensor has been advised of the possibility of such damages or for any claim by any third party Nondisclosure 16 The user is obliged to take careful measures to protect the software and its documentation from access by third parties The user is not permitted to duplicate or pass on the software documentation These obligations apply equally to all the employees of a company or other persons engaged by the user to operate the programs The user must pass on these obligations to such persons He is liable for damages in all instances where these obligations have not been met These obligations apply equally to all employees or other persons that are entrusted to use the software The user will pass on these obligations to such persons Hi is liable to pay the licensor all damages arising from failure to abide by these terms Retention of title 17 The licensor keeps the ownership of the delivered software u
56. nstantly recalculating its clones This enables you to work fluently in the editor even if you have generated thousands of clones The caching comes in three modes Off No caching is being used SurfaceSPREAD recalculates its clones every time it is called by Cinema 4D e g when touching the pivot with the mouse or clicking somewhere in the viewport as well as in every frame of an animation This is the slowest but also the safest setting to assure that relevant changes on the scene or objects won t be missed Always SurfaceSPREAD only recalculates the clones if parameters of the SurfaceSPREAD Object have changed All other events even relevant changes on the scene or objects will be ignored This is the fastest settings but it is not safe Automatic SurfaceSPREAD decides whether its clones have to be recalculated or not Recalculation will be performed if parameters of the SurfaceSPREAD Object have changed or if participating objects original objects modifiers target objects etc have been moved or changed or if the camera has moved while SurfaceSPREAD performance filters are active This setting offers good performance and is likely to be used most 3 1 1 12 Time Offset With this feature you can offset the animation of clones by a random amount of time Imagine you have created a crowd of waving people Using the Time Offset you can make them wave asynchronously which look much more realistic Please note that
57. ntil full clearing of all outstanding bills at the time of delivery or later receivables resulting from this contract 18 When the licensee is in arrears with its payment the application of 17 by the licensor does not mean a withdraw from the contract except the licensor communicates this withdraw explicitly to the licensee 6873 SurfaceSPREAD Appendix License Agreement Information 19 In case of transfer of the software you are obliged to inform the licensor of the name and full address of the transferee in writing The address of the licensor is stated in the manual and at the end of this agreement Privacy 20 For the purpose of customer registration and control of proper use of the software the licensor will store personal data of the users in accordance with the German law on data protection Bundesdatenschutzgesetz This data may only be used to the purposes mentioned above and will not be accessible to third parties Upon request of the user the licensor will at any time inform the user of the data stored with regard to him Miscellaneous 21 This agreement includes all rights and obligations of the parties There are no other agreements Any changes or alterations of this contract have to be performed in writing and with reference to this agreement and have to e signed by both contracting parties This also applies to the agreement on abolition of the written form 22 This agreement is governed by German law only
58. om Motion Gimmick com and Sebastian Don El Greeko Rath for compiling the MAC builds Michael Cinemike Auerbach Markus Think Schnell Philipp Bud Orange Althoff Knut Hein Bl d Schr der Fredi Rollmops Voss Jan Janosch1234 Wesbuer Daniel Stirnberg and Lutz Hondo3000 Westermann for tireless beta testing many good suggestions and a lot of pretty demo images Philipp Bud Orange Althoff for the very good inspiration for the Road Shader Sebastian Don El Greeko Rath for the superfast XeArray class www 3dplants com for the plant models in the SurfaceSPREAD Library Boris Yakuza Eissrich for the SurfaceSPREAD Icons Knut Hein Bl d Schr der for the bookshelf tutorial Buket for all the patience you had with me during the development phase 2013 2014 by Laubwerk GmbH 2009 2010 by Jack s Secret Stash Seite 2 73 Seite 3 73 SurfaceSPREAD Contents Contents Page 4 73 SurfaceSPREAD Contents BS vie elei de a ea 7 El ADo t S rfaceSPREAD EEN 7 Er Ee H gel EE 8 1 2 1 Installation of the PIG N ns aan 8 1 2 2 Installation of the license file uzs22u2s20nnnn0nonnnn nn nn nun nn nun nn nun nun nn nun nn nun nn nun nn nn nun nun nn nn nn 8 1 5 OM PI een Rinne 9 LS SUrfatesPREAD OBje Eee een 9 13 2 SPREADSCAPO ODISCE ee 9 1 3 3 OP READIOCK OD add 9 1 3 4 Wire Object 9 1 3 5 SurfaceSPREAD EE e ET 10 13 0 SuMaceSPREAD Data Node a
