Introduction

This chapter will give you an overview of SurfaceSPREAD, explain the installation of the plug-in and license file, and introduce the components of the plug-in.

About SurfaceSPREAD

SurfaceSPREAD is a plug-in for Cinema 4D specifically designed to distribute large amounts of object clones onto landscape scenes in a way that is reactive to the landscape’s topography, creating realistic images and animations that are not exceedingly regular, nor overly chaotic.

It is also a high-quality landscape generator, expanding on Cinema 4D’s own limited landscape objects to allow users to create elaborately detailed and customizable terrains, complete with lakes, rivers and streets, that look great in the foreground, as well as in the distance.

This easy-to-use alternative to manual modeling and distribution of landscapes and objects will save users time and money, while also allowing for interactive design within Cinema 4D. This is a huge advantage over external applications that require import/export protocols that interrupt the user’s workflow, require manual cleanup and don’t always carry over all the required information.

Furthermore it also integrates the functionality to distribute objects based on one or more splines, which was formerly a separate product by the name of SplineSPREAD.

In this manual, you will discover all of the components and functions of SurfaceSPREAD, including the many settings that can be used to influence the positioning and alignment of object clones, such as trees, distributed over equally adaptable and lifelike landscapes, as well as other surfaces.

SurfaceSPREAD also interacts well with a lot of Cinema 4D built in functionality such as Hair and, unlike some other solutions, there is no limitation on what type of object can be distributed.

Installation

System Requirements

Please close all instances of Cinema 4D while installing the plug-in.

Installation of the Plug-in

Just use the installer to select which Cinema 4D. It should automatically determine the installed versions of Cinema 4D and their location on the harddrive. If you want to make changes, choose the "Custom" install mode. For network rendering (e.g. Net Render or Team Render), SurfaceSPREAD must also be installed on the render nodes. No activation or license file is required in this case.

Activation of the Plug-in

To obtain a license code, please install the SurfaceSPREAD, start Cinema 4D, press "Cancel" when SurfaceSPREAD asks for a license code, locate the SurfaceSPREAD entry in the Plug-Ins menu and choose "Request a License..." to request a full version license or "Activate Demo License..." to start your 30 day trial.

Installation of the license file

Copy the file "surfacespread.licquotC:\Program Files\MAXON\Cinema 4D R11\plugins\SurfaceSPREAD). When you start Cinema 4D the next time, the SurfaceSPREAD components will be available.
quot

Components

SurfaceSPREAD consists of the following components:

SurfaceSPREAD Object

The SurfaceSPREAD Object is the heart of the plug-in. It duplicates and distributes any 3D model (input object) onto landscapes and other surfaces. The SurfaceSPREAD Object offers a wide selection of straightforward parameters that can influence the distribution, alignment, scaling, and display of the clone objects (clones), as well as maximize the overall speed and performance of the software.

SurfaceSPREAD uses a specially developed filter system to control the distribution of the clones. Among those filters, you will find standards like polygon selection and vertex map, plus custom geological filters that control the distribution by taking the surface’s topology into consideration. 

Additional filters manipulate the alignment of the clones on the surface, allowing the user to move, rotate, or scale them. Or to display them in a different way.

Last but not least, there are filters designed to increase performance and lower memory usage by controlling clone distribution according to camera position. 

All filters can be combined with each other for maximum effect.

SplineSPREAD Object

The SplineSPREAD object handles alignment and distribution of objects along a spline. It generates clones, repositions and aligns them, and also applies a set of effects to them. Furthermore, it generates data that can be visualized using the SplineSPREAD shader.

Distribution Modifier

The Distribution Modifier is used together with the SurfaceSPREAD Object and manipulates the clones’ distribution on the surface, allowing you to create a clearance in a forest or a path through a meadow with minimum effort.

Scale Modifier

The Scale Modifier is also used together with the SurfaceSPREAD Object and enables you to change the clones’ scaling on a local basis.

Attractor Object

The Attractor Object is used with the SplineSPREAD Object and can be used to attract or repel clones.

Distribution Override Tag

The Distribution Override Tag offers the possibility to change the distribution of the clones at a specific clone object level. Just attach it to one or more objects that you want to clone with SurfaceSPREAD, and override any distribution setting with different values that will only be applied to clones of that particular object.

