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Cinema 4D Tutorial: CS Tools Install and 3D Stroke 66 Comments

UPDATE: Cinema 4D 11 and above The “object” folder described in the tutorial is not available in Cinema 4D Version 11 and 11.5. If you have the new version, watch this video.



The first video in the CSTools series where I will go though how to use all of Chris Smith’s endlessly useful, CSTools. Today we talk about the 3D Stroke. A Cinema 4D Tool he developed to emulate the Trapcode After Effects Plugin, 3D Stroke.



Download the CSTools Here


Watch all of the CS Tools Tutorials

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66 Comments

  3. Kios

    excellent video greetings from argetina, Sory for my bad English, I speak only Spanish

    PS: please post a tutorial on modeling with blueprints

    Reply

  6. Roi

    Nice stuff. Would love to see some Thinking particles here on GSG.

    Cheers

    Reply

  9. Ben

    i dont have a object folder…and when I create one the tools still don’t show up…what do I do?

    Reply
  10. The Gorilla

    thegorilla

    Ben, I just found out that in Version11, you can’t add items to the object folder as like in version 10. Instead, you should use the content browser to point to them. I will go though the Content Browser soon.

    Reply

  11. Jeremy Ian Thomas

    Man I found these the other night and I look and you have a tutorial up.

    Get out of my head hahaha!!!!

    Thanks for this, this one is cool so are some of his camera presets. Docucam is awesome.

    Can you do one on the line growth. I followed the instructions on his RTF but couldnt get it to work.

    Thanks again

    Reply
  12. The Gorilla

    thegorilla

    Thanks Jeremy,

    I plan on doing all of the tools. More to come next week.

    Reply

  14. Kenny

    Awesome. This effect is amazing. Are you using a standard layout in C4D or did you customize it?

    Reply

  16. Morten K Christensen

    Thanks for these videos Nick! I have actually made your blog my startpage :)

    Keep it coming!

    Reply

  17. Irfan

    Thank you muchly… love your teaching style. I look forward to learning more about Chris’s excellent tools

    Reply

  18. Alexx

    I have a problem while animating the offset parameter of the 3D stroke CSTool

    Always the same thing: i’m animating only the offset and while the animation goes stroke spurts back in thikness twice or more times. My english is not gud thus better i post the file

    http://www.skynext.ru/scorpions.zip – c4d scene with stroke

    Reply

  19. sawa

    Nick
    thanks for the tuts – bunch of helpful tips.

    Can you please post a tutorial on animating clones that are offset in time – clones of one object animating in the same manner but delayed in time. I kind of managed to do this with metaballs, cloner object and step effector (http://www.urbanex.riven.pl/AE/cinema4d/cloner_metaballs_anim_h264.mov) but was unable to recreate the effect with the 3D stroke and cloner object (http://www.urbanex.riven.pl/AE/cinema4d/3dStroke_anim_2_h264.mov).

    - another Q – does random effector only work with Mograph tools? – what if i wanted to animate some other objects with mograph effectors?

    thanks again
    sawa

    Reply

  20. doug

    How do you install cstools under R11?
    They don’t show up under objects in R11.

    Reply

  21. Jorge

    hi! very good tutorials… but a i have a problem with the CS Tools. I have Cinema 4D R11 and the Cs Tools dosen`t work.

    Any idea whats happen?

    Thanks!… From Venezuela!…

    Sorry for my english…

    Reply

  22. jayp

    Sir, what do you mean by ‘content browser’?
    is it on library>>browser? im so sorry if i cant follow.. thanks for immediate response..

    Reply

  23. Yoon-pil (Philip)

    awesome! Sometimes, i really am in trouble when i think that how i can make some cool line animation… But!!
    you make me solve the problem. really thank you!!
    Nowadays, In korea, lots of people are trying to study of C4d
    And i think you will give us a BIG Hand. thank you.
    if you can speak Korean, more people can have a good study from you.
    ~:D joke!!
    ps.i worry that you might not understand what i said cuase my english skills…-_-

    Reply

  24. Shannon Wilkerson

    Great tutorial Nick. I am loving cinema 4D more and more. I did notice in your CS tools folder you had a tutorial for “vibrate null”. For some reason it was not in my download. Do you know where else I could view this.

    Reply

  25. Psychedelic

    Hey What’s up,

    I’m sorry but I don’t understand what I have to do to use CS-Tools. I have the version 11, and I don’t have the folder “Object” in my library file folder. I’m french, sorry for my bad english….. :s

    Thanks to help !

    Psychedelic.

    Reply

  26. yonny

    man, this stuff is so cool!! every tutorial is just so much fun!!! sweet!! :)

    Reply

  27. Burak

    Writing here just to say how immensely grateful I am for these tutorials. Thanks!

    Reply

  29. Kunda

    I have a problem with the 3d stroke. When i’m rendering i can see my spline even if the offset is on 0. Would you have any solution ??? thks

    Reply

  30. Basil

    Question:
    I amusing this technique to build a helix using a cloner obj. and sketch & toon effect.

    The issue is on all frames there is a ghosted image of the helix with the sketch & toon fx before the stroke is even on screen.
    How can you avoid that ghosted image and still maintain the sketch & toon fx?
    Thanks
    Basil.

    Dig the tutorials BTW

    Reply

  31. Mani

    I am having Maxon Cinema 4D version 12.048 and there is no object folder in the library.When I create one and paste the items.It doesn’t show up in C4D.I need HELP.Please somebody HELP me.

