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Animate With Music: Using The Sound Effector in Cinema 4D 236 Comments

In this tutorial, I will show you how to use the Sound Effector in Cinema 4D to make a render that animates to music. No keyframes needed. First, I will go over some of the basic settings of the Sound Effector, then we will use what we learned to make a dynamic abstract animation set to any music or sound effect you like.

Example Video

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236 Comments

  2. Sebastian

    Cool, cool, cool. I was just experimenting with sound effectors yesterday.
    I did however strive to find a good solution: If I want to animate with several sound effectors. I.e. one sound effector doing rotation on an clonerarray of hemispheres, and another sound effector doing random scale/position on a cloner with tons of circles. Cinema tends to freeze or get really jagged when using two sound effectors. Are there any ways to use one sound effectors, but to have the same sound effector affect two different groups of parameters?

    Reply

    • epistel

      Well, I made the same experience. Several sound effectors leads to a big mess.
      What you can do is a general cloner with all the movements you want.
      Then you can assign via xpresso and user date another object to one clone and just affect the movements you want.
      Heres my result: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb8Xsz9lDmo

      Reply

  3. Tjeerd

    Freaky but awesome! Thanks for this cool tutorial :)

    I was wondering if someone knows where I can get some abstract tracks from which I could create stuff like this? Thanks!

    Reply

  4. worldtraveler666

    Great tutorial. Been meaning to experiment with this type of animation…

    Reply

  5. Smab

    Back then when i did this music-video : https://vimeo.com/13906628, i only used sound effector!
    I had the separated instruments of the track, and assign each cloner to an instrument.
    It’s a good way to work with and it looks pretty good !!

    Nice tutorial !

    Reply

  9. bobc4d

    I’ll have to give this a go. It would be great to see how this works with the 1812 overture, especially one with the canons. I’m thinking have them explode . . . hummmm of course the overature would have to be sized down, 15 minutes or so.

    Reply

  10. Johnw

    Who does the audio track? Love it. Reminds me of Prefuse 73.

    Reply

  11. Rui

    Hello, I’m following the tutorial and when I put the tag rigid body appears not to force??

    can you help?

    thank you

    Reply

      • Joaking

        I had the same problem, what I did was I added the Rigid body tag on the Cloner object instead of the Spheres, and it worked!

        Great tutorial! :)

        Reply

        • SUpercaly

          I tried this adding it to the sphere, then to the cloner then to both and they still intersect. and they dont explode either. nothing has changed and i cant figure it out

          Reply

  12. salva

    It would be a good idea use Trapcode Sound Keys in AE and export the frames to Cinema… perhaps using XML, or the Maxon plugin and applying the values ??to an object… What do you think?

    Reply

  14. Ferhat Yalç?n

    Thanks again for this nice tutorial. I will give it a try with a classical music, maybe one of Mozart’s, I think it will be interesting.

    Reply

  15. Jay Anstiss

    I love this tutorial – I did a very basic attempt of a similar thing for After Effects (following a tutorial from Videocopilot – it’s a song from the Tron: Legacy soundtrack – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIHqQUlEg4o&feature=plcp) and apart from messing up somehow on the white emitter lines still showing, I was pretty happy with it as a first ever attempt at something like this. Now this is here for C4D :) Great! Not sure about adding a second effector yet though, but one thing I was wondering about it what we might need to do to create a shadow underneath the animated blobs? I’ve seen something like this done in AE but could you explain how this might be done within C4D, please?

    Reply

  16. Chang Jeong

    Thank you, Nick! I shall try this out for myself tonight, and eventually upload the results later. Can’t wait to try it!!

    Reply

  18. Liudas

    I found that best way to use Sound Effector when you have all song in separate layers, separated by instruments (multitrack song). I have rendered my song project in Logic Pro having separated wav files with each instruments solo parts: bass, kick drum, synth, vocal, hihats and etc. parts.
    And in this way I can trigger my 3D elements not only by using inacurate sound efector filter & bandwidth, BUT triggering them with every instrument in solos. For final sound in AE used master track containing all instruments.