SPREADscape Object

The SPREADscape Object is SurfaceSPREAD’s own landscape generator. Alpine panorama, smooth meadows, prairie, rivers, lakes or roads—the SPREADscape Object enables you to create terrains with a million polygons in just a few seconds. You can design almost any style of easily modifiable landscape.

SPREADscape utilizes a special layer system. Build your terrain from up to seven layers, each layer adding more detail or characteristics to the landscape. For every layer, you can use different fractal functions, or design your landscape using bitmaps/shaders or splines.

SPREADrock Object

The SPREADrock Object is an additional object that creates a parametric rock or stone. With a few parameters, you can create an almost infinite amount of different rocks, which can, of course, be cloned using the SurfaceSPREAD Object. If you are creative, you can use SPREADrock for entirely different purposes: With some keyframes and the right material, even explosions are possible.

Wire Object

The Wire Object is a little bonus, useful for everyday modeling and animation. It simply creates a spline along any number of sub objects. That way, you can, e.g., clone Null Objects on a surface, using SurfaceSPREAD, and together with the Wire Object and a SweepNURBS, cocoon an object with strings or wire.

SurfaceSPREAD Shaders

SurfaceSPREAD comes with several channel shaders that can be used in any material channel of the Cinema 4D standard material, or in other materials that utilize channel shaders. Of course, you can also combine them (like all regular CInema 4D shaders) with other shaders, e.g. using a Layer Shader or a Fusion Shader.

SurfaceSPREAD XPresso Nodes

This XPresso node gives you access to the clones’ data, opening up new possibilities. For example, you can combine SurfaceSPREAD or SplineSPREAD with ThinkingParticles.

SurfaceSPREAD Commands

Three commands in the plugins menu let you switch on or off all SurfaceSPREAD objects in your scene simultaneously, making work a lot easier.

Parameters in Detail

This chapter explains each and every parameter of all SurfaceSPREAD components. Use it as a reference if you want to know more about a certain element in the Attribute Manager.

SurfaceSPREAD Object

Use the SurfaceSPREAD Object to distribute any number of clones on a surface. This is called cloning. The SurfaceSPREAD Object is the first choice if you want to distribute trees, shrubs or rocks in a landscape, put bubbles on boiling milk, or create a crowd of people.

The SurfaceSPREAD Object works with a filter system based in weightings to determine at which positions on the surface clones will be created. The weighting of each clone determines the probability that it will be created. If you read the phrase “the clones’ weighting is reduced” in this manual, this means, that in the end, fewer clones will be created. This is because a lower weighting reduces the clone’s probability of being created.

Object

This tab holds the basic settings.

Object

Link an object here, on whose surface you want to create the clones. You can use a normal polygon object here, as well as SPREADscape, standard landscape objects, relief objects, HyperNURBS, primitives, such as: plane, sphere, cube, platonic, disc, pyramid and capsule. The linked object can be animated, e.g., using deformers.

Clone on

The default setting “Polygons” produces a distribution of the clones on random positions on the surface of the linked object.

Set this parameter to “Polygons (Centered)” to create a clone on each polygon’s center. 

Attention: This can produce a large number of clones, making Cinema 4D react slowly (or not at all) until all clones are generated. You should be especially cautious using this function on 32-bit machines.

Max. Count

Defines the maximum amount of clones. If you don’t use any filters, you will get exactly this number of clones. In practice, the amount of clones created is usually greatly reduced by the filters. This parameter only applies when Clone On is set to “Polygons.”

Editor Weight

With this parameter, you can reduce the amount of clones displayed in the editor in order to improve performance. It decreases the clones’ weighting, and not directly the amount of clones. Therefore, a value of 50% does not reduce the amount of clones by exactly 50%, but a bit more or less.

Distribution Seed

This is the random seed for the distribution. This value changes the positions where clones will appear, and therefore may change the result of filters. Generally, this parameter is meant to achieve different in distribution results without having to change any additional parameters.

Clone Seed

This random seed does not influence the distribution/positioning of clones, but changes the selection of the original objects. In other words, if you are cloning multiple objects, which child object gets cloned will depend on this value.

