This is a Python Tag script that uses a basic Null object to make a nice object manager separator. Change separator’s name in Null object’s User Data and select style and width as you wish.

The script is created to work with Cinema 4D’s default UI font: Segoe UI, Regular 11. Since the font is not a monospace typeface, I had to go through each letter, number and symbol and gave them a custom weight. Weighting is not perfect but it is better than nothing.

N.B. supported characters are very limited.

ar_tag_separator_null.c4d v1.0.1 (2023.1.2)

Cinema 4D, Experimental, Python, Tag

Here is two Python Tags that toggles object’s visibility by given frames.

Toggle Visibility

This Python Tag toggles it’s object’s visibility. You can input individual frame numbers or frame ranges. Use a comma to separate different selections. Frame numbers that you put in to the input field are “selected frames”. You can change operation what happens to selected frames or non-selected frames.

ar_tag_toggle_visibility.c4d v1.0.1 (2023.1.2)

Toggle Visibility Controller

This one works like the previous one but instead controlling only one object, you can control multiple objects’ visibility. Add more items with “Add” button. You can add as many item as you want. “Remove” button removes always the last “Toggle Visibility” group.

ar_tag_toggle_visibility_controller.c4d v1.0.1 (2023.1.2)

Updated 29/10/2022
> Semantic versioning

Cinema 4D, Python, Tag

This is an old script that I made, but I wanted to wrote something about it before I forget everything. The script exports selected layers masks from Adobe After Effects to text file that you can copy paste straight to Black Magic Fusion composition. The script exports only the paths, it does not support feather, opacity, expansion or other fancy things.

I created this script because sometimes I have to rotoscope something and when that happens I only use free version of Mocha that comes bundled with After Effects. But since I have started to use Fusion more and more I had to figure a way to get my rotoscoped Mocha shapes to Fusion. Fusion’s own rotoscope tools are fine, but I’m so much faster with Mocha.

After Effects and Fusion have a different coordinate systems (Fusion has many different coordinate systems, this is for polygon masks).

Following pseudocode shows how mask vertices are remapped from another coordinate system to another:

// lerp(value, old min, old max, new min, new max)
x = lerp(vertices[n].x, 0, compositionWidth, -0.5, 0.5)
y = lerp(vertices[n].y, 0, compositionHeight, 0.5, -0.5)

Tangents are remapped similarly, but by trial and error I found out that I need to additionally add 0.5 to X-tangents and subtract 0.5 from Y-tangents to get right result.

AR_MasksToFusionPolygons.jsx

After Effects, Fusion, JavaScript

This was a really quick JavaScript project that I made when I was a bit bored. I wrote it originally with Python, but I wanted to port it to JavaScript, so it is easy to use in browser or something.

It is render time estimator. Just type frames or frame range and average time how much it takes to render a single frame and then render time estimator calculates how long it takes to render whole sequence.

Time should be given in HH:mm:ss format.

Updated 17/11/2021
> Added support for multiple render times, separate values with comma and estimated render time is average of those values.
> Added history.

Render Time Estimator

Html, JavaScript

This is my first Python Field Object. With Selector Field, you can easily select items by typing their ID’s (e.g. 0, 10, 11, 25, 30 and so on). Selector Field supports also range selections which works by typing start ID and end ID e.g. 5-20, 49-99, 0-3 and so on.

Originally Selector Field is intended to use with MoGraph Effectors but it works also with polygon, edge and point selections and vertex maps.

There is three different ‘Input type’ systems: Single-Line, Multi-Line and Range Sliders. First two allows you to type ID’s and the last one allows you to select items with two sliders.

If you want to invert the selection, go to ‘Remapping’ tab and tick ‘Invert’ checkbox there.

Selector Field won’t update user interface if it does not have anything to process! You should first attach it to somewhere and then modify settings.

