cinema 4D render problem

A

anticonnor

Member
I'm having problems getting Cinema 4D to render certain things to laser. I have created a tunnel using a Sweep NURBS object to form a hexoganal tunnel along a spline path with a camera fly-thru. When rendering with the LC4D plugin the imagery will breifly flicker on my scanner, so I know that it does recieve it alright, but then it disappears leaving nothing in the Pangolin frame. I haven't had any problems rendering simple objects, but this tunnel is giving me problems. I have even attached a light to move at the same location as the camera, in case lighting was an issue inside the tunnel, but no help. Any ideas on how to render this tunnel?
 
Hi Anticonnor,

If you can send us the C4D scene file we will examine it and either correct the problem in your file, or update our plug-in to work with this type of file.

You can use our "contact" form to contact us by email, and then we will instruct you on how to send the file. Use the contact form at:
http://www.pangolin.com/contact/index.php

Best regards,

William Benner
 
That's the thing, I'm using the Demo version. I can't save a scene file or export anything for you. What I can do is tell you the process I used to make a simple test scene:

1. Created an n-sided spline with 20 radius, flower spline with 5 petals, and NURBS sweep object.
2. Edited the object hierarchy so that the circle and flower are children of the NURBS sweep (you should see a tunnel in the shape of a flower). Also checked the flip normals box for the NURBS sweep so LC4D picks up the interior faces.
3. Added a scene camera with a attach to spline tag using the flower spline as the path.
4. Animated the camera to be %100 along the spline path at the last frame.

That should be about everything you need for a basic flythru, and it will render fine without the LC4D plugin. I've tweeked all of the settings in the LC4D plugin with no effect and have tried breaking up the tunnel into seperate editable pieces, but with no results. I'm writing this out of memory, so I hope I didn't leave out any steps. Please let me know if you experience similar problems or know of a working way to get a similar tunnel effect. Thanks!
 
Hi Anticonnor,

Which version of the LC4D plug-in are you using? Are you using version 4.0 or something else?

William Benner
 
I'm using the 4.0 beta version. I understood that the only thing seperating this beta from it's final release was that it didn't have a self-installer.
 
It's been quiet for a while. Has anyone else had this problem? It's a very easy scene to set up if anyone would like to take pity on a poor soul and test it out. I'm stumped as to why 4D will render the scene with no problem, but then the LC4D plugin won't. Has anyone tried to set up a similar scene in 3DS Max? I'm trying to figure out if it is just the LC4D plugin, or if Pangolin is having trouble rendering the inside of 3D objects.

Please let me know if anyone has seen this happen, and whether or not you found a solution... thanks!
 
Hello...? I guess I'm going to have to find another way to get the effect I want if Pangolin can't figure out what's causing this glitch. I might wind up using another 3D program to create this scene, render it to a video file and use TraceIt! to convert that to video. I't not my first choice, but it might be the only way right now. Does anyone (Pangolin) have a solution to the above problem? Thanks!
 
Hi!
I had those problem with tunnel. I didn\t manage it. But I can tell that LCMax do it good. I have the same problems in Max only when object scale is too small.
 
And of coarse look if your surface has normals turned inside. Renderer does convert surfaces with normals directed only to the camera.
 
I have referred this problem to Cathleen, co-author of the plug-in and someone who works at MAXON (the people who make Cinema 4D). Cathleen (like everyone else in the world it seems) has been quite busy lately, so she did not have a chance to look at this up until now. Off the top of her head, she believed that this was a problem with the "normals", but I think it might be something more fundamental due to how we speed up the renderer within C4D. We will see which of us is right :) In any event, I am sure this problem is solvable, and I am also sure that our Lasershow Converter MAX plug-in for 3D Studio MAX is better.

3D Studio MAX has been around longer than Cinema 4D, and the plug-in architecture is more mature. Because of that, we were able to craft a better plug-in product for 3D Studio MAX than we were for Cinema 4D. However, Cinema 4D is far less expensive than 3D Studio MAX and we give the plug-in away for free, so this is a classic case of "you get what you pay for"...

I have seen some users get very good results with the LC4D plug-in, so it really is not bad. But we still consider the combination of 3D Studio MAX and our Lasershow Converter MAX plug-in to be the premier tool for laser show professionals. In recent years, two-out-of-three ILDA Award Submissions were done using this combination, so we believe this represents a true revolution in the way that graphic laser shows are done!

Best regards,

William Benner
 
Hey, I just wanted to let everyone know that with the help of Bill Benner at Pangolin and their friendly Maxon programming partner, the newest LC4D plugin not only corrected the rendering issues I was having, but with that bug out of the way it sped up the render time quit a bit.

I believe that Pangolin will be releasing the updated plugin shortly. Thanks!
 
Hi,

Yes I fixed the problem and Bill Benner will release it soon. During the bug fix I found some speed releated issues. So the new plguin should be faster.

If you have any questions about C4D or the LC4D feel free to ask.

Greetings

Cat
 
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