Selection Bias

If you have multiple child objects to create clones from, this parameter is available. It dictates if SurfaceSPREAD should pick objects for cloning that are towards the top of the child hierarchy, or more on the bottom.

For example: Assign some cacti to the top of the child hierarchy and some rocks at the bottom. You can now use this parameter to control the ratio between cacti and rocks. The following image sequence shows different results, while only changing the Selection Bias. The total amount of clones is the same in each picture.

Virtual Parent

SurfaceSPREAD puts all created clones into a virtual hierarchy. This hierarchy becomes visible if you convert the SurfaceSPREAD Object by pressing the “c” key. All clones now appear as children of a Null Object. If you want to use another object, instead of the Null, link it as Virtual Parent.

You can clone sphere objects and link a Metaball Object as Virtual Parent to cover the surface with thick metaballs (this is not a bad idea for creating snow lying on the landscape). You can also clone Null Objects and link a SurfaceSPREAD Wire Object here, to get instant spaghetti, hair balls or cable tangle.

Create Instances

If you convert the SurfaceSPREAD Object by pressing the “c” key, you can see that all clones are exact copies of their original objects. If you would rather create instance objects, which are linked to the original objects—e.g., to make later editing easier, enable this option.

If you use Cinema 4D R11.5, you can select if you want to use normal instances or render instances. Render instances let you render huge amounts of polygons, even if you computer doesn’t have much memory.

Display

If you have created a very large amount of clones, the editor performance may decrease. In this case, you can switch to a bounding box display, either shaded or as wireframe. The wireframe mode gives the best performance. When rendering, all clones appear normal, of course.

Caching

Caching produces a significant performance increase, especially in the editor. Caching prevents the SurfaceSPREAD Object from constantly recalculating its clones. This enables you to work fluently in the editor, even if you have generated thousands of clones. The caching comes in three modes:

Time Offset

With this feature, you can offset the animation of clones by a random amount of time. Imagine you have created a crowd of waving people. Using the Time Offset, you can make them wave asynchronously, which look much more realistic.

Please note that the Time Offset will not work with instances or render instances, since those are always exact copies of their original objects. Just create some copies of your original objects and make them children of the SurfaceSPREAD Object, too. That will help give the animation some randomness.
Another restriction of the Time Offset is that it will only work with keyframe-based animation, but not with animation based on expression tags (XPresso, IK, constraints, etc). Cinema 4D can only offset keyframe animation.
Time Offset (sec.)

This parameter defines the maximum amount of time by which the animation of clones may be offset.

Seed

Use this value to vary the random time offset.

Information

This section displays the total count of clones created.

Distribution

In this tab you will find the SurfaceSPREAD filter system. It offers a multitude of different filters to control the distribution of clones. The filters are arranged in three groups: Standard Filters, Geo Filters, and Performance Filters.

Standard Filters allow the restriction of clones with traditional functions like polygon selections, vertex maps, and material color, but also with Modifier Objects and minimum distance between the clones.

Geo Filters change the distribution of clones according to rules taken from the real world, such as the surface topology of the linked geometry object. Here you can constrain the clones to certain altitudes or slope levels, or apply a natural fractal distribution.

Performance Filters don’t add to the look of the scene, but improve the memory usage, editor performance, and preparation time for rendering. Here you can filter clones that are outside the camera’s field of view, behind mountains, or very far away from the camera.

All filters from all groups can be combined with each other.

It is important to understand that filters do not eliminate existing clones, but prevent them from being generated in the first place. Therefore, all filters always improve performance and memory usage.

Standard Filters

Constrain

Here you find standard filters, as found in most other cloner objects or plug-ins.

Polygon Selection

Link a polygon selection (Selection Tag) here to let clones only appear on the selected polygons. Polygon selections only allow hard constraining of clones, so there is no way to control the distribution density.

Vertex Map

Link a vertex map (Vertex Map Tag) here to selectively control the clone density. You can create a vertex map with the tool “Live Selection” or using the Paint Tool that comes with the Mocca module. The value of a point in the vertex map directly applies to the clones’ weighting: The higher the value is, the more clones will be created on the polygons neighboring the point. Using the “Invert” checkbox, you can invert the vertex map’s effect.