    Reply

  19. Liudas

    One more thing, in Sound Effector there is option Left Channel and Right Channel. It’s really great to make one Sound Effector working only with the left side of audio track, and other with right. In this way your movie can be visually stereo :)
    And if you are working with sound editing software, there is possibility to separate any song in two layers Mid and Side. Mid would be layer of everything that contains mono and Side – would be layer with everything that isn’t mono – in other words – all stereo information.

    Reply

  21. Luis

    Thanks Nick
    Can you please show the AE work sometimes.
    Learning how to make 3D look better. New to AE

    Reply

  22. RAJJA

    Nick ji ,
    Light and sound is what we all live-in with.
    Being the festival of lights, Diwali, here in India, it’s a cracker of sound effects you have gifted us.
    “Happy Diwali” to you Sir ji.

    Reply

  23. Adam D

    quick question….
    I noticed when colorizing the sound effector that its more like a left to right setup…..meaning low end is one color…middle range another color…and hi yet another for example…
    But i was wondering if you could do something more along the lines of the EQ in that…when a sounds volume level is low its say black…as it hits the normal sound range it turns green…and if it peaks it turns red…..so its more of a down up thing…instead of a left right thing…lol

    If that makes sense…
    Again Nick…great tutorial….and always somehow just when i need it…lol

    Reply

    • Adam D

      Ok…in case anyone is wondering….I kind of found a way to allow the sound files volume to affect the color….

      1. Put an expresso tag on your cloner
      2 Turn off color mode (if you have it on)
      2. Apply a new material to the cloner
      3. Open up the expresso tag
      4. Drag the Sound effector into expresso…
      5. Add an ouput “object” tag to the sound effector
      6. Add a Sample effector ( New node-Motion Graphics-sample)
      7. Add a “strength” output to the sample effector
      8. Drag your material into the expresso.(make sure you grab the actual material and NOT the material texture tag on the cloner)
      9. Figure out your main color range…blue based…red based…or green based. (Mine was mainly green)
      10. Add a color r/g/b input tag to your material in expresso. (if your main color is red…choose red…if its green choose green etc.) (Color-Color-Color g..b or r)
      11. Now just connect connect the object tag from the sound effector to the input of the sample effector…then the strength output of the sample effector to the color choice input…

      Then you should be all set and the color will increase in intensity as the sound level increases.

      Reply

  25. matt

    Yo nick.. nice tutorial!

    Question: When i rendered out my scene the small “dust” particles have like a black outline around them… Any ideas of why would would be caused? My material is just default color and 65% luminance. Nothing black about it.

    Thanks

    Reply

  28. Luciano Daluz

    GREAT! But you could find a better music to make the example ;)

    Reply

  30. Mikael S

    I noticed this several times in your tutorials that you change several variables to same kind of value!
    For example the size of the cube to 50x50x50! A hint for you is to mark what you like to change and while pressing CTRL (cmd on apple?) + Enter will change all values to the same.
    Also works while scrolling values (changing all to the same time) – Observe! Only works atm when the values are in a vertical line and not the horisontal vectorish ones!

    Reply

  32. Daniel

    It’s very cool and I will be able to use the technique in an ongoing production right away. Thanks!

    Nick: How long render time did you have to complete all TIF images and in what resolution did you have?

    Thanks for all your posts!

    Reply

  33. Vikentijs

    I was having an erection these 2 minutes while watching the preview.
    This is an amazing one! :)
    I sooooo love it.
    Enormous thanks Grayscale Nick :)
    P.S. Actually like yesterday I was thinking about gsg and what would be awesome for the new tutorial and I thought something that deals with moving along with sound. :D Amazing! Weird! :D

    Reply

  34. eight

    Hi Nick,

    Thanks for the great tut. Do you mind posting a link to the Mike the Monkey tutorial you mention — the sound character animation?

    Thanks.

    Reply

  35. Mark

    Hey Great tut!
    One problem I’m having. I’d like to render it in C4D for now with audio, not After Effects… but I am unable to render with audio. I made sure everything was “checked” on that needed to be and also in my render settings but it still doesn’t render with sound. Any help on this would be great.