59. ones Therefore a value of 50 does not reduce the amount of clones by exactly 50 but a bit more or less 2 1 1 5 Distribution Seed This is the random seed for the distribution This value changes the positions where clones will appear and therefore may change the result of filters Generally this parameter is meant to achieve different in distribution results without having to change any additional parameters 2 1 1 6 Clone Seed This random seed does not influence the distribution positioning of clones but changes the selection of the original objects In other words if you are cloning multiple objects which child object gets cloned will depend on this value 1173 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 2 1 1 7 Selection Bias If you have multiple child objects to create clones from this parameter is available It dictates if SurfaceSPREAD should pick objects for cloning that are towards the top of the child hierarchy or more on the bottom For example Assign some cacti to the top of the child hierarchy and some rocks at the bottom You can now use this parameter to control the ratio between cacti and rocks The following image sequence shows different results while only changing the Selection Bias The total amount of clones is the same in each picture 2 1 1 8 Virtual Parent SurfaceSPREAD puts all created clones into a virtual hierarchy This hierarchy becomes visible if you convert the SurfaceSPREAD Object by pres
60. ong those filters you will find standards like polygon selection and vertex map plus custom geological filters that control the distribution by taking the surface s topology into consideration Additional filters manipulate the alignment of the clones on the surface allowing the user to move rotate or scale them Or to display them in a different way Last but not least there are filters designed to increase performance and lower memory usage by controlling clone distribution according to camera position All filters can be combined with each other for maximum effect 1 3 1 1 Distribution Modifier The Distribution Modifier is used together with the SurfaceSPREAD Object and manipulates the clones distribution on the surface allowing you to create a clearance in a forest or a path through a meadow with minimum effort 1 3 1 2 Scale Modifier The Scale Modifier is also used together with the SurfaceSPREAD Object and enables you to change the clones scaling on a local basis 1 3 1 3 Distribution Override Tag The Distribution Override Tag offers the possibility to change the distribution of the clones at a specific clone object level Just attach it to one or more objects that you want to clone with SurfaceSPREAD and override any distribution setting with different values that will only be applied to clones of that particular object 1 3 2 SPREADscape Object The SPREADscape Object is SurfaceSPREAD s own landscape gener
61. recalculated much more often This may be useful e g to directly see the effect of changes made to shaders or textures used in a detail layer type Material Note When clicking on the Refresh button in a detail layer of type Spline or Material the caching will be activated automatically 7 4 1 4 Enable Detail Layer 1 6 Add the detail layers you need here Each activated detail layer will appear as a separate tab in the SPREADscape Object s Attribute Manager 7 4 1 5 Presets Load Save If you have created a really nice landscape you can save the parameter settings of the SPREADscape Object to a scape file and load it later when needed These buttons open the standard Load Save dialogs 3073 SurfaceSPREAD SPREADscape Object 8 Base Layer A SPREADscape terrain always contains at least the base layer Here you set the fundamental shape of the landscape Set the parameters in a way that offers a good impression of what the terrain will look like then add more details in separate detail layers 8 1 1 1 Type Select a fractal function that you want to use You can choose from Turbulence Wavy Turbulence Noise and Ridged Multifractal 8 1 1 2 Scale This parameter scales the fractal function You can create anything from mountains to pebbles 8 1 1 3 Octaves The higher this value the more detailed the fractal structure will appear Very high values may decrea