Filter by Material

Here you can link a material to control the clone density. The material’s color channel is evaluated. In the channel, you can use shaders as well as bitmap textures. SurfaceSPREAD will always use UVW mapping when evaluating the material. You can control the intensity of the filter, and also invert it.

Filter by Modifier

In this filter you can link any number of Distribution Modifier Objects, which you can freely place in your scene. Clones within a modifier’s radius will be filtered according to the modifier’s parameters. That way you can easily create clearances in your forest. The total intensity of all modifiers can be set in the filter, all other parameters can be found in the Distribution Modifier Object. By linking a spline into the Distribution Modifier Object, you can easily create paths through a meadow or keep your roads clear of trees.

Minimum Distance

This filter is extremely useful if clones are intersecting each other, or are overcrowding in certain areas of the surface geometry. Set a minimum distance, and all clones that are located nearer to each other than this value will be filtered.

Geo Filters

Fractal Breakup

In nature, objects like stones, trees and flowers are not distributed with uniform density and occurrence. There is always a natural variation. This variation can be simulated with the Fractal Breakup filter.
position in space (local space of the surface geometry) to create a continuous fractal pattern. Because of this, changes in the geometry (caused e.g., by animated deformers) will affect the distribution.

Intensity

Controls the filter’s intensity. Higher values will cause more clones to disappear.

Detail

This parameter works like the Octaves value of a noise shader. Higher values produce more and finer variation. Very high values can cause a decrease in performance. Suitable values are mostly between 1 and 5, but may depend from the landscape’s dimensions.

Noise Scale

The scale of the turbulence field. Very low values produce clearly visible patterns, while higher values give seemingly chaotic results. The more clones you have, the more distinguishable the pattern will look.

Invert

Activating this option will invert the effect of the filter. Normally, the filter creates a sort of “veins” where no clones are created. With this option activated, clones only appear on the veins.

Altitude

With this filter, you can constrain above or below (or both) a certain altitude level. An example of the maximum altitude would be the tree limit as it can be seen in the mountains, where trees only grow below a certain altitude. Above that height will possibly be more bushes or rocks. This phenomenon can easily be simulated with the Altitude filter.

Enable Minimum / Enable Maximum

Activates the respective filter function. Of course, both functions can be active at the same time.

Min. Altitude

If the Minimum option is activated, all clones below this altitude will be filtered.

Max. Altitude

If the Maximum option is activated, all clones above this altitude will be filtered.

Edge

Controls the rate at which the clone’s weighting is reduced above or below the Min. and Max. altitudes, respectively. This produces are more realistic result, since it prevents a hard border.

Global

By default, the Altitude Filter references the local coordinate system of the surface geometry. Activate this option to reference the filter to the global coordinate system. This is very useful if you have several landscape objects (or SPREADscape objects) at different height levels, and want to distribute the clones consistently over all surfaces.

Mode

Generally the Y-axis points upwards, so it can be regarded as the “height axis.” If required, you can select another direction here. The “Distance from Origin” is especially interesting because it does not produce a linear, but rather, a spherical behavior; so you can even use the Altitude Filter for mountains on a whole planet.

Slope

The Slope Filter is another method for creating realistic object distribution on landscapes. It constrains the clones depending from the terrain’s decline. For example: Rocks can not lie on very steep slopes, because in reality they would roll down. Trees, however, can root on relatively steep slopes. And there may be some bushes that can grow on even steeper slopes, but are not found on flat plains. All of these criteria can be easily addressed with the Slope Filter.

Enable Minimum / Enable Maximum

Enables the respective filter function. As with the Altitude Filter, both functions can be active at the same time.

Min. Slope / Max. Slope

Use these parameters to set the desired threshold for the steepness of slopes of the terrain.

Edge

As with the Altitude Filter, an area can be defined in which the clones’ density is continuously reduced to prevent a hard border, producing a more realistic result.

Use Phong Angles

By default, the polygon normals are evaluated to determine the slope angle. The results get a bit finer when you active this option. Of course, a Phong Tag must be present on the surface geometry for this to work. If the surface geometry does not have a phong tag attached, this option does nothing.

