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Tracer Swarm Effect Tutorial in Cinema 4D 103 Comments


In this tutorial, I will show you how to use tracers, cloners, sweep nurbs and an animated random effector to create this swarm-line technique in Cinema 4D. This technique is simple to set up and fast to render, but creates completely different effects based on your custom settings and colors. Enjoy.

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103 Comments

  4. ym

    Maybe the most creative and visually stunning tutorial produced by the gorilla.

    Reply

  7. David Mellor

    This is a great tutorial! I tried a test like this awhile back with hair instead of sweep nurbs and got the same look! :)

    Reply

    • Rasmus Gerner

      I have used thinking particle instead of clone object. Its less heavy on the machine. but the principle is the same.
      Could not make the hair to as i wanted it to so well done to you.

      Reply

  8. Tattrix

    can you do this to an already animated mesh? i.e an animated face that has facial expressions? or import an Fbx? this would look amazing to an animated head where is screaming.

    Reply

    • Rasmus Gerner

      You should be able to put clones on any object and they should follow the surface/vertex of the object without any problem. So yes xD

      Reply

  11. Ma®io

    Another great tutorial and the example was stunning. Can’t wait to try this one out!

    Reply

  14. Andrew

    Now this is a nice idea.It got pontential and easier then thinking particles..

    Reply

  15. Paul

    I want to spotify that first clip’s music. Ron Burgundy? Who? I liked it.

    Reply

  16. CanFood

    Can anyone tell me why mine looks diffrent in the view-port, render then in the picture render? I dot have any “red dots” checked in the view port which isent checked in the picture view or anything.

    Reply

    • yairon

      I have the same problem, It looks great in the picture viewer but it just doesn’t render correctly. I don’t understand why it doesn’t render the same, i cranked the numbers under project settings to give more steps per frame but that didn’t work either.

      Any solutions?

      Reply

      • Andres

        Same problem here. I think it’s an tracer issue (also in older versions)
        The picture viewer works when you render a sequence (starting at frame 0)…
        Great tutorial and beautiful renders.

        Andreas.

        Reply

  18. Throb36

    For more control over the tracer object, check out the Ubertracer plugin.

    Reply

    • Laurel

      Are you on a Mac using vR13?
      If so, did you have any trouble w/ the plugin?

      Gene’s (genemagtoto.com) notes re: BUGS

      “Do not place anything in the UberTracer’s Trace Link box that uses the exact same UberTracer as its reference object if you are using Get Points From Elements. This will create a positive feedback loop and eventually cause a stack overflow error.”

      Reply

  21. Stephen

    Nick, I think this is the first time seeing you beardless. You’re a handsome man!

    Reply

  23. Jeremy

    Hey dudes, If your preview player gets stuck… Hit the button called ESC. Problem Solved! Global Warming Next. Nice Tut

    Reply

  24. manu

    anyone here who draws creative comic sketches? I need some ideas. i am preparing for animation school entrance exam. prev yr question “draw 5 scenes with dialogue fight between shoe and slipper”. guys any ideas? also is there any good content in internet to improve comic/cartoon sketches and ideas?
    thanks!!

    Reply

  27. Sam

    Great tut as usual :)
    I’d just add that instead of having to hide the cloned cubes you can use a matrix object which just create invisible clones.

    Reply

  28. Kraphik3d

    Very nice idea. I´ve been also been playing with tracer to create fake particle effects.
    This is much more faster than setting up and tweaking TP systems.

