Cinema 4D Tutorial – Basic Flocking with Thinking Particles
By Tim July 28, 2010
I’m sure a lot of you remember the blog that I used to have, the original pages hosted on the HYPA server. It wasn’t really a blog, but more of a mish-mash of my experiments, downloads etc.
I often get requests for the downloads, so I do intend to repost them all eventually. I posted the light presets a while back and now I am going to repost the Thinking Particles presets.
The first offering is my TP Basic Flocking example. This is a really simple setup that shows you how you can create a flocking or swarming type effect using Thinking Particles.
Basic Flocking Xpresso
As you can see from the Xpresso, there is not a lot to it. The particles are all in the same default All group. I’ve added a null which is then animated along a spline. This null is used as a Follow Position for the particles. As the particles try to follow the nulls position, there is some hidden geometry that is used as a Deflector, this helps to add a little chaos to the motion. I’ve used the Particle Collision preset to stop the particles colliding with each other too.
I hope you find this useful. Don’t forget that you can also clone onto the Thinking Particles using MoGraph if you want to start mixing up some MoGraph and TP techniques. Lots of fun to be had for sure.
Cinema 4D Tutorial – Basic Flocking with Thinking Particles
Tags: c4d, cinema4d, download, FREE TRAINING, Free Tutorial, thinking particles
Categories: Cinema4D Thinking Particles
Author: Tim
24 Comments
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Thanks Tim!
Thanks again Tim! Fun times.
Thanks tim !
Since i’m a little too much of an optimizer, i must say that there’s a “Time Control” preset in Xpresso, that in one node do the exact same thing as your time+compare+boolean combo 🙂
@Alan Hi Alan, Thanks for the comment. I am aware that there are plenty of presets for Thinking Particles, they are definitely useful and worth exploring, even simple setups like the time control preset.
However I think it is beneficial for people to understand the basic structure and inner workings of the Xpresso setup which is why I encourage breaking apart these presets and adapting them for your own unique projects. This will give you a deeper understanding of TP and it’s uses in the long run.
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2nd attempt
Hi Tim.,
thank you very much for uploading your presets and sharing your knowledge, especially the scary xpresso- stuff!
I´ve made an animation using your “flocking ” preset in a slightly different way:
.
Greetings from Berlin
Thanks Tim!
I’m bit of a newbie with Xpresso, how can I randomize the particles so at the Particle Birth it uses more than one PShape (you know, so the flock has different fishes)?
@Oliver You can use the multishape emitter preset to create multiple particle shapes, or you could clone onto the particle groups with MoGraph
[…] way I wanted. I used a simple mograph dynamics solution, but during the project Tim Clapham from HelloLuxx posted a brilliant solution to the very problem that was plaguing […]
Thanks Tim! Keep it up!
thanks for the download, I am a newbie to expresso, how do I substitute, my shape for the Pyramid.
@4do drag the object into the PShape node to replace the pyramid.
Hey Tim,
Is there a way to have the particles leave the path at a specific point and “flock” to fill a volume shape? For example, if you had flocking birds and then you wanted them to leave the path and form a tree or something.
Thank you,
Craig
@Craig You’d need to change the particles to a new group and then use the PVolumePosition node to move them into an object.
Hi Tim,
Thanks so much for this! I’ve been playing around for ages in mograph to get my birds to flock so naturally…
I’m a real greenhorn on Xpresso though… so I wanted to ask you how to make the animation last longer than 250 frames. I’ve replaced the spline, naturally adjusted the amount of frames and adjusted the tag. But the cones disappear after 250 frames… I’ve been staring for a good few hours to the Xpresso patch… but I can’t seem to find it..
Thanks!
Alex
@Alex Select the PStorm node in the Xpresso and increase the Life of the particles
Cool tim, nice setup. Do you know if theres a way to add in an effect where the particles won’t pass through each other – so when they get near another particle they’ll move around or away from it?
great work as always
Sorry tim, wasn’t looking at the scene properly, just realised theres a repulse and bounce node in there. Not used that before.
I’m having a problem where I have a pre-animated bat and I can replace the pyramid with it just fine but it distorts the geometry and stretches the polys way off screen. I did indeed ‘bake’ and ‘loop’ the bat flying animation but this isn’t doing the trick.
Any help???
@JNothing It depends how you’ve created the geometry. It shouldn’t stretch! Maybe you cloned onto the particles with MoGraph, if so there is an option to stretch the particles on the cloner. Perhaps you have some deformer that is not moving with the geometry so as the object moves it moves through the deformer space. All guesses, but hopefully something to check.
What I have is it looks like certain points of the geometry are erring pulled way off screen. It’s not a deformed or effector at all. It appears that the coordinates of half the poly points have been relocated (what I meant by stretching) it’s really boggling my mind. I had to go with a standard emitter but it costs me lots more render time and I don’t have control over the flight path if the flock at all. I will try and send a project file as soon as I’m not on my iPhone. Thanks for the help 🙂
Try just cloning onto the Particle Group with MoGraph rather than using the TP Particle Geometry object and the PShape node. Maybe that will solve your problem.
Love this setup 🙂 How can I control flocking settings? Mainly I need more speed, but also interested in controlling turbulence etc. Thanks!
thanks.