writing to alpha, etc

[Helper]

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On 19/10/2008 at 15:28, xxxxxxxx wrote:

User Information:
Cinema 4D Version:   11 
Platform:    Mac  ;  
Language(s) :   C.O.F.F.E.E  ;

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Hello,
I'm brand new with C.O.F.F.E.E (just got the Rui Batista book last night), but have some modest experience with curly brace languages.

I'm trying to write code to do something like this sample movie .

In other words, I've got a series of objects, and, at the appropriate time for each object (and there is some overlap), ramp down the brightness parameter of the alpha channel from 100% to 0.

I want to have thousands of objects, with different textures, sizes, etc.

So far I can't figure this out from the COFFEE documentation that I've come across. These are my questions:

1. how do I set the brightness parameter of a particular object's texture's alpha channel? Are there any code samples somewhere?

2. Is there some COFFEE function whereby I can give a target value and a ramp time, and then let it figure out the interpolation? In other words, say I wanted a parameter to go from 100 to 0 over 3 seconds--is there a function something like Ramp(<target>, <time>);, or Ramp(100, 3) ? (Even better would be some way of controlling the slope of the interpolation!) The reason I ask is because, for each object in the hierarchy, I'd like to be able to test whether its the appropriate frame for them to start doing their business, and if so, just send a message to the appropriate function setting it in motion.

Thanks very much!,
Michael