    Reply

  30. Nagesh Kandel

    Thank you for the tutorial, GreyscaleGorilla
    I actually just found this lovely site 5 days ago.. and have been watching tutorials, podcasts , interviews and those lovely 5 sec projects , … I am a 17 yr student and actually use 3ds max, and After Effects, n its only been 4-5 months, n I am loving it .. Thanks to vimeo.com that i came to this site after watching… those interviews.. ahh.. art of getting paid and audience building – of some festival.
    And … about this site. — I am loving the positivety of this site, I listened to some podcasts — those audio thing, and loved them. actually it was good that it was audio because if it was a video, I could have wasted 5-6 hours of time.. watching the guy.. mostly saying… well, dont take me wrong but, honestly.. somewhat ..he was out of focus.. and repeating things, but that really did not matter because. ,, he said what came out of his mind, things were of what he has experienced in his journey…n also said he was practicing… so it was very inspirational, helpful
    and i did not feel i am wasting my time … because it was like .. I am talking to a friend while working. Thank you for those words.. it really means a lot .. as I have just started my journey, and I am feeling lucky to have a good net connection, find these inspiring sites at an early age..
    because may be at his time, things weren’t as easy as it is now.. good time to be born…may be.
    I am loving that this site is also somewhat more about motion graphics… actually this site has many things, but I love motion graphics – this site has what i needed, the only problem is of the software, .. but it is also somewhat solved as in one of the audios, he was saying – like… students get afraid at early stages in matters like which software to choose… that audio had something that gave me strength like… i am only starting, n i should not worry much… because i have time to learn what i love the most. I will figure out a way, either i will try to translate the tutorials into 3ds max by finding tools.. or well .. start using cinema too…
    all in all… i just wanted to share what i felt this week… well this is a very nice site that doesnt only teach how to use the tools… but also things that come across this journey.
    So, just wanted to thank this site.. and .. the guy, Nick.
    So thank you so much.

    Reply

    • Worldtraveler666

      Solved! Joren at Pixel Labs suggest putting the landscape into an Atom Array. Not even a tracer issue here.

      Reply

  32. makosx X

    This is a GSG tutorial “always style”. I mean, very interesting, with which you learn a lot of things, and very very well explained (this last as always too). Thanx to Nick, who isn’t “the gorilla” but a teacher, real one.

    Reply

  33. Adan Currey

    Great tutorial but when i go to render it, it just comes out as the background and a few orange dots can anyone help?

    Reply

    • Tom K.

      Drop the tracer in a sweep nurb with another spline profile.

      Reply

    • Mars Cell

      Hi Adan,
      i don’t know if this is still bugging you or current (it’s obvious some time ago since you asked this question) but i struggled with the same problem as you, and here’s what worked for me:

      As you i had followed the tutorial, and everything was fine, letting the animation run and then stop somewhere mid-animation and rendering the view worked also but as soon as i said: “add to render queue” and rendered just the one still-image, the outcome was just the background with some hints of the “heads”.

      So, i fumbled around a bit and came to the following solution (i’m using c4d R13):
      instead of just rendering one still-image i rendered the whole animation sequence (starting with frame 0) and then the tracer-tails appeared in the images (Go to your render settings in “Output” choose “All Frames” in “Frame Range” and in “Save” choose tif and some subfolder (otherwise your project folder will be cluttered with all the single tif images from the render).

      As an explanation i came to this conclusion:
      the tracer “traces” a movement from an object in an animation as long as it is in your construction view, there has been a movement before and you just render this single image with “render view” but as soon as you add one single frame to the render queue it “forgets” about any movement before, and a single frame has no movement, right? ;) So you end up with just the dots and the background. But a sequence of frames to render gives you some movement which the tracer then can “trace” and therefore render.

      Well, this is just a guess from my side (maybe it’s more of a bug in R13, i don’t know) but this worked for me, and the output was 200frames with the tracer-tails in it.

      Hope this maybe works for you (or anyone who stumbles across this post ;) )

      cheers,
      marscell

      Reply

  34. Tom K.

    I added a gradient to the head so it blends nicely into the tail.

    Reply

  35. Jonhy Makarroni

    Love the effect, and the music too. Which is the title of the song?? :)
    Hugs from spain ;)

    Reply

  37. Daniele

    This is very inspirational!! A great idea, maybe i’ll start to do some weird animation from now on! :D

    Reply

  39. Miksodo

    What seems to work in the viewport while rendering doesn’t seem to work in the picture viewer making the renders all dark!
    Tracer is sure buggy in 13!

    I know I fixed this with a workaround before when tried something similar but doesn’t remember how! I need to check into this one!

    Reply

  40. Ronny

    Great tutorial as always. Learned a few new little tricks. The only thing that REALLY annoyed me about this is that I was just experimenting with the same thing. Now everybody thinks my tests are based on this tutorial :( Annoying coincidence :D have a nice weekend!

    Reply

  41. Robo

    I have tried this kind of thing many times and love tinkering with organic animation but never produced anything as interesting as these. Really thing the camera movement helps tons. Thanks for the tut Nick!

    Reply

  42. James

    Great tutorial! It inspired me. So did the song. Who plays it?