Updated 24/06/2020
> Updated – now it supports more than 400 items. N.B. large selections gets really slow! (Bad optimization)

Updated 17/09/2022
> Updated support for Cinema 4D R25 and newer (Python 3)

ar_field_selector_r21.c4d v2.0.0 (R21)
ar_field_selector.c4d v2.1.1 (2023.1.2)

Cinema 4D, Field, MoGraph, Python

Lately I have worked a lot with alembic files that have point level animated geometry and once I had to attach objects to that PLA geometry. I figured out a couple different ways to do this (e.g. MoGraph Cloner or Contraint Tag) but my favorite solution is to use Xpresso and Python.

In this setup I’m taking three points from selected polygon. Then I’m creating vectors v1 and v2 from those points’ positions. Then vectors are used to generate orthogonal axes by using cross product.

import c4d
import math

def main():
    global Matrix

    v1 = Point1 - Point0 # Generate first vector from two point positions
    v2 = Point2 - Point0 # Generate second vector from two point positions

    m = c4d.Matrix() # Initialize a matrix
    m.v1 = v1.GetNormalized()
    m.v3 = v1.Cross(v2).GetNormalized()
    m.v2 = m.v3.Cross(v1).GetNormalized()
    m.off = Position # Set position

    Matrix = m # Output

ar_xpresso_align_object_to_pla_polygon.c4d

Cinema 4D, Python, Xpresso

This was a funny experiment. Sending MoGraph data from Cinema 4D to Novation Launchpad (the first version). I used Python Effector to send UDP packets to Processing and in Processing I used UDP library to read those packets and The MidiBus library to send MIDI messages to Launchpad.

Pads’ indexes starts from 0 and ends to 199. Every circle pad takes 8 indexes so in every row we add that amount to index value. Velocity value changes color and brightness of the pad but I did not have interest to find out what every single values from 0 to 127 did. In my setup I just mapped clone’s red color value (float 0.0-1.0) to MIDI velocity (integer 0-127). Mapping is done in Processing sketch.

Python Effector from this experiment can now be used as a template for different setups to send MoGraph data to other softwares. Data is transfered with UDP packets in strings. So Cinema 4D is sending constantly long strings and Processing sketch is listening those and unpacking those strings to something useful.

Python Effector code

import c4d
import socket
from c4d.modules import mograph as mo

def initSocket():
    global s
    global server
    host = '127.0.0.1' # Host address
    port = 5001 # Port
    server = ('127.0.0.1', 5006) # Server address and server port
    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM) # Initialize socket
    s.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_REUSEADDR, 1) # Re-use socket
    s.bind((host, port)) # Bind
    return s, server

initSocket() # Create a socket

def main():
    md = mo.GeGetMoData(op) # Get MoData
    if md is None: return False # If no MoData return false
    cnt = md.GetCount() # Get clone count
    carr = md.GetArray(c4d.MODATA_COLOR) # Get color array
    message = "" # Initialize message string
    row = 0 # Initialize row integer
    for i in xrange(0, cnt): # Loop through clones
        if i != 0: # If not the first index
            if i % 8 == 0:
                row = row + 8 # Launchpad pad numbering
        color = carr[i] # Get clone's color
        index = (i+row) # Calculate pitch
        message += str(index) + "-" + str(color.x) + "," # Write message
    s.sendto(message, server) # Send message
    return True # Everything is fine

Processing sketch

import hypermedia.net.*;
import themidibus.*;

MidiBus myBus;
UDP udp;

String HOST = "127.0.0.1"; //ip address
int PORT = 5006; //port
String receivedFromUDP = "0-0.0,1-0.0,2-0.0,3-0.0,4-0.0,5-0.0,6-0.0,7-0.0,16-0.0,17-0.0,18-0.0,19-0.0,20-0.0,21-0.0,22-0.0,23-0.0,32-0.0,33-0.0,34-0.0,35-0.0,36-0.0,37-0.0,38-0.0,39-0.0,48-0.0,49-0.0,50-0.0,51-0.0,52-0.0,53-0.0,54-0.0,55-0.0,64-0.0,65-0.0,66-0.0,67-0.0,68-0.0,69-0.0,70-0.0,71-0.0,80-0.0,81-0.0,82-0.0,83-0.0,84-0.0,85-0.0,86-0.0,87-0.0,96-0.0,97-0.0,98-0.0,99-0.0,100-0.0,101-0.0,102-0.0,103-0.0,112-0.0,113-0.0,114-0.0,115-0.0,116-0.0,117-0.0,118-0.0,119-0.0,"; // Example message