    Thanks,

    Reply

      • Mark O'Shea

        Hey, I figured out how to render with sound in C4D. You also have to add sound into your timeline (not just in object manager).
        I created a null in the timeline first then added sound to it. Then linked my song to it.
        I know AE has more control but I just needed a quick fix :)

        Mark,

        Reply

  36. abiti

    Hey great tut , i was wondering what is the app you used for your finder window, the HUD that is around it?

    Reply

  40. thomaskarado

    Thank you for your tutorial….
    I do not get it… Why do yousent to after effects?…..I tried to render in cinema 4d but I can not get sound…… Thats is the reason?

    Reply

    • Mark

      Hey, I’m having the same problem not being able to render out the sound. I looked on youtube and found a few tutorials and still no luck. If you figure it out please let me know.

      Mark,

      Reply

      • Jared

        Did you try going to your timeline, then adding a special track called sound?

        Reply

  41. matthew

    hey! for some reason, simple i hope, i can not draw within the filter shape window… suggestions?

    Reply

  45. eyal

    hey nick.
    i was messing with all this good stuff and was trying to manipulate the sound effector to effect a soft body tag values with the kind help of expresso and user data.
    for now there are no results and i was wandering if there is a way to translate the movments of the clone or what not, to actuale scale or position values that could be further manipulated to effect other shit like rigid\soft body tags etc.
    any suggestions?
    thanks!

    Reply

  47. Dave

    Can someone point me in the right direction for this….

    I would like to have the scale of the cloner be zero when the volume is zero, or when a cloner is Black because of no audio I would like the cloner to be invisible.

    I have tried a few effectors and none seem to do it. Is this a job for Expresso?

    Thanks in advance.
    Dave

    Reply

    • Adam D

      Dave if you look above in my comments youll see me write a post about changing the color along with the sound….If you just changed the input of the material to Transparency…instead of color….it should work the same way…when the music is not playing it should be invisible….when it is at 100 percent volume you should be fully visible with all the steps in between…..If you need some more help than that say so here and ill throw together a sinple c4d file for you to look at so you know what I mean….

      Reply

  48. Ricky

    When i add a second set of cloners my music track starts jumping/repeating all over the place…….don’t know why? 3 yr old macbook pro so maybe my system can’t handle it? Any ideas?

    Reply

    • Adam D

      had the same issue as well when i had alot of things going on….its nothing major and will still render out fine…just a minor annoyance…lol

      Reply

  50. Adnan Wolf

    Hey Nick!

    Great Tutorial! I’ve also watched your Render Optimization Tut because my estimated rendertime was 850 hours :D

    Another Question, how do I get more poppy saturated colors? Should I use AE for this or is there a possibility in C4D for it?

    Greetings from Germany

    Adnan

    Reply

  51. Arnaud

    Great tut Nick!
    I was wondering if there is a way to put some live sound acquisition on C4D and make same kind reactions.
    Anybody knows more about a plugin or anything? I sometimes use C4D as a vjing live application.

    Reply

    • Arnaud

      I’m sure few people were interested in that function in C4D, any clue?

      Reply

  52. Raymond James

    Can anyone help me here every time I try and add the rigid body tag, it adds a collider body tag. When I click on the tag only options available are; basic, dynamics and collision. :(

    Reply

    • Raymond James

      I understand its a very n00b question but I’m stuck.. I am using r13.

      Reply

  56. michael klich

    hey! great tutorial! thanx! i understood a lot more about the effectors and the combinations of them…
    but a short question… is there a way to use the position parameters on the clones, when there already on the flor affected by physics? in my case, only the scale parameters work….

    Reply

    • Cory

      Thats awesome! Even though the techniques may be the same, you managed to do something unique.

      Reply

  62. Emmett Feldman

    Love the tutorial! Your actually partly responsible for me making the jump from maya to cinema 4d a couple years ago.

    I worked on a sound effector based animation about a year ago. I made it for my then 1 year old daughter. Tried to be very minimal with how I used it. check it out and thanks again for the great site!

    Nature Special
    https://vimeo.com/21315278

    Reply

  63. Jacob Yackley

    Love it! However, I’m having an issue. When I add the Overhead Softbox to my objects, I do not get that glossy look that he does. What am I doing wrong?