Direction / Use Z axis of

By default, the surface geometry’s Y-axis is used to measure the steepness of the surface. If the direction is set to “Custom Direction,” you can link a Null Object whose Z-will then be used. That way you can intuitively distribute more trees on the sunny side of a mountain, or moss on a tree’s wetter side.

Performance Filters

The filters in this section are not used to achieve a nicer image or a more realistic distribution. They serve to reduce the memory usage and may increase editor and rendering performance by filtering clones in areas where they are not needed.

Use in Renderer

If this option is activated, performance filters will also be applied when rendering. If it’s deactivated, all performance filters will be skipped by the renderer.

Use Camera

All performance filters depend on the camera in some way. By default, the active scene camera is used (if there’s no active scene camera, the editor camera is used). Either way, it is always the camera you’re currently looking through.
If you do not want it to switch, you can link a camera object here. All performance filters will then refer to the linked camera, regardless of that camera being active or not.

Distance from Camera

This filter reduces the clone density with increasing distance from the camera. This is especially useful for big landscapes: While having rocks closely-packed in the foreground, it may be sufficient to have one rock every 20 meters for the background. The viewer will mostly not recognize the difference.
The drawback is that this filter controls the clone distribution where the clones are seen by the camera. In animations, appearing or disappearing clones can occur, thus making this filter more suitable for still images.

Min. Dist

Clones will be created only past this distance.

Max. Dist

No clones will be created past this distance.

Edge

As it is the case with other filters (e.g., Altitude and Slope), this value prevents a hard border. For example: “Max. Dist” is 500m, “Edge” is 100m. The clones will now be distributed with normal density from the camera until 400m distance. Over the next 100m the density will decrease, and starting from 500m distance, there will be no more clones.

Camera Cone

This filter is very handy and often produces a great performance gain. It simply filters all clones that are outside the camera’s field of view. For this, zoom/FOV, as well as global position and alignment of the camera, are evaluated.

Pro tip: This filter only operates in areas that are not seen by the camera, so there’s no risk of seeing any clones disappearing or popping up in an animation. But be careful: Such irregularities may still be visable in reflecting or refracting surfaces. Additionally, clones outside the field of view may cast shadows into the visible area, thus revealing disappearing clones. If this happens, you should experiment with the correction angle.
Correction Angle

If you see clones disappearing at the image border, you should increase this value. This makes the camera cone being considered for culling objects slightly bigger. As a result, objects that are just slightly outside the real camera cone are kept in the scene.

Backface Culling

Another useful filter, it removes all clones that are created on polygons that don’t face the camera. In other words: If you look at a mountain with rocks, the rocks will only be created on the side of the mountain that you’re looking at. Again, with an appropriate correction angle, this filter only operates in areas that are not seen by the camera.

Correction Angle

This filter can also product side effects like trees that disappear behind knolls if the camera goes too deep. To prevent this, increase this value.

As you can see in these images, the application of performance filters can greatly reduce the amount of clones required, without making a significant difference in the rendered image. This significantly reduces the memory usage, especially with clones that contain many polygons.

Alignment

The parameters in this tab are used to control the alignment of the created clones.

Mode

Here you can choose from the following modes:

Normal alignment

This parameter group is only visible in “Normal” mode.

Use Phong Normals

When this option is activated, the clones will be aligned along the surface geometry’s phong normals. If the geometry does not have a phong tag, or if this option is deactivated, the polygon normals will be used.

Up Vector

By default, SurfaceSPREAD picks an Up Vector for each clone automatically, to ensure a stable normal alignment. If you want to define an Up Vector yourself, link an object here. The Y-axis of each clone will then point to this object.

Mix

With this slider, you can change the normal alignment by mixing the direction, along which the clones’ Z-axis is aligned, with another direction. That second direction can be defined with the Axis parameter.
s topology.

Axis

Here you select the direction (using global coordinate system) towards which you can to point the clones’ Z-axis. The Mix slider will then blend between the surface normal and the selected direction. There are several options available:

Target Alignment

This parameter group is only visible in “Target” mode. At first glance, the target alignment does not seem to make much sense for landscape scenes, but it has several uses. If you want to distribute a huge amount of objects (e.g., trees) in the background of a scene, it is advisable to use sprites. Sprites are simple planes (1 polygon) with an alpha image of the tree mapped on it. These planes have to be facing the camera, of course, and that is where this alignment mode comes in handy.

