Hey @Fabio-B,

⚠ Please note that we cannot provide support for AI generated code. See Support Procedures: Scope of Support for details.

When you want the clones to move, or in other words to be animated over time, you will need a noise and cannot use hashes or random values, as they are not interpolated, i.e., continous.

"""Realizes an effector that attracts MoGraph particles spherically around its origin. Add the example to a Matrix object to understand its effect. In Full Control mode we can realize a true attraction force as we have full control over the particle values. Compare this example to Parameter Control mode to understand the difference. """ import c4d import mxutils op: c4d.BaseObject # The Python Effector object containing this code. gen: c4d.BaseObject # The MoGraph Generator executing `op`. doc: c4d.documents.BaseDocument # The document `op` and `gen`are contained in. def main() -> bool: """Called by Cinema 4D to evaluate the effector. """ # Get the particle data for the effector #op. Get out when either the data cannot be retrieved. data: c4d.modules.mograph.MoData = c4d.modules.mograph.GeGetMoData(op) if data is None: return 1.0 # Get the matrices of the particles. This is the array we will modify. matrices: list[c4d.Matrix] = data.GetArray(c4d.MODATA_MATRIX) # For each particle write a new persistent random height value, hashed over the index of the # particle. This will cause the height each time to be the same, as long as the index of the # particle does not change. One could also hash the position of the original particle to get a # height value that is not dependent on the index of the particle (e.g., when the user changes # the order of the particles in the Matrix object). for i in range(data.GetCount()): pos: c4d.Vector = matrices[i].off y: float = c4d.utils.noise.Noise(matrices[i].off, doc.GetTime().Get()) * 25.0 matrices[i].off = c4d.Vector(pos.x, y, pos.z) # Hash a height value over the position of the particle. # y: float = mxutils.g_random.HashVectorToNumber(matrices[i].off) * 25.0 # Write the new data back. data.SetArray(c4d.MODATA_MATRIX, matrices, op[c4d.FIELDS].HasContent()) return True

Cheers,
Ferdinand

This is fantastic, thank you so much!

This works beautifully.

I see your confusion with the "offset". This is absolutely my fault in formulating the question. Sorry about that. I also wanted the clones to follow a spline with an individual offset, but then thought to remove this part to not overcomplicate the question and accidentally left some traces. However, in your video you gave me valuable insight in how to achieve this as well. I already have a working sketch where I'm daisy chaining your script with a Spline Effector in the right order.

Giving these thoughtful answers is incredibly valuable, you can't believe how motivating this is to go further.

Hi @Fabio-B

Thank you for reaching out to us. Unfortunately, your question is off topic for the forum you have posted in. Please check the Forum Overview for an overview of the scope of the different forums.

On this forum we only provide support for third party software developers about the Cinema 4D Software Development Kit. We unfortunately cannot provide end user support, as we lack the tools and the knowledge to do so.

To receive end-user support, please visit our Support Center and create a ticket for your issue

Cheers,
Maxime.

Hey @lionlion44,

Well, doing what you want to do is only halfway possible. An object being soloed just means setting the flag EHIDE on all othe objects. And while there is OHIDE which can be used to hide scene elements in managers, e.g., an object in the Object Manager, it is not being used by the 'Set as Root/Path Bar'-function of the Object Manager. So, you cannot hook into that.

What you can do is just write a simple script which operates both flags for you. But to make this air-tight, you will have to implement a plugin (to avoid accidentally saving a scene with hidden elements).

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Result

Code """Demonstrates how to set the visibility of objects in the viewport and the managers. - When CTRL is not pressed while the script is invoked, the visibility state of the selected objects is set, i.e., everything that is not selected will be hidden. - When CTRL is pressed, the visibility state of the selected objects is cleared. - When HIDE_DESCENDANTS_OF_SELECTED_OBJECTS is set to True, the descendants of selected objects will be considered selected as well. WARNING: The visibility state is written PERMANENTLY into the scene graph, i.e., when one hides objects and saves the scene, the visibility state will be saved as well. One can of course just run the script while pressing CTRL to clear the visibility state of such saved and then loaded back scene, but this could possibly brick scenes for other users. To make this air-tight, one would have to implement a plugin which handles un-hiding objects before a scene is being saved (which is not super trivial in Python atm). Use this script at your own risk. """ __author__ = "Ferdinand Hoppe" __copyright__ = "Copyright 2025, Maxon Computer GmbH" import c4d import mxutils doc: c4d.documents.BaseDocument # The currently active document. op: c4d.BaseObject | None # The primary selected object in `doc`. Can be `None`. # Wether to hide objects that are descendants of selected objects. I.e., when you have A-> B -> C, # and A is selected, B and C will be considered selected as well. HIDE_DESCENDANTS_OF_SELECTED_OBJECTS: bool = True def IsSelected(node: c4d.BaseObject) -> bool: """Returns if #node is selected or if any of its predecessors are selected (when selecting descendants implicitly is enabled). """ while node: if node.GetBit(c4d.BIT_ACTIVE): return True if not HIDE_DESCENDANTS_OF_SELECTED_OBJECTS: break node = node.GetUp() return False def SetObjectVisibility(doc: c4d.documents.BaseDocument, clearSate: bool = False) -> None: """Sets the visibility of the object in the managers and the viewport. """ for node in mxutils.IterateTree(doc.GetFirstObject(), True, True, True): isSelected: bool = clearSate or IsSelected(node) node.ChangeNBit(c4d.NBIT_OHIDE, c4d.NBITCONTROL_CLEAR if isSelected else c4d.NBITCONTROL_SET) node.ChangeNBit(c4d.NBIT_EHIDE, c4d.NBITCONTROL_CLEAR if isSelected else c4d.NBITCONTROL_SET) def main() -> None: """Called by Cinema 4D whhen the """ if not op: c4d.gui.MessageDialog("No object selected.") return state: c4d.BaseContainer = c4d.BaseContainer() if not c4d.gui.GetInputState(c4d.BFM_INPUT_MOUSE, 0, state): raise RuntimeError("Failed to get input state") ctrlIsPressed: bool = state[c4d.BFM_INPUT_QUALIFIER] & c4d.QUALIFIER_CTRL # If Ctrl is pressed, clear the visibility state, otherwise set it. SetObjectVisibility(doc, True if ctrlIsPressed else False) c4d.EventAdd() if __name__ == '__main__': main()