    Reply

    • Cowbok1llaz

      check to make sure “mix textures” is unchecked in the texture tag. also, make sure in the color channel ‘texture’ is set to >mograph>color shader. obviously turn your reflection channel on.

      Reply

      • Eric

        My colors look washed out and i dont know why. ive done everything just like the tut. can u help?

        Reply

        • AlienTH

          Hello there, I have a problem here with this color shader thing. When I just apply the matirial onto the sphere, and check the Mix Textures check box, and I can see the color of my spheres, but with the color shader on the color channel of the material, in the viewport, all the spheres are white, but in render its white. Do you know why? Thanks !

          Reply

  64. dave mac

    great tutorial thanks so much. one issue i’m having: audio and 3d out of sync in AE. when i open my tiff sequence up in AE, bring in the mp4 file, they don’t sync in…seem to be a few frames off. i’ve started rendering from frame 0 at 25fps, duplicated those specs for the AE composition. wondering if i’m missing something.

    thanks again. great tut.

    Reply

  67. Ken

    This is awsome!
    Thanks a lot for giving all that inspiration and knowledge to us Nick!
    So here’s my cubed version: vimeo.com/53830216

    Reply

  68. stphn

    Hi Nick & all the good fellows around here,

    I’m putting a sound effector to my clones and everything works fine
    I’m putting my cloner in a BOOLE object with some text ( mo text or extruded spline) and everything works fine exept one thing, I’m loosing colors… sad

    any tips for me? I continue my investigations on the interweb, if I found a good answer I’ll post it here

    thx

    Reply

  73. graham

    i need help for probably the most easiest thign but can i work it out, hell no!

    sound effector is working great but the “filter shape” spline tool to balance the
    frequency is not functioning.

    ive tried enabling the filter and pressing near everything?

    any thought / ideas? its jsut stopping me at the first hurdle and its driving me nuts :)

    G

    Reply

  78. Jared

    Sweet ideas! Using expresso, you can bind the sound strength to the inner glow strength of the material, as well as the luminosity strength. It creates sort of a lightning effect, making it much more exciting to watch. I’d have a sample, but I’ve rendered the thing three times and it still gives me issues.

    Reply

    • peebeejay

      Wow, just commented on how I was looking to do that. Mind telling/showing me your expresso set up?

      Reply

      • Jared

        Give your cloner an expresso tag.
        Next, drag you sound effector into expresso.
        Give your sound object an “object” output.
        Create a sample node [New node] > [Motion Graphics] > [Sample]
        Give the sample node a “strength” output.
        (Link the output of the sound node to the input of the effector port of the sample node)
        Drag the texture of your spheres into exresso.
        Create an input of whatever you want (Color B. R. G. Glow strength, inner glow strength, etc)
        Link the output strength port of the sample node to the input of the texture node.
        Using more than one texture node, or just more than one port within the texture node can allow you to change different parts of the texture in unison. I took the inner glow intensity, and well as the color B. and lined it to the strength output, creating sort of a flash effect when the sound is more amplified.
        I also used this with lights.
        If you drag a light object onto expresso using the same setup, you can make it so the intensity of the light is dependent on the amplitude of the sound.
        Pretty cool huh?
        :)

        Reply

  79. peebeejay

    Smashing.

    Was looking for a way to effect luminance on and off via sound. Going to try it with the color mode.

    Reply

  80. peebeejay

    Also, ‘The Wire’ is hands down one of the greatest television shows ever produced. Revolutionary.

    Reply

    • peebeejay

      McNulty, Stringer Bell, Omar < don't forget those names

      Reply

  83. lucas

    Hey Nick,

    What would be the best way to create a loop and maybe a somewhat universal move or grow effect that one could apply to many various tracks? For example house tracks?

    Thanks for any help

    Great tut.

    Lucas

    Reply

  84. Whizz

    Hello Nick, really nice tutorials, i really like how you explain stuff, i learned a lot watching you showing what cinema 4d can do. I was wondering if it is possible in future for a tutorial in Cinema 4d and Realflow, i really like animated liquid splash or everything witch implies liquids. Thanks!

