Vinema4D 1.0 has been released!

#1

Vinema4D is a generator that lets you create climbing, growing, animatable vines. Please check it out at the link in the name, download it, try it out in demo mode.

That teaser a while back wasn’t much to go on I realize but development was still in early stages. There will be a YouTube video very soon showing off the features and some how-to’s.

Here is a general feature list:

Generator Object that creates a growing vine using an independent host object.

Continues where all of the other ‘ivy’ solutions stop (including my own IvyGrower), Vinema4D moves away from static results and steps into the next generation of plant generation with dynamic growth generation!

Employs a hybrid Lindenmeyer-System/Particle based growth process fine-tuned for vines. The L-System parameters are built into the basic parameters of the plant making system. Unlike the Mograph Spline, animated growth is organic and there is no need to read about, learn, and experiment with the terse Turtle System used for L-System production.

Two-part system utilizes a configurable Make-Phase to grow a skeletal vine representation quickly and a Generation-Phase which creates geometry and textures on the vine while allowing animatable growth and control of that growth.

The procedural Generation-Phase is multi-processing to increase output speeds and reduce render times.

Stock and user presets give you configurable variations to the look of your vines. (More stock presets are coming!)

Use of Polygon Selection tags on host objects as ‘No-Grow Zones’ which the vine will avoid during the Make-Phase process.

Leaves can be replaced with a representative substitute object.

Make-Phase controls let you specify the overall scale of the vine, various branch and leaf parameters, and tropisms affecting vine growth.

Make-Phase process buttons help you get the results you want without too much fuss. Pause the process to inspect the current growth results. Unmake to tweak settings and start again.

5 Material slots with Branch and Leaf configuration allow variability that lends realism to your vines.

#2

This looks really nice, Robert!

Is it only for Windows at the moment?

Best,
Dan

#3

Yes, only Windows until I can afford a new Mac or someone is brave enough to build it on a Mac and verify its veracity.

Thanks!

#4

Quick Note: There is an update which adds the missing default Preset (oops on my part!), a new Translation in the generator section for Leaves, and fixes an issue only found in C4D R17.048 with joining and coordinates (matrix) for the leaves when using “Consolidate Objects”.

This is the first time that I have ever seen this (and I’ve been using C4D and writing plugins for it since R8!). Just a quick quip to Maxon.

#5

@Kuroyume, just a headsup that the Greebler link in your sig is a 404.

#6

Thanks, vel0city. The links have been updated.

If anyone is having no success with Vinema4D then make sure that it is in its own folder inside the plugins folder.

Windows 10 is okay but its hate of WinZip has caused me to start using 7z for archiving which is still new to me.

A new archive is available that resolves this issue.

#7

Great idea for a plug-in!.. Was excited to try this for growing blood vessels, and I came up with this test render
https://youtu.be/mPd2p5sUAkY

Seems the growth steps a little between frames, pauses a little on every other frame… maybe because I increased the scaler setting?

http://gbwgraphics.com/?p=173

#8

Really excited to be trying out Vinema4D Robert! Growing vines are like growing blood vessels, useful in medical animation.

I made a test render, removed leafs…

http://gbwgraphics.com/?p=173

The growth seems to stop on every other frame, maybe because I increased the scalar setting?

#9

It appears that my LERP for the branch growth wasn’t working properly. An update that gives smooth interpolation between branch ‘nodes’ will be released soon.

Cool stuff, Gwelchster!

I will post back here when the update is available.

#10

New update is available that fixes the lack of smooth interpolation on the branching growth.

You can download it here:

http://www.kuroyumeszone.com/Vinema4D/Vinema4D_R16_0111.zip

Big Note: Thanks to NiklasR, Vinema4D now supports MacOS as well!!

Thanks,
Robert

#11

I put the May 24th cdl64 build correctly into my Plugins folder but it does not show up in the C4 interface. Does this build support Mac OS?

QUOTE=Kuroyume0161]Vinema4D is a generator that lets you create climbing, growing, animatable vines. Please check it out at the link in the name, download it, try it out in demo mode.

That teaser a while back wasn’t much to go on I realize but development was still in early stages. There will be a YouTube video very soon showing off the features and some how-to’s.

Here is a general feature list:

Generator Object that creates a growing vine using an independent host object.

Continues where all of the other ‘ivy’ solutions stop (including my own IvyGrower), Vinema4D moves away from static results and steps into the next generation of plant generation with dynamic growth generation!

Employs a hybrid Lindenmeyer-System/Particle based growth process fine-tuned for vines. The L-System parameters are built into the basic parameters of the plant making system. Unlike the Mograph Spline, animated growth is organic and there is no need to read about, learn, and experiment with the terse Turtle System used for L-System production.

Two-part system utilizes a configurable Make-Phase to grow a skeletal vine representation quickly and a Generation-Phase which creates geometry and textures on the vine while allowing animatable growth and control of that growth.

The procedural Generation-Phase is multi-processing to increase output speeds and reduce render times.

Stock and user presets give you configurable variations to the look of your vines. (More stock presets are coming!)

Use of Polygon Selection tags on host objects as ‘No-Grow Zones’ which the vine will avoid during the Make-Phase process.

Leaves can be replaced with a representative substitute object.

Make-Phase controls let you specify the overall scale of the vine, various branch and leaf parameters, and tropisms affecting vine growth.

Make-Phase process buttons help you get the results you want without too much fuss. Pause the process to inspect the current growth results. Unmake to tweak settings and start again.

5 Material slots with Branch and Leaf configuration allow variability that lends realism to your vines.[/QUOTE]

#12

For the Mac always use the *.dylib file for the plugin folder, or just put the entire Vinema4D folder into the plugins and Cinema takes what it can use on the respective OS.
If there is no dylib-file in your downloaded folder, then you need to download the latest version.

#13

Does seem to crash out when rendering through Octane 3.0 on Mac.

#14

Yup. Put the entire folder right where it should be, with all my other plugs. Running R15 - is that supported?

#15

C4D R16 and newer versions. I started at R16 with the realization that R18 is going to be here soon (already in release-beta status).

#16

Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do to build/test/debug on a Mac since I currently don’t own one.

If I can get Octane 3.0 for Windows, then I can see if it has the same issue. Octane 2.25 is okay with Vinema4D (on Windows at least).

On a related note:

Different third-party renderers are going to have their issues with the leaf materials (mainly, alpha channel use). For instance, Thea will not render the leaves properly unless the leaf_alpha image is physically inverted. An inverted version of the alpha images will be included in the next update.

#17

Just tested it a bit again with Octane 3.0. It doesn’t always crash out-it more often just doesn’t render using render view. Seems to render fine in Picture Viewer.

#18

I have the demo of Octane 3.0. Will see what is happening shortly.

For now, an update that resolves rendering in the Editor View using the Physical renderer is available:

www.kuroyumeszone.com/Vinema4D/Vinema4D_R16_0112.zip

Thanks,

#19

Does anyone mind sharing the plugin? I really want to start playing with some ivy! Thanks

#20

Just a warning. Link posted in first post by the OP goes to a fake site.