    Reply

  32. himal

    hey guys im 15 years old and i want to use cinema 4D, can i enter my name and email on the maxon website on the demoversion page. and will i recieve the download pls need a reply thanks

    Reply

  33. Mike

    Gorilla,
    I am new to C4D and currently am using the Studio R13 Version. I am going through your videos in chronological order and was able to figure out slight differences between the versions in your early videos and R13.

    I am hung up on where to copy the CS tools as in the R13 version a folder called Object does not exist in the library. Please let me know if there is something I can do to solve this problem. Thanks and keep up the good work.

    Reply

  34. Jimmy Palhano

    Congratulations for the work, you are very good at it.
    The tool “CS Tools” is not working for version 13 of Cinema4D.
    Just to say that it does not work.
    If you know how to work on version 13 how to put here.
    Thank you and congratulations again.

    Reply

    • ridge

      I got it working my making a folder in applications/cinema 4dr13/library name the folder objects then paste all the cs tool in there, you also have to download the latest olx plugin which you can get right here http://www.biomekk.com/?a=attach&id=194

      once you have copied that olx folder to applications/cinema 4dr13/plugins

      open cinema 4d then go to plugins then olx and click on olx settings and in folder1 on the 3 dots click there and direct it to where you saved your cs tools in applications/cinema 4dr13/library/objects then go on plugins again and olx and click the grey bar jus above olx settings, it should pop into a little window drag that window down then right by the empty space by light bulb icon double click and select customize palletes on the menu that popped up you should see some blue lines come around all the icons, click hold and drag olx merge documents from the 1st little window to the space by the light bulb then close the customize command window

      then go on window menu and on customization click save as startup layout

      Reply

  36. Mike

    Hey Nick –

    Nice tutorial. I’m using R13 and for some reason none of the Attribute sliders are effecting the Stroke. I can change the Thickness but none of the other properties respond.

    Any ideas?

    Reply

    • Jonathan

      Using R13 here. I should have read this comment earlier before spending time (no luck) trying to figure out why the 3d Stroke “Length” “TaperFalloff” and “Offset” presets isn’t working.

      Thank you Nick and Chris for all your tutorials.
      Wish you all the best!!!

      Reply

  37. MoshPit

    Hi there,

    unfortunally this great tool don’t work for me either (also uses R13 – dosn’t check out the other stuff of the CSTools…) – but anyways: thanky Nick for the lot of good stuff & tutorials you gave/give us ;)

    best regards

    Reply

  39. Daniel

    hey Gorilla, as some people above here, my CS tools doesn’t work properly, either. Only the thickness attribute works. Any solutions on this matter? I guess you’re not using R13 yet though…

    Reply

  40. Jett Gray

    Hey Nick, sorry to bother, but I wanted to know if these tools (or at least this one in particular) still work on R13, what happens once I add the spline is that the only slider that works is the thickness slider, if I movie any other slider it won’t do anything. Is this normal? If not (probably) could you tell me how to fix it please

    Reply

  41. Nitesh

    Hey Gorilla

    I am having the same problem as everyone, i am using R13 and not able to use any other sliders except the thickness slider.

    Would be really appreciated if you could help us out :)

    Thanks for your tutorials they really help me a lot!!

    Nitesh

    Reply

  42. Joe McClune

    FYI everyone asking about the 3d stroke tool that doesn’t work with R13: it’s a bummer but after looking around apparently Maxon removed something called b-splines, and now some of the tool attributes no longer function. Chris, who made the tools, is not supporting these versions of the tools in favor of working on real plugin versions of them, which is awesome for the future. If anyone has a solution/replacement for this module, can you please post? Thanks!

    Reply

  43. AwMotionTv

    Pls!!!, Nick Campbel your website comments code are linked with my Website comments because you get the PHP code without the internal Javascript, so all the comments that are posted on this webpage go to my website comments approbation, so please take a look inside your code with the webmaster and try to correct that. Please… i taked a look to the code and thats the same PHP that i have in my Website. But you need the internal Javascript…

    Reply

  44. Renato

    Strange, I’ve did everything the same, but when I tweak the offset value, it doesn’t change anything at all. In fact only the thickness properties actually change when I change the values.

    Reply

    • C4D Beginner

      I am having the same issue… In Cinema 4d R13 only the Thickness parameter has any effect on the object… changing the offset, taperfalloff or any other setting has no effect on the object. Can someone please help!
      I have searched the web and no solution in sight!

      Reply

      • C4D Beginner

        oops — didn’t see this
        FYI everyone asking about the 3d stroke tool that doesn’t work with R13: it’s a bummer but after looking around apparently Maxon removed something called b-splines, and now some of the tool attributes no longer function. Chris, who made the tools, is not supporting these versions of the tools in favor of working on real plugin versions of them, which is awesome for the future. If anyone has a solution/replacement for this module, can you please post? Thanks!

        Reply

  45. Evan

    Thanks a lot for the tutorial Nick. I have triple checked my installation process and everything checks out. However, when I use the 3DStroke CS Tool only the thickness slider works. I am using Cinema 4D R13 Studio. Any ideas?

    Thanks for your time.
    Evan

    Reply

  46. Samantha

    Hi! I am pretty new at this. I just got r14 and was wondering how to use these. I neither have an object folder, or have an options tab. I would love to use this plugin, the technical look really awesome!
    Thanks for all the help so far, Your tutorials are the only ones that make sense to me this far!
    Thank you!
    sammi

    Reply

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