62. ressive volcanic crater Note that SPREADscape always ce uses UVW mapping to apply the material to a detail layer u This layer type offers the following parameters 12 1 1 1 Material Link the material here whose color channel should be evaluated 12 1 1 2 Soften Maps with very high resolution as well as some procedural shaders tend to create edgy artifacts on the terrain s geometry Use the Soften parameter to compensate for this It applies a simple Mip Mapping to the material 12 1 1 3 Refresh Changes in a linked material are not recognized by SPREADscape automatically when the Caching option is activated If you want to refresh the terrain after changing something in a linked material click this button If the Caching option is currently deactivated it will be automatically reactivated Fallen Goddess by Michael Auerbach Face and breast were made using a SPREADscape Object with material layer 3573 SurfaceSPREAD SPREADscape Object 13 Shaping If you thought the base layer and all the detail layers held all of the fun take a look at the Shaping tab With the functions found in this tab you can re shape your whole terrain according to your wishes Terraces plateaus dunes changes to the slopes steepness all of this is possible here 13 1 1 1 Shape Curve Intensity This parameter controls the intensity of the shape curve s effect 13 1 1 2 Shape Curve Using this curve you can app
63. roadside where the asphalt is crumbling or tearing especially on older or low guality roads With this layer you can easily recreate this effect 15 10 4 1 Scale The scale of cracks and fragments 15 10 4 2 Coverage The cracks start at the roadside The higher you set this value the further the cracks will reach to the road center 15 10 4 3 Coverage Sharpness This parameter controls the cracks falloff from the roadside towards the center 4773 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Road Shader 15 10 4 4 Random This parameter creates a variation in the cracks occurrence 15 10 4 5 Random Scale With this parameter you can control the scale of the random variation 15 10 4 6 Blend This parameter controls the opacity of the cracks layer 15 10 4 7 Apply To Marks Enable this option to get cracks on the sidemarks and centermarks too If the option is disabled marks will be painted over the cracks 4873 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Data Node 15 11 SurfaceSPREAD Data Node The XPresso node SurfaceSPREAD Data grants XPresso access to the data of the clones created by the SurfaceSPREAD Surfaca SPREAD Data Object You can retrieve e g the number of created clones but also their position rotation scale global matrix surface normal at a clone s position filter weight and more Using this node you can even combine SurfaceSPREAD and ThinkingParticles You will find the node in the XPresso edi
64. s field of view For this zoom FOV as well as global position and alignment of the camera are evaluated Pro tip This filter only operates in areas that are not seen by the camera so there s no risk of seeing any clones disappearing or popping up in an animation But be careful Such irregularities may still be visable in reflecting or refracting surfaces Additionally clones outside the field of view may cast shadows into the visible area thus revealing disappearing clones If this happens you should experiment with the correction angle Correction Angle If you see clones disappearing at the image border you should increase this value This makes the camera cone being considered for culling objects slightly bigger As a result objects that are just slightly outside the real camera cone are kept in the scene Backface Culling Another useful filter it removes all clones that are created on polygons that don t face the camera In other words If you look at a mountain with rocks the rocks will only be created on the side of the mountain that you re looking at Again with an appropriate correction angle this filter only operates in areas that are not seen by the camera Correction Angle This filter can also product side effects like trees that disappear behind knolls if the camera goes too deep To prevent this increase this value OMAR A ESmEnSCARPHRaHON of perfe BES EAB ARERIOA SNAN of clones required w