    Reply

  47. Junior

    Still looking for a good particle system like krakatoa for C4D, maybe this could get there?

    Reply

  48. ben

    Hey Nick!

    Nice tut.
    What song you are using for this.
    I like it ;)

    Greetings

    Ben

    Reply

  49. Mario

    Awesome Nick!

    Just one question.. it’s possible to clone one emisor? i try but it’s not working…

    Reply

  51. Toby Hallam

    Fantastic tutorial Nick, thank you, I did some stunning stuff with this.
    One problem I uncovered was that Net render produced jumps in the final movie where the tracers started over again (from nothing). It occurred to me that when net render divides up the frames into ranges, the first frame in each of these ranges has no ‘existing’ tracer tails rendered, so it starts tracing from nothing again. Any Idea how to get around this?

    Thank you sir !

    Reply

  53. yissas

    thanks for the site, for the inspiring work, for the tutorials Nik.
    Thanks Tom for the music link.

    Reply

  54. BananaFred

    I’m having some trouble. I’m trying to get the tracer to bounce off a floor. The emitter does, but the tracer follows the path it would if there were no tags, passing right through the floor while the object bounces. Any idea on how to fix this? Thanks!

    Reply

  56. cedricPxlr

    Nice!! this tuts are back!! Tnxs Nick for share your creativity… :D I add some sound effect and a track not big deal but hope you like it…

    https://vimeo.com/53481033

    For the render problem, I figured out to making the tracer group editable (tail)….

    Greetings

    Reply

  58. rBUC

    Thank you for the tutorial, I haven’t left the site in 3 days, been learning alot!

    Reply

  64. Jan

    Great tutorial, really an awesome look!
    I’m working on my own animation and I got it all set up and working but I have one problem… I’m trying to render a still image out of my animation but the traced lines are not showing up, all I see is the background. I set everything to show up in the Renderer. As I just started working with C4D I have no idea what the problem could be.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated!

    Reply

  65. Z0DI4C

    thank you for this, this is lovely in combination with the sound effector :)

    Reply

  66. Bongo

    Hi, Nick! It looks great! Thanks for the lesson! Can I make a morph with that? From one that would form to another in the same effect.
    Can I append to this Sound effector?
    Sorry, I write through a translator.

    Reply

  67. mankind

    Am a beginner wt C4D. Am having problem importing video clips. I will appreciate any help.

    Reply

  71. Mars Cell

    Great tutorial and also a great site!

    Never has so much fun on watching a tutorial… It’s the perfect mix of educational and fun stuff…

    Keep up the great work! And thanks again!

    cheers,
    marscell

    Reply

  73. Paul S

    HEY people I have a problem with the Render to Picture Viewer the Seep NURBS are not visible only in the fast viewer . Please help me I tride everything maybe somebody could help me.

    Reply

  77. Obeeone

    Hi Nick
    Maybe this is not important, but I’ve noticed it there is no Specular Color button in your material editor ; but instead you put the Specular Color tab jnto the Specular tab/section. How did you modify it?
    And did you noticed that in Mike the monkey Object Manager, the icon of the object is on the right side not on the left side?
    Thanks

    Reply

  78. Denver

    C4D mates, how can u place the certain pivot point of a model without rotating it? please anyone Helpppppp ..

    Reply

  79. Chauncey

    New-ish to C4d and I want the Tracer swarm to activate midway through animation and appear to burst out of a sphere. I have tried to do this by key framing the randomizer strength to 0% right before the burst and then keyframing it at 200% right after the burst. It seems to work fine the first time I run through the animation. However, when I backtrack in the timeline the tails don’t go away and start from the beginning again. There is a lot going on in the scene and it may just be lagging, but is there something I’m doing wrong or is there a more effective way to activate the swarm?

    Reply

  81. Petar

    THanks for the great tutorial!
    I have one question regarding the camera. Is there any way to fix the camera as if it riding on one of the tentacles?

    Reply

  82. Moritz

    You also can use 2 (or more) different objects and let the lines tranform into an other shape.
    I used Expresso to switch the object selection (a small cube and a large torus).
    A delay effector make a nice and smooth transition.
    You have to place the random effector under the delay effector (in the effector tab of the
    cloner object) otherwise it will be effected too.
    I used a high strength (95%) for the delay. It looks like a swarm of worms that attack an flee.

    P.S. great work!

    Reply

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