Target

Link an object here. The clones will target to this object with their Z-axis.

Up Vector

Optional. If you link an object here, the clones’ Y-axis will target it. Use this to stabilize the clones’ alignment, if necessary.

Static Alignment

This parameter group is only visible in “Static” mode.

Alignment

This vector defines the HPB alignment for all clones.

Effects

This tab offers a multitude of possibilities to influence the created clones.

Static Offset

Use to move your clones from their original position on the surface. The translation can either be applied along the X-, Y- and Z-axis using a vector, or along the surface normal using a single value. The latter is especially useful to control how deep the clones penetrate the surface.

Random Offset Along Normal

With this effect, the clones can be offset along the surface normal by a random value.

Intensity

Intensity of the effect.

Min / Max

The minimum and maximum offset.

Seed

The seed of the random calculation. Use it to create an almost infinite number of variations.

Offset by material

This effect offsets clones along the surface normal by the brightness of a linked material’s color channel. This is especially useful when applying displacement to the surface geometry.

Height

The maximum offset of the clones.

Material

Link a material here that should be used.

Random Alignment

Random variation of the clones’ alignment. One of the most important effects for creating a realistic look.

Intensity

Intensity of the effect.

Max

The maximum angle by which the clones are rotated from their standard alignment (which is defined by the settings in the Alignment tab).

Seed

The seed of the random calculation.

Base Scale

The clones’ scaling. You can quickly scale all clones without touching the original objects.

Scale

(top) The clones’ scaling by the X-, Y- and Z-axis together.
(bottom, left-right) The clones' scaling by the X-, Y- and Z-axis separately.

Random Scale

Random variation of the clones’ scaling.

Intensity

The intensity of the effect. At 0%, all clones are scaled the same (Base Scale).

Max

Here you define the maximum variance of the scaling.

Use Noise

By default, a simple random generator is used for the Random Scale effect. Activate this option to get a rather structured-looking randomness, with closely-located objects having similar values.

Seed

This parameter is only visible if “Use Noise” is deactivated. It is used to create an almost infinite amount of variations.

Distort

By default, the same random scale value is applied to all three axes of the clones. If you activate this option, a different random value will be used for each axis, thus distorting the clones. This parameter is only visible if “Use Noise” is deactivated.

Noise Scale

This parameter is only visible if “Use Noise” is activated. Defines the scaling for the noise structure.

Noise Variation

Varies the noise structure, enabling you to create almost infinite variations. If animated, it also creates very interesting results.

Scale by Vertex Map

If you want to control the clones’ scaling on a local basis, use this effect. Link a vertex map here and turn up the intensity.

Intensity

The effect’s intensity.

Vertex Map

Link the vertex map here that should be used for scaling.

Scale by Material

This effect manipulates the scaling according to the brightness values of the color channel of a linked material.

Intensity

Controls the effect’s intensity.

Material

Link a material here that should be used for the scaling.

Scale by Modifier

This effect scales the clones dependent on Scale Modifier Objects. If a clone is located within the range of a Modifier Object, it will be scaled. The parameters of the Modifier Object define how the scaling is performed.

Intensity

Overall intensity of the scaling effect.

Modifiers

Link any number of Modifier Objects here.

Scale by Weight

This effect scales the clones on the basis of weightings calculated by the filter system (Distribution tab). The sliders control the influence of each of the filter groups. The checkboxes define which of the filters should be taken into account at all.

Distribution Modifier

The Distribution Modifier is used in the standard filter “Filter By Modifier” that is located in the Distribution tab of the SurfaceSPREAD Object. Clones that are located in the range of the Modifier Object will be filtered. The probability of a clone being eliminated depends on the distance between clone and modifier, as well as from the settings in the Modifier Object.

Ignore Y

When this option is enabled, only the distance of clones and modifier on the XZ plane are taken into account. The Y position of the modifier (or a linked spline) will be ignored.

Spline

Here, you can link a spline object. SurfaceSPREAD will create a number of samples along this spline, of which each sample will work as a normal modifier. This way, you can easily create a path through your meadow, or keep your roads tree-free. You can also use segmented splines.