    PS: also made this after seeing the sound effector tutorial
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBfYSogVj9I
    it was fun. :)

    Reply

  87. Max

    Please God Help me!!
    I did exactly the same as in the tutorial.
    But at 2:18 my cubes wont start to jump
    i use a m4a file as you did but it WONT WORK
    Please help me ;(

    Reply

  88. SUpercaly

    Hi this has been asked a few times but none of the solutions work for me. when i add the rigid body tag nothing changes. they dont explode and i only have options for basic, dynamics and collision.
    Is this because i dont have the studio edition?

    Reply

    • Max

      You have to be Sure you selected the cloner object when you added it

      Reply
    • The Gorilla

      The Gorilla

      That does sound like you have Modynamics but not the new dynamics. Be sure to always add your dynamics to a mograph object like Max says.

      Reply

  89. Evan Stoddard

    Why didn’t you just use the fall off setting in the effector tab instead of using delay?

    Reply

  92. Jae

    Hey GSG! I’ve tried doing this tut. Unfortunately, I can’t hear the music and I can’t get anything to animate. I am using R12 and even attempted this tut with a wav file. Still nothing. What could I be doing wrong?

    Reply

  93. Eric

    My colors look washed out and i dont know why. i’ve done everything just like the tut. can u help?
    i would appreciate

    Reply

  95. John jon

    Hi. am from Kenya and i started Using cinema in feb this year and uve helped me a lot. am now getting jobs from my designs. i saw this tut and i thought i should try it. check it out on https://vimeo.com/55349262 . its called the shell purple and i used the hair renderer

    Reply

  96. Lucas

    Hi, I’m from Argentina and I can hardly speak and understand English. When I put the audio on the effector and then I play the cubes do not move? The audio has to be in any special format? try with mpeg, wav. wmv. mp3. mp4

    Reply

  97. Aaron Barnard

    Just found a really good thing to do for the dust effect. Put the cloner object with the spheres being used as dust in the middle of the sound effected spheres then go into project settings and turn gravity completely down. Works great!

    Reply

  98. Ian slowey

    Hi great tutorial but i do everything you do step by step and when i add sound in it doesnt effect anything and it doessnt play, some help would be appreciated. Cheers

    Reply

  99. Princess

    Hey nick!
    How long didi it take you to render it in C4D??
    And what render settings did you use?
    I want to render a 4 minutes quick time movie and it seems tit’s gonna take forever…like REALLY FOREVER! D:

    Reply

  100. deymo

    There is some way to do that and then transform the object into a logo or a shape? Thanks for the awesome tutorial.

    Reply

  101. MG

    Great tut , thanks.

    Question: is there a way to tell the sound effector to affect other parameters beyond POSITION, SCALE, ROTATION?

    Thanks

    Reply

  102. Mehmet Ali Karabulut

    Hi,
    I have a question about the lightning: I’ve downloaded overhead softbox c4d file and I want to place it in the content browser for easy access in any project. How can I make this happen?
    Thanks.

    Reply
    • The Gorilla

      The Gorilla

      The Light Kit Pro that includes the Softbox has a lib4d file that will allow you to install it in your content browser.

      Reply

  103. cruise

    u talk too much in the tutorial IDK why ?

    ur wasting a lot of time in talking too much why don’t u go right ahead to the bottom and
    work in the tutorial more than u talk ?
    we well get to know those little problems and little details when we work in the project !
    don’t bother to explain for us what we don’t need to know man

    Reply

    • MG

      Please don´t speak for all of ” us”, or at least not for me. That´s your point of view, but doubt it´s “our” point of view.

      Reply

    • Paulio

      I for one enjoy all the talking and sometimes, you DO need to hear explanations for stuff you don’t need to know about…

      Reply

    • NateGreno

      @Cruise No body pays Nick for the good work He and team are doing so just keep quiet and enjoy their tutorial. Nick you’re really doing a good work man. trust me. Keep the good work.