65. se performance 8 1 1 4 Shift Move the fractal structure along the three axis of the object Moving it along Y will cause a nice and soft variation 8 1 1 5 Absolute This value is only available for the fractal function Turbulence It prevents the function from returning negative values In practice it makes the structure look more knobbed 8 1 1 6 Normalize This option is available for all fractal functions except Ridged Multifractal SPREADscape will try to scale the landscape to the height set in General tab as closely as possible However there my be some minor bumps and jumps when moving the structure with the Shift parameter If you don t like that deactivate this option 8 1 1 7 Invert Inverts the structure in Y direction Especially useful for the fractal function Ridged Multifractal This way you can create either mountains with canyons or a plain with ridges Rocky landscape made from SPREADrock and SPREADscape objects 3173 SurfaceSPREAD SPREADscape Object 9 Detail Layer 1 6 Here you have up to six detail layers that can be optionally activated in the General tab All detail layers offer the exact same functionality 9 1 1 1 Layer Type Select the type of the detail layer here You can choose from the following Noise Fractal functions Spline and Material 9 1 1 2 Blend Mode As in 2D graphics applications you can define how the current det
66. sing the c key All clones now appear as children of a Null Object If you want to use another object instead of the Null link it as Virtual Parent You can clone sphere objects and link a Metaball Object as Virtual Parent to cover the surface with thick metaballs this is not a bad idea for creating snow lying on the landscape You can also clone Null Objects and link a SurfaceSPREAD Wire Object here to get instant spaghetti hair balls or cable tangle 2 1 1 9 Create Instances If you convert the SurfaceSPREAD Object by pressing the c key you can see that all clones are exact copies of their original objects If you would rather create instance objects which are linked to the original objects e g to make later editing easier enable this option If you use Cinema 4D R11 5 you can select if you want to use normal instances or render instances Render instances let you render huge amounts of polygons even if you computer doesn t have much memory 2 1 1 10 Display If you have created a very large amount of clones the editor performance may decrease In this case you can switch to a bounding box display either shaded or as wireframe The wireframe mode gives the best performance When rendering all clones appear normal of course 1273 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 3 Caching Caching produces a significant performance increase especially in the editor Caching prevents the SurfaceSPREAD Object from co
67. t it is not possible to develop and produce software in such a way that it is suitable for any conditions of use without problems The licensor warrants that the software will perform in accordance with the documentation The licensor does not warrant that the software and the documentation comply with certain requirements and purposes of the user or works together with other software used by the licensee You are obliged to check the software carefully immediately upon receipt and inform the licensor in writing of apparent defects 14 days after receipt Latent defects have to be communicated in the same manner immediately after their discovery Otherwise the software and the documentation are considered to be faultless The defects in particular the symptoms that occurred have to be described in details as much as you are able to do so This warranty is granted for a period of 12 months from delivery of the software for the date of which the date of the purchase according to the invoice is decisive The licensor is free to cure the defects by free repair or provision of a faultless update If the licensor is not able to offer a trouble free performance of the program the user may withdraw from the contract 14 In case of assertion of this warranty the user is obliged to give up commercial rights of use as Stated in 13 Liability 15 The licensor and its suppliers do not and cannot warrant the performance and the results you may obtain by usi
