Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/756468
91 Q4 2016 / CINEMONTAGE 91 Q4 2016 / CINEMONTAGE TECH TIPS If you are working with footage that was shot with a locked-off camera, the object tracking process is more or less straightforward. In the case of object tracking something in footage that was shot with a moving camera, it's a little more involved since one would need to solve for both the camera and the object. The implementation of object tracking inside Cinema 4D is a great enhancement to the product. Along with the already-existing motion tracking, the addition of object tracking makes the application a complete tracking and match- moving solution. This saves users money and time from having to rely on third-party tracking software. VORONOI FRACTURING Next to object tracking, Voronoi Fracturing comes in a close second in terms of R18's new features. Of course, 3D programs are great at modeling things and making them look clean and perfect — whether you are constructing furniture, buildings or starships. However, there are times that you want to destroy and shatter the things you make. In those cases, you want to take those slick and precise models and break them up into tiny little random pieces. There's an old expression that says that it's much easier to break something than it is to make it. That seems to make sense since it takes only a few moments (and a hammer) to smash up a sculpture by Bernini that took him months to carve out of a block of marble. However, when it comes to 3D modeling, it's a different story. Before R18, taking a model and breaking it into many separate pieces was not so easy. You could have taken the knife tool and sliced up your model elaborately to create the hundreds of pieces that would result from a collision. As you might imagine, that would be a tremendous amount of work that could take days. In fact, it would be so labor-intensive that, in most cases, it would be impractical. Luckily, there is a good third-party plug-in called NitroBlast, which was available before the advent of R18, that effectively fractures objects. Incidentally, the plug-in is still available at a reasonable cost. Those who use versions of C4D before R18 will still find it a useful and affordable fracturing solution. The good news is that Voronoi Fracturing has been natively built into R18 and it features a wealth of creative controls and options for many creative fracturing effects. There are options that allow you to concentrate the majority of fractures to certain key areas. This is useful because fractures are usually more numerous at the point of impact than further away, where they are bigger and fewer. You can also add gaps between the pieces, which can be useful for a broken- up or parched-earth effect — or just for an interesting design element. When using Voronoi Fracturing, separate materials are automatically generated for the inside and outside of the fragments. This can be useful to create a worn and scuffed-up texture for the outside surfaces of an old wall and a different surface for the interior. Of course, as you would imagine, dynamics can be applied to an object that has been fractured for automatically realistic physical collisions and gravity. Another great thing about Voronoi Fracturing is that it is part of MoGraph. That means all the powerful MoGraph functions, such as effectors, are available. Thus, all sorts of cool and interesting creative design and motion graphics possibilities are possible, in addition to simulating collisions. ENHANCEMENTS TO MOGRAPH While object tracking and Voronoi Fracturing are important updates in R18, there are other new features such as enhancements to MoGraph, C4D's unique cloner toolset. MoGraph is used heavily in the field of motion graphics and is also a useful modeling and scene construction tool. Push Apart, a new MoGraph effector, can be used when generating MoGraph clones to prevent them from overlapping on top of each other, a common issue The new Push Apart Effector in R18 helps to make sure that generated multiple MoGraph clones don't overlap each other by pushing them apart or scaling them.