Hello @phillipg,

Welcome to the Maxon developers forum and its community, it is great to have you with us!

Getting Started

Before creating your next postings, we would recommend making yourself accustomed with our forum and support procedures. You did not do anything wrong, we point all new users to these rules.

Forum Overview: Provides a broad overview of the fundamental structure and rules of this forum, such as the purpose of the different sub-forums or the fact that we will ban users who engage in hate speech or harassment. Support Procedures: Provides a more in detail overview of how we provide technical support for APIs here. This topic will tell you how to ask good questions and limits of our technical support. Forum Features: Provides an overview of the technical features of this forum, such as Markdown markup or file uploads.

It is strongly recommended to read the first two topics carefully, especially the section Support Procedures: How to Ask Questions.

About your First Question

I am not quite sure where you came across the information that it would be impossible to do this, but you can allocate and add a sound track just as any other special track as documented. Please post your code for future support requests.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

"""Adds a sound track to the selected object, unless it already has one. """ import c4d doc: c4d.documents.BaseDocument # The currently active document. op: c4d.BaseObject | None # The primary selected object in `doc`. Can be `None`. def main() -> None: """Called by Cinema 4D when the script is being executed. """ if not op: return c4d.gui.MessageDialog("Please select an object.") # The description ID for a sound track and check if it already exists on the object. did: c4d.DescID = c4d.DescID(c4d.DescLevel(c4d.CTsound, c4d.CTsound, 0)) if op.FindCTrack(did): return c4d.gui.MessageDialog("The object already has a sound track.") # Create a new sound track and add it to the object. track: c4d.CTrack = c4d.CTrack(op, did) op.InsertTrackSorted(track) c4d.EventAdd() if __name__ == '__main__': main()

Hey @kbar,

Thank you for reaching out to us and the heads up, much appreciated. Looks like we forgot to update the function documentation, because the change is in the change notes. I updated the docs for the upcoming release.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Hi @shafy sorry for the delay I was away for few times.

Before we start please read the Support Procedure - About AI-Supported Development. Keep in mind we are not there to develop for you neither integrate or guide you with 3rd party module that you will most likely need in order to control knobs.

With that's said what you are asking (at least retrieving a parameter and defining it) is possible for Redshift light intensity. It is as easy as drag and dropping the parameter you are interested by into the Cinema 4D Python Console as explained in Python Script Manager Manual - Drag And Drop. Additionally you can also use the Script Log to record a script or change and therefor re-execute it.

Cheers,
Maxime.

@ferdinand
Thanks for the response, I figured that would be the case.

John Thomas

@i_mazlov said in Frozen Matrix different:

象，并且没有其

I found that it's very similar to the offsetParentMatrix attribute introduced in Maya 2020.：）

I actually quite like the Apple keyboard, even if Apple’s idea of a UK keyboard is different to everyone else. For example, shift-2 should produce a “ character but on this Apple kit, it’s the @ symbol. The odd key bindings just make it worse, but it’s a nice keyboard.

But I detest the Apple Magic Mouse, I can’t get used to those ‘gestures’. Give me my Logitech trackball any time. A bit of extra software does make a Mac so much more useful though. Pathfinder is way better than the horrible Finder, and BetterZip is very user-friendly.

Thank you very much for your answer! I already know how to do it, and your answer has given me some ideas.

Thansk so much for the video, that was a deep dive! For my issue, I resolved it like this:

def message(id, data): if(id==c4d.MSG_DESCRIPTION_POSTSETPARAMETER): userDataID = eval(str(data['descid']))[1][0] if userDataID in [2, 4, 5]: c4d.CallButton(op, c4d.OPYTHON_MAKEDIRTY)

so, if any user data touched (including fieldlist), the generator updates itself.