      Reply

    • MM

      Great tutorial Nick… we all enjoy your banter in the tutorials so don’t mind this person…

      Reply

  104. Marion

    Nice tut! You guys are the best! I’m new on your blog. I’ve watched some of your tutorials. You are doing a great job! Hope for more tuts:D.

    Reply

  107. Esli

    I was wondering if there is a way to bake the cloner with the sound effector and delay to the timeline? Because I am having a little bit of problems when I render (my computer crashes) and I assume its because my computer is calculating the sound effector and rendering. I just thought that if there is a way to bake it all to the timeline, my computer wouldn’t have to do everything at the same time.

    Reply

  108. SekiArt

    Hey,
    Maybe just to let you know as a musician: The compression you are talking about (at 6min) works like this: low volume sounds will be compressed and maxed out by volume, while loud sounds are compressed to about the same volume it is like making a snowball: if you have a pre made snowball which is tight and you add new snow witch is softer, you compress them both to about the same strength.

    Reply

  109. another outsider

    Hello there,
    After trying some of these awesome tutorials you guys have here, I tried to give a shot to this one, too. I’ve tried something similar in AE, but this looks so much more delicious, I just couldn’t help it.
    Anyway, for some reason, I couldn’t possibly make it work. None of the sound files I tried affected my cloner. I hear the sound, the frequency graph jumps around, but the cloner sits still. I though I had some options messed up, but everything seems to be ok. I think I did everything as explained, I thought my wavs are messed up, I then found a wav somebody else used, it didn’t work whatsoever. I have no idea what is wrong.
    I’m using Cinema 4D R13 on W7 x86, but I don’t think it has anything to do with this.
    After a couple of hours trying to find a solution on forums and blogs and such, I gave up. I’ll try it again sometime, though. I’ll give it a shot with an aiff, or, I donno.

    Anyhow, keep it up, you are awesome!

    Reply

    • Rick Zaffalon

      Did you check if the Sound effector was included into the Cloner’s “Effectors” tab? If not, you just need to drag it in and everything should work, as soon as you choose “Step” into the Apply Mode in the Effector tab of the Sound!
      Hope that helped!

      Reply

  112. Eduard

    Hello Gorilla,

    I´m doing the tutorial and at one point I got confused man. In my Cinema 4D Studio 13 there isn´t the option Subsurface Scattering Subdivision in the Physical Render Settings. Do you have any clew what the heck is going on?
    Thanks a lot for your time and keep up the good work man!

    Reply

  114. Andy

    Thanks Nick!
    Quick question…for some reason, I can’t add points to the “Filter Shape” grid under the Effector tab in the Sound Effector. I thought I followed you closely, but did I miss something?

    Reply

    • Sorvar

      I’m having the same problem, it would be nice if anyone could tell us why this is or how to fix it. Beside that, awesome tutorial Nick!
      Thanks in advance :)

      Reply

    • Ivan_S

      Dyllan you must have the Studio version for Cinema 4D. Broadcast only has limited functionality compared to the Studio version.

      Reply

    • Dickkie

      The way I got around that was placing the Ridged Body onto your cloner tool instead. This then gave me the Force tab to play with.

      Hope this helps.

      Reply

      • Rishabh

        Thanks a ton Dickkie :) i was facing the same problem and having a hard time, until i read your comment. It surely helps. Cheers!!

        Reply

  116. richie hunt

    Hey,

    Great tut….
    thanks so much,
    I have an issue at 20.55 where you add the Dynamic body tag – ridged body..
    From that you alter the force via the force setting..
    I cannot locate it on my C4D, I am using 11.5…
    Again, BRILLIANT TUT!!!!!

    Hope you can help

    Richie

    Reply

  118. Rob

    :( I can’t get any sound files to play at all! No sound at all coming out, tried all standard file types… any idea what I am doing wrong?

    Reply

  119. Eric

    Hey Gorilla, at 20:32 you put a simulation tag on the spheres, when i select the spheres and go to tags, simulation tags option is even there. Can you please help?

    Reply

  120. Dania

    I was wondering if we can use the sound effector in only certain frames. For example im animating objects but from the frame 35 to frame 50 i want to use the sound effector. Is this possible?
    Thank you very much for the lovely useful tutorials.