68. t ol Nee 29 M EE 2 E Seas ne at a ten ga AC eee ee e 43 Marks 9ldt ana 43 Materialen 13 25 32 40 Maxi reet Ee 9 16 18 19 23 24 Max GR 9 DEN I EE 19 Maximum een 16 18 Maximam Eed 37 EIER PL 10 Memor USACE an ea 53 Metaballa ee ee 10 A Mes stant tate ett hela E ee RN 16 18 19 23 Mit DS enn avo ENGER e 19 Kenn BEE 16 18 Minimum Distance cooocccnnnnnccnonnniconnnunacononanicinonanos 14 52 O EE 2 MOS tods 17 21 MA esse 7 14 25 26 ee uses 25 MOUNA idad 27 28 UI TE TC 64 lettre once ee 29 N network operation oooooooooooocccnnnnnnnnonnnnnnnnnnononononoss 64 DO ee ee eee 8 46 NOE Ee 28 30 35 39 41 Noise Scale EE 15 24 41 Noise iy egies i lanes head ma ee oe es 30 Noise Ee nia amas 24 41 NoNdISC OSUTE cece cecccc cee eeeccceeeeeseceeeeesseeeneeseeeees 65 IN ON On cece he Oo see ete 21 A aR Pea ee ea AOR a Ete PAE OTL RAY Pk 21 eegen EE e pe TEE 21 A EE 28 Number sense Bu aan 37 SurfaceSPREAD O Ob COUT LE dee 46 OBERE ee rei 9 34 46 OBd San een E 46 OCTAVOS ae ee sa 28 30 35 EE 11 TS EE UK 29735 KE EE EE eeneg 23 OPICH AL else Dans 34 A A E 38 A EE 5 P A A E a 26 Path EE Eeer 37 E 2 A A A 11 20 53 63 IS A IN 19 47 Phone seen een 18 21 33 Phone Normals su nn la 21 Phono Tape ne 18 O E E E 8 A Ee 6 Poly INOUE EE 46 Polver OD CCl une 34 Polygon Selection cccsssesssesssessssssessssesseesseens 13 POS ON ee ce ire ace a a 46 Position TE
69. terials that utilize channel shaders Of course you can also combine them with other shaders using a Layer Shader or a Fusion Shader The shader even works with special material of VrayForC4D 1 3 6 SurfaceSPREAD Data Node This XPresso node gives you access to the clones data opening up new possibilities For example you can combine SurfaceSPREAD with ThinkingParticles 1 3 7 SurfaceSPREAD Commands Three commands in the plugins menu let you switch on or off all SurfaceSPREAD objects in your scene simultaneously making work a lot easier 1073 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 2 Parameters in Detail This chapter explains each and every parameter of all SurfaceSPREAD components Use it as a reference if you want to know more about a certain element in the Attribute Manager 2 1 SurfaceSPREAD Object Use the SurfaceSPREAD Object to distribute any number of clones on a surface This is called cloning The SurfaceSPREAD Object is the first choice if you want to distribute trees shrubs or rocks in a landscape put bubbles on boiling milk or create a crowd of people The SurfaceSPREAD Object works with a filter system based in weightings to determine at which positions on the surface clones will be created The weighting of each clone determines the probability that it will be created If you read the phrase the clones weighting is reduced in this manual this means that in the end fewer clones will be created This
70. that is reactive to the landscape s topography creating realistic images and animations that are not exceedingly regular nor overly chaotic It is also a high quality landscape generator expanding on Cinema 4D s own limited landscape objects to allow users to create elaborately detailed and customizable terrains complete with lakes rivers and streets that look great in the foreground as well as in the distance This easy to use alternative to manual modeling and distribution of landscapes and objects will save users time and money while also allowing for interactive design within Cinema 4D This is a huge advantage over external applications that require import export protocols that interrupt the user s workflow require manual cleanup and don t always carry over all the required information In this manual you will discover all of the components and functions of SurfaceSPREAD including the many settings that can be used to influence the positioning and alignment of object clones such as trees distributed over equally adaptable and lifelike landscapes as well as other surfaces SurfaceSPREAD also interacts well with a lot of Cinema 4D built in functionality such as Hair and unlike some other solutions there is no limitation on what type of object can be distributed Football stadium by Knut Schr der SurfaceSPREAD was used for the spectator crowd 773 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Introduction 1 2 Installation 1 2
71. the Time Offset will not work with instances or render instances since those are always exact copies of their original objects Just create some copies of your original objects and make them children of the SurfaceSPREAD Object too That will help give the animation some randomness Another restriction of the Time Offset is that it will only work with keyframe based animation but not with animation based on expression tags XPresso IK constraints etc Cinema 4D can only offset keyframe animation Time Offset sec This parameter defines the maximum amount of time by which the animation of clones may be offset Seed Use this value to vary the random time offset 3 1 1 13 Information This section displays the total count of clones created Penguins by Knut Schr der 1373 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 3 1 2 Distribution In this tab you will find the SurfaceSPREAD filter system It offers a multitude of different filters to control the distribution of clones The filters are arranged in three groups Standard Filters Geo Filters and Performance Filters Standard Filters allow the restriction of clones with traditional functions like polygon selections vertex maps and material color but also with Modifier Objects and minimum distance between the clones Geo Filters change the distribution of clones according to rules taken from the real world such as the surface topology of the linked geometry object