void setup() {
  size(400, 400); // Document size
  background(0); // Background color
  udp = new UDP(this, PORT, HOST); // Create a new UDP
  udp.listen(true); // Listen UDP
  //MidiBus.list(); // List all available Midi devices
  myBus = new MidiBus(this, 1, "Launchpad"); // Create a new MidiBus
}

void draw() {
  String[] list = split(receivedFromUDP, ','); // Create a list from a string  
  int channel = 0; // MIDI channel
  int number = 0;
  int value = 90;
  
  for (int i = 0; i < (list.length-1); i+=1) {
    String[] values = split(list[i], '-');
    int pitch = int(values[0]); // Pitch (pad)
    float m = map(float(values[1]), 0, 1, 0, 127); // Map values from 0-1 to 0-127
    int velocity = int(m); // Velocity (color)
    myBus.sendNoteOn(channel, pitch, velocity); // Set note on
  }
  myBus.sendControllerChange(channel, number, value); // Send a controller change  
}

void receive(byte[] data, String HOST, int PORT) {
  String value = new String(data); // Recieved UDP message
  receivedFromUDP = value; // Assign message to global string
  }

That’s that.

Cinema 4D, Experimental, MoGraph, Processing, Python

When you render with Cinema 4D’s render queue, you get a XML-file where C4D puts useful data, this file is called a render log. It’s not very pleasing to read the raw XML-file, so I made a simple log viewer with HTML and JavaScript that views render logs more readable way.

There is an input field where you can just drag and drop your log-file and when you press “View Log”-button, the site converts XML-file to nice looking HTML code.

The log viewer does not upload or collect any kind of data to my server. It opens file straight in the browser using HTML5’s FileReader, so your log files stays private.

Try log viewer here: Cinema 4D Log Viewer v0.2 Beta

The current version is in beta and I’ll keep developing this project and adding new features. All feedback is welcome.

Updated 18/08/2019
> Added support for multiple files
> Rebuild with Bootstrap

Cinema 4D, Html, JavaScript

This was a fun little friday experiment. Transfering MoGraph data to Spline Data with Python Tag. I don’t know how useful it is, but it is fun to play with.

import c4d
from c4d import utils as u
from c4d.modules import mograph as mo

def main():
    clamp = op[c4d.ID_USERDATA,2] # User Data: 'Clamp'
    intrp = op[c4d.ID_USERDATA,3] # User Data: 'Interpolation'
    obj = op.GetObject() # Get object
    md = mo.GeGetMoData(obj) # Get MoData
    if md is None: return False # If there is no MoData, stop processing
    cnt = md.GetCount() # Get clone count
    marr = md.GetArray(c4d.MODATA_MATRIX) # Get MoData matrix
    spline = c4d.SplineData() # Initialize Spline Data
    for i in range(0, cnt):
        x = u.RangeMap(marr[i].off.x, 0, 100, 0, 1, clamp) # Calculate X position
        y = u.RangeMap(marr[i].off.y, 0, 100, 0, 1, clamp) # Calculate Y position
        spline.InsertKnot(x, y) # Insert new knot
        leftTangent = c4d.Vector(0, 0, 0) # Left tangent values
        rightTangent = c4d.Vector(0, 0, 0) # Right tangent values
        spline.SetKnot(i, c4d.Vector(x,y,0), 0, False, leftTangent, rightTangent, intrp) # Edit knot
    spline.DeleteKnot(spline.GetKnotCount()-1) # Remove some leftovers
    spline.DeleteKnot(spline.GetKnotCount()-1) # Yes, do it twice
    op[c4d.ID_USERDATA,1] = spline # Set spline data to user data

ar_tag_mograph_to_splinedata.c4d v1.0.1 (2023.1.2)

Cinema 4D, Experimental, MoGraph, Python, Tag