    Reply

  121. Daniel

    I have the same problem as Andy. I can’t add points to the “Filter Shape” grid under the Effector tab in the Sound Effector. Anyone?

    Reply

  122. Matty

    Thanks Nick, the tutorial helps alot.
    I’m animating a building now, so I’m wandering if it is possible use the soundeffector on that one object and not using the cloner?
    much appreciate

    Reply

  123. Luke

    Another awesome tut man! Just one question though. When i try to adjust the filter shape, no points appear on the graph when i click in there, really confused why not. Do you have any ideas?

    Reply

    • vmedium

      When this happens you can right click and choose reset, and it should snap it back to a linear graph. Hope this helps.

      Reply

  124. kevin

    Hi, I did your tutorial, but i dont get the right look on my spheres, did you use global illumination?
    btw: Nice tutorial!

    Reply

  125. Syafiq Ridzuan

    I have a problem when I pick sound file, I play it and it did not moving like in your tutorial. Frequency Graph also shows nothing. Can you help?

    Reply

    • Syafiq Ridzuan

      Okay, I know what was my problem. And if any of you guys having problem just like me which is when you select the sound file you want and your object is not moving while you can hear the song, it is probably your sound file. Check it again and again. Make sure it is supported file and if you are using windows, try it with Sample Music like Kalimba and Sleep Away

      Reply

  126. Lassel D. Richards

    Very interesting tutorial.
    I admire your work, Nick.

    Eh, I´m embarrassed of asking that question and I apologize for spamming the comments,
    but I really need to now that Artist´s name or the Track ID, please.
    Hope my english is correct, and you understood my question.
    Sorry, again.

    Liebe Grueße aus Deutschland.

    Reply

  127. Leonardo

    I’m in trouble, the dust falls and gets on the floor below the main color spheres. already in the tutorial, the dust down, up and never stops. Anyone know how to fix this?

    Reply

  129. Felix

    I can’t seem to add points to the “Filter Shape” grid under the Effector tab. I have Cinema 4d R13 and Im not sure what Im doing wrong.
    Help?

    Reply

  130. Felix

    Also when I drop the Tag simulator (rigid body) I notice that there is no force option. Any ideas?

    Reply

  131. Paul

    Thanks for the video, I added a plugin called twitch by video copilot which made it scale randomly, some of you should try it, it’s really nie

    Reply

  134. Max

    Hi i have some problem, when i apply Delay Effector, nothing happen at all… whyit can be? I use Cinema 4D R12

    Reply

    • Max

      Oh that was my fault)))) i did one of the steps lil bit wrong)

      Reply

  136. BrainEditz

    When i render in cinema i cant get my music in the final product
    Please help me thanks

    Reply

    • DavoMora

      Hi, you have to put the final render and de music in After, then you hit render queue

      Reply

  137. Jacob Monroe

    The tutorial was amazing! You explained everything with great clarity and detail. I did my version of it; unfortunately, it took ages to render. I know I am only on a Macbook, but it took over 11 hours to render 1/3 of the animation. I had to stop it there because it was taking too long. What I did notice though was that I had over 8200 frames just for a 3 minute song. Is there anyway to reduce the processing time, and/or the overall frames needed to render on a lower-spec computer?

    At any case, here is my rendition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxDtYSizLpE

    Thank you for the tutorial!

    Reply

  138. deeze

    when I drop the Tag simulator (rigid body) I notice that there is no force option. Any ideas? cinema 4d R14 mac……….Help! nice tut bytheway!!

    Reply

  139. Miho

    Really love this tutorial!
    I can’t seem to get the punchiness you have in your video. The bubbles move but they aren’t snappy enough. Do I need to use several sound effectors to get the same effect in your final render, so that I am isolating lots of separate parts? Also, the dust particles don’t bounce around for very long..eventually they just sorta sit at the bottom looking rather sad and lonely D:

    Reply

  141. Kiefer

    When i import to AE and add the sound(in AE), i can’t hear it.
    I tried as a .m4a and .wav but both didn’t work.
    Maybe it’s a wrong setting in my composition or AE self but can’t find it.
    anyone that can help me? thx

    Reply

  143. palej

    How can i export my bubble movie (.mov) with the sound file in cinema4d ?