72. the random calculation Use it to create an almost infinite number of variations 5 1 4 3 Offset by material This effect offsets clones along the surface normal by the mam brightness of a linked material s color channel This is especially useful when applying displacement to the surface geometry Height The maximum offset of the clones Material Link a material here that should be used 5 1 4 4 Random Alignment Random variation of the clones alignment One of the most important effects for creating a realistic look Intensity Intensity of the effect Max The maximum angle by which the clones are rotated from their standard alignment which is defined by the settings in the Alignment tab Seed The seed of the random calculation 2673 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Object 6 Base Scale The clones scaling You can quickly scale all clones without touching the original objects Scale top The clones scaling by the X Y and Z axis together bottom left right The clones scaling by the X Y and Z axis separately 6 1 1 6 Random Scale Random variation of the clones scaling Intensity The intensity of the effect At 0 all clones are scaled the same Base Scale Max Here you define the maximum variance of the scaling Use Noise By default a simple random generator is used for the Random Scale effect Activate this option to get a rather structured looking randomness
73. tor s X Pool or in the context menu under XPresso gt SurfaceSPREAD gt SurfaceSPREAD Data Here s a complete list of the available ports 15 11 1 Object Input Type Object Connect this port to the outgoing port Object of an Object node that is linked to a SurfaceSPREAD Object in your scene If this port is not connected or connected to an object that s not a SurfaceSPREAD Object the node will not work 15 11 2 Objlndex Input Type Integer If you want to access the data of a clone you must specify the index number of the desired clone here The clones are numbered from 1 to n number of created clones 15 11 3 ObjCount Output Type Integer Outputs the number of created clones 15 11 4 Position Output Type Vector Outputs the global position of the specified clone 15 11 5 Rotation Output Type Vector Outputs the global rotation HPB of the specified clone 15 11 6 Scale Output Type Vector Outputs the scale of the specified clone 15 11 7 Global Matrix Output Type Matrix Outputs the global matrix of the specified clone 15 11 8 Poly Normal Output Type Vector Outputs the surface normal of the surface geometry at the position of the specified clone 15 11 9 UVW Position Output Type Vector Outputs the position of the specified clone in UV coordinates of the surface geometry 4973 SurfaceSPREAD SurfaceSPREAD Data Node 15 11 10 Weight Constrai
74. ubdivision This parameter is only visible if you have set the Basic Shape to Custom Polygon Object It will apply a hard subdivision to the polygon object preserving its shape more precisely 13 5 1 9 Post Subdivision This parameter is only visible if you do not use a sphere as the basic shape It applies a HyperNURBS subdivision to the selected basic shape This enables you to add more details without altering the basic shape too much 3773 SurfaceSPREAD SPREADrock Object 14 Structure This section holds the parameters for the rock structure 14 1 1 1 Use Normals If this option is deactivated the structure is calculated on the basis of the basic shape s origin If you activate this option the average vertex normals will be used This is more precise but calculates a bit slower 14 1 1 2 Independent If this option is activated the scaling of the structure will be independent from the rock s base dimensions If you change the dimensions of the rock you can create crazy effects while this option is activated If you deactivate it the structure s scaling will change according to the rock s dimensions 14 1 1 3 Strength Control the intensity of the structure with this parameter If the value is 0 no structure will be visible 14 1 1 4 Offset If your rock gets too big due to the structure strength you can correct it using this value without losing the structure s intensity 14 1 1 5 Type

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