LucentDreams
10-03-2002, 05:53 PM
This is a big one with no images right now I am still putting them together for you guys. I will embed images once they are all finished.
Probably the biggesst new Feature in R8,is the new AM. This is basically the non modal dialogue for R8 in which almost every object, node, material, shader, keyframe, deformer,you name it displays its settings parameters coordinates and a few other functional things. Won't be getting too in depth into that stuff today, well maybe a little, later in the evening perhaps. The function I will discuss will help increase your workflow and R8's fuctionality more than many thought possible.
By default the AM is in the bottom right of your interface along with the active tool and snap settings. couldn't thnk of a more sensible place myself. It will automaticaly recognise what you are working on whether it be a psecific object, multi selection of objects or a key frame,etc.what ever you select is what settings will be avilable to you in the AM. Very cool and handy you say.
Yes for the most part, but there is one hinderance many will start to notice. I'll use the example of lighting a scene. Let us say you have a beautiful interior scene you are lighting. You have 8 lamps a window with sunlight coming through, and 6 can lights in the ceiling (dpn't know what other people call them.)
Now you'll want all the can lights the same brightnes and colour, the eterior window light its own colour and the 8 lamps you want 4 blueish and the other 4 amber. Now we have cool new ulti selections which will obviously come in handy, but it is a pain when tweaking to have to redo multi selections over and over. Well use the fancy new selection object which can be used for many things including saving selections, pretty cool. But I have an even better idea.
Lets select the 6 can lights using shift to multi select objects you'll notice that the AM will actually read in its title (next to the push pin) "light object (3 elements)[light, light, light, light, light, light]" unless you named them something other than light. now you can change the parmeters of all 6 lights at he same time, change the colour brightness what type of shadow etc. Thats a cool time saver IMO. now lets select the outdoor sunlight, and immediately the AM has updated to show the sunlight rather than our mutli selection. Bummer now you'll have to reselect them all, right? Not a big issue if you used a selection object as you can use it to restore that selection, but why mess with that stuff. Reselect you 6 can lights, and this time click on the lock in the upper right. now select the the sunlight. Pretty cool it didn't update to the sunlight. now you can do whatever you want, move some scene objects around, change some key frames do some texturing and the AM will always have thoe 6 lights in it to change the paramters withouth having to even think about selecting them, heck you can have the chair selected and still change the 6 lights parameters. But some may notice there is a problem. What if you want to access the paramters of the 4 blue lamps, unless you unlock the AM so that is updates to those four lamps they won't be available right?
Wrong!!!, you can go into your menu Windpw/attributes Manager, or press shift-F5 or press that funky little icon next to the lock, and a second AM appears. You can have as many AM's as you want, I thnk thats pretty cool. The new AM will be set the exact same as the old one so it will show the 6 can lights and be locked as well, you simply unlock, it updates to the 4 lamps, and then lock it so that it will stay on the four lamps. so now we have two AMs set to different lights. one is floating, you could dock it but just for fun lets close it. Oh no you just lost you setup of that AM, not that it is hard to setup, but just for curiosity lets go back to that handy button next to the lock in the first AM. The new AM opens, and sure enough its the four lamps that are set, not the six cans. C4D is smart enough to recognise what the last AM you set up was and brings it back, which is a life saver for idiots like me tht close things without thinking.
I will try to get some screen caps for you to make this writing a little clearer.
Probably the biggesst new Feature in R8,is the new AM. This is basically the non modal dialogue for R8 in which almost every object, node, material, shader, keyframe, deformer,you name it displays its settings parameters coordinates and a few other functional things. Won't be getting too in depth into that stuff today, well maybe a little, later in the evening perhaps. The function I will discuss will help increase your workflow and R8's fuctionality more than many thought possible.
By default the AM is in the bottom right of your interface along with the active tool and snap settings. couldn't thnk of a more sensible place myself. It will automaticaly recognise what you are working on whether it be a psecific object, multi selection of objects or a key frame,etc.what ever you select is what settings will be avilable to you in the AM. Very cool and handy you say.
Yes for the most part, but there is one hinderance many will start to notice. I'll use the example of lighting a scene. Let us say you have a beautiful interior scene you are lighting. You have 8 lamps a window with sunlight coming through, and 6 can lights in the ceiling (dpn't know what other people call them.)
Now you'll want all the can lights the same brightnes and colour, the eterior window light its own colour and the 8 lamps you want 4 blueish and the other 4 amber. Now we have cool new ulti selections which will obviously come in handy, but it is a pain when tweaking to have to redo multi selections over and over. Well use the fancy new selection object which can be used for many things including saving selections, pretty cool. But I have an even better idea.
Lets select the 6 can lights using shift to multi select objects you'll notice that the AM will actually read in its title (next to the push pin) "light object (3 elements)[light, light, light, light, light, light]" unless you named them something other than light. now you can change the parmeters of all 6 lights at he same time, change the colour brightness what type of shadow etc. Thats a cool time saver IMO. now lets select the outdoor sunlight, and immediately the AM has updated to show the sunlight rather than our mutli selection. Bummer now you'll have to reselect them all, right? Not a big issue if you used a selection object as you can use it to restore that selection, but why mess with that stuff. Reselect you 6 can lights, and this time click on the lock in the upper right. now select the the sunlight. Pretty cool it didn't update to the sunlight. now you can do whatever you want, move some scene objects around, change some key frames do some texturing and the AM will always have thoe 6 lights in it to change the paramters withouth having to even think about selecting them, heck you can have the chair selected and still change the 6 lights parameters. But some may notice there is a problem. What if you want to access the paramters of the 4 blue lamps, unless you unlock the AM so that is updates to those four lamps they won't be available right?
Wrong!!!, you can go into your menu Windpw/attributes Manager, or press shift-F5 or press that funky little icon next to the lock, and a second AM appears. You can have as many AM's as you want, I thnk thats pretty cool. The new AM will be set the exact same as the old one so it will show the 6 can lights and be locked as well, you simply unlock, it updates to the 4 lamps, and then lock it so that it will stay on the four lamps. so now we have two AMs set to different lights. one is floating, you could dock it but just for fun lets close it. Oh no you just lost you setup of that AM, not that it is hard to setup, but just for curiosity lets go back to that handy button next to the lock in the first AM. The new AM opens, and sure enough its the four lamps that are set, not the six cans. C4D is smart enough to recognise what the last AM you set up was and brings it back, which is a life saver for idiots like me tht close things without thinking.
I will try to get some screen caps for you to make this writing a little clearer.