    Reply

    • palej

      ok I see. The answer is After Effects or other compositing program. no way to use only c4d for compositing?

      Reply

  145. Sorvar

    Hi Nick!
    Great tutorial, as always.
    I have one really small request tho: could you explain (a comment would do just fine) how to exclude the gravity for the dust-spheres? I can’t seem the get the Force Mode > Exclude to work propperly.

    Reply

  146. Liam

    Hey man, I love your tutorials BUT, I have a big and unfortunate problem with this tutorial :(
    I have tried using my sound files (whether be .wav, .m4a (converted online) etc etc.) but none work whatsoever, the frequency bar stays blanks and no animation occurs, if possible does anyone know an easy way to fix this? Help please. Also if anyone knows how to convert any audio file to make it work that would be appreciated too, thanks

    Reply

  147. Ed

    For all the folks who are struggling with the audio file to work:

    Check the most right tab of your cloner (“Effectors”) and see if the sound effector is present. If not, just drag the sound effector there and watch your little fluffy cubes going bananas.

    Reply

    • BigBear

      The problem with me is that, I put an M4a. file into the sound effector. It DOES, however, show the effector in the cloner tab. I can’t hear ANY music and the cubes aren’t moving. Do I need to have quicktime or anything to support C4D? I’m working on a windows pc.

      Thanks anyway.

      Reply

  148. Julian

    Hi Nick,
    I`m from germany and i´m 16 years old …and you are my idol :)

    Reply

  149. Michael

    Hey, thanks for the great tutorial!

    But i have one problem, when trying to add points into the filter shape for the sound, nothing is happening? i cannot add any points. Some help would be appreciated.

    Thanks

    Reply

  150. Simon

    Hello Nick!

    I have the HDRI Studio Pack but i dont have a Seamlessfloord.c4d and i dont know why!?
    Some help would be appreciated!

    Thank you!

    Reply

  152. Sean S

    Hey! I figured out a bit of a fix to the issue of the spheres going to black when they get small.
    In your texture applied to the spheres where you have the “Color Shader” driving the Color, simply set you texture to “Layer”. Now in the layers, add in Shader > Color, and choose a color. Move it below the “Color Shader” layer. The set the mode of the “Color Shader” layer to something like “Hue” or “Add”, or just experiment.
    It gives kind of odd results, but with some tweaking you can get nice effects, and I like that they don’t return to black when they get small.

    Thanks for the tutorial and the inspiration.

    Reply

  154. Carlo de Ruiter

    Is there a way to deform the entire animation, from very small to the normal size. I want to flow the ‘soundballs’ out of iPhone earphones (live action footage).

    Thanks for the great tutorial and inspiration btw!!

    Reply

  155. Bryan Fusco

    Thanks so much for the tutorial!

    When I put my sound effector in, it does not effect any of my objects. I can hear the audio, and have tried countless filetypes (including uncompressed WAV). I can hear the audio just fine, and the chart is being created, it simply isn’t affecting anything. Any tips?

    Reply

    • Bryan Fusco

      Never mind, I’ve found my own problem: I stupidly didn’t have the cloner object selected when I created the sound effector :)

      Reply

  158. BigBear

    Hey there gorilla!

    I was wondering. What kind of music file are you using?
    I tried to put one in em but it doesn’t do anything.

    Thanks

    Reply

    • BigBear

      I’m sorry I got the file, but It’s still not playing any sound

      Reply

  160. Mr. Big-D

    19:35 – im sorry, but that looks like something male and organic, and it’s pulsing O:

    Reply

  161. Conner Maes

    This was just an awesome tutorial. But I need to render it. But I’ve got a Macbook Pro 15 inch 4GB RAM and it takes 90 hours to render. What is the best way to render? I’ve seen the video how to optimize your project for rendering. But is it better to export as layers and render with After Effects? I’m proud of my work and really want to render it. Please help :)

    A seventeen year old multimedia student in Antwerp passionate with Cinema 4D .
    Thank you

    Reply

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