Thanks for the reply @i_mazlov. Yeah, I already tried the workaround, it worked.

Good to hear!

We will very likely never abandon this technique. The issue is more that there are a lot of hacks in the Spline Mask code and almost none of them are shown in the public code example. And we cannot publish all of these hacks both for strategic (we do not want to show all of our internals) and practical reasons (we cannot explain all the nitty gritty details there).

It was not such a good decision to publish that code example; which as far as I understood came to pass as a user asked as to how the Spline Mask object has been realized. But we probably should just have said "no" then. Just as much as I probably should not have shown you that simulation hack. Hacks lead to more hacks and more problems.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

PS: And to be super verbose, you ONLY need this pattern when you "have to" implement a spline that has other (spline) objects as inputs. When you have implemented regular splines like this, you should probably revert that.

Thank you very much for pointing this out.
I knew that Cinema 4D’s UI includes a “Linear Numeric Values” button to switch between color spaces, but I wasn’t aware of how to properly handle this conversion in code until you showed me.

Your reference to the open_color_io_2025_2.py example is really helpful for better understanding how to manage color spaces in scripts.

Thanks again for the great insight!

@ferdinand
Thank you for the detailed explanation and the solution! This perfectly solved my problem, and I really appreciate you clarifying how to access the DESC_CYCLE values！！

Hey @felixc4d,

You inheriting from AioReaderRef does not make too much sense. The Maxon API uses interfaces and references. A reference just points to an interface object and increases its reference count, so that the object can be garbage collected once its ref-count reaches zero. References are almost never manually implemented but implemented automatically by the source processor. So, the thing you declare and inherit from is the interface. But that as its name implies, it is actually only the interface and usually is not the actual implementation.

The Maxon API mostly uses components to implement relevant functionalities. Components are elements that are loaded dynamically into interfaces at runtime and effectively realize composition over inheritance. So, you can have a FooRef a and a FooRef b for two FooInterface objects which act completely differently at runtime, because the interfaces have different components loaded which realize them.

I guess you want to override the NotifyForRead function of AioReaderInterface. For that you would have to write a component for AioReaderInterface and then load it at runtime into an object of one of its concrete forms such as NetworkUdpServerInterface. When I look at for example NetworkUdpServerImpl (the component for NetworkUdpServerInterface), you are sort of in luck, as that component has not been marked as final, so you at least technically have the ability to load another component in there without the interface refusing that.

But when you realize a component, you must realize all the MAXON_METHOD methods of the interface the component is for, so you cannot just overwrite that one method. There are way and techniques around this, but then we really reach internal/non-public territory.

I could here into more detail but that is all a bit pointless, because when you do this for NetworkUdpServerInterface and its client counter part, you will just end up again at ReadToBuffer shown above. Because what you have to customize in the end, is the call to the native OS library functions and these are burried deep within our non-public code, so you cannot change that from the outside.

I am afraid you must either use another protocol, you said that TCP worked fine for you, or really implement things yourself. I am also not really convinced that you cannot communicate in chunks of 1kb, as you can split up and reassemble things. Finally, the last option would be to just use a third party library which wraps at least Windows and macOS for you (not sure if you want to support Linux).

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Hey @ECHekman,

well, I was talking about User Data, as they can be a nice way to inspect what data types and their custom GUIs can do.

c72e5dab-e512-48cb-8333-95ccee722325-image.png

For what you want to do, this will however not help, as there are only the description settings listed, which necessarily do not have to be all settings there are. To start with an expanded GUI, you must set LAYOUTMODE_MAXIMIZED. I think the little toggle arrows are not supported in dialogs, but I might be wrong. When you want to know more about the little toggle arrow, I would suggest to write us a mail, so that I can forward it to a GUI specialist, as I do not know if and how you could make the arrow work.

This is one of the cases how we internally setup such GUI in a dialog, maybe this already helps (but there are many, and they are not all the same). The a bit odd looking SetInt32('abcd', value)` thing, where we express an Int32 ID as four chars is something we sometimes do internally. Some people find it apparently easier to read/handle than symbols. It often also means that there is no proper integer value and symbol for that ID.

void MyDialog::AddColorAlphaChooser(Int32 id, Int32 flags, Int32 layoutFlags) { BaseContainer colorUISettings = GetCustomDataTypeDefault(DTYPE_COLORA); colorUISettings.SetInt32(CUSTOMGUI_LAYOUTMODE, LAYOUTMODE_MAXIMIZED); colorUISettings.SetInt32('iccc', layoutFlags & (DR_COLORFIELD_ICC_BPTEX | DR_COLORFIELD_ICC_BASEDOC)); colorUISettings.SetInt32('cfld', layoutFlags); AddCustomGui(id, CUSTOMGUI_COLOR, String(), flags, 0, 0, colorUISettings); }

Cheers,
Ferdinand