Accuracy

This parameter controls the amount of samples that will be calculated along the spline. Lower values offer better performance, while greater values will maintain the shape of the spline more precisely.

Scale Modifier

The Scale Modifier is used in the effect “Scale by Modifier” in the SurfaceSPREAD Objects. It changes the scaling of the clones that are located within the modifier’s range. As always, the effect’s intensity depends from the distance between clone and modifier, as well as from the settings in the Modifier Object. Like in the Distribution Modifier, the Scale Modifier can also use splines.

SplineSPREAD Object

Use the SplineSPREAD object to distribute and align any number of objects along a spline. You can also create clones of the objects and even create animations.

Object

In this tab you will find the basic parameters that are essential to get SplineSPREAD to do anything. Here you assign the splines to be used and define the most important settings for the clones of your objects.

Splines

Blend Splines

This option activates the spline blending feature. The UI will change and reveal parameters for a second pair of splines and the blend settings.

Path Spline

Drag a spline into this link field. Your objects (or object clones) will be aligned to this spline. If Blend Splines is activated, you can define 2 path splines.

Rail Spline

If you want to use a Rail spline to stabilize or manipulate the alignment of the objects/clones drag a spline into this link field. If Blend Splines is activated, you can define 2 rail splines.

Segment

SplineSPREAD always works on only one spline segment at a time. With this parameter you can select the segment you want. The segment numbering starts with zero. If Blend Splines is activated, you can define a segment for each path spline.

Mode

If Blend Splines is activated, you can choose between two blend modes:

Smooth Splines

You may sometimes notice that the number of intermediate points in your splines is too low to create a precise object alignment or a smooth animation (especially when you applied deformers to the splines). In these cases enable this option. For splines with very many intermediate points, the Smooth Splines option may noticeably decrease performance. Anyway, when using this option, you can generally set a low number of intermediate points

Interpolation

This parameter controls how splines are smoothed. In most of the cases the default setting (Auto) should give the desired result. If objects behave bumpy (may happen in conjunction with the Surface effect in Project Spline mode) it helps to set this to B-Spline.

Keep Segments

When smoothing splines you can either connect all segments of the spline or keep it in separate segments, by activating this option.

Objects/Clones

Create Clones

By default, the SplineSPREAD Object aligns its child objects to the spline. If you wanted 20 spheres to be aligned to the spline, you would have to create 20 spheres and assign them as child objects to the SplineSPREAD Object. When Create Clones is checked, SplineSPREAD creates the desired number of copies automatically. All clones look and behave exactly like the original object(s).

Number of Clones

Set the desired amount of clones here. The original objects are automatically hidden by SplineSPREAD, so the number of clones you see equals the number you set here.

In Editor

When using a large number of clones, editor performance can be noticeably degraded. This setting lets you define how many of the generated clones you want to see in the editor window. Using this parameter, you can drastically improve the editor performance.

Random Order

By default, the clones will appear in the same order as the original objects. Enable this option to create a random order.

Seed

Change this value to alter the random order. Using the Seed, you can get an almost infinite number of different object sequences.

Virtual Parent

The generated clones are normally stored as child objects of a Null object in a virtual object hierarchy (you can see that when you convert the SplineSPREAD object using the “C” key). If you drag an object into this link field, it will be used as parent object instead of the Null object. You can e.g. use a Metaball object to create a liquid with the clones of a sphere; or use a Loft Object to create a loft along a spline.

Convert Clones

Click this button to convert all clones to regular objects. The original objects will be deleted and the clones will be child objects of the SplineSPREAD object. Create Clones will be switched off. Use this if you want to do some manual changes to the clones.

Object Animation

Here you find some parameters that will come in handy if you want to clone animated objects (e.g. walking people, flying birds or crawling bugs). Since clones are exact copies of the original objects, they also inherit their animation. That would make all birds flap their wings and all people move their legs synchronously. The parameters in this group enable you to change this.

Time Offset

Set an amount of time (it depends on your unit setting in CINEMA 4D whether you set frames or seconds here) to delay the animation per clone. If you set e.g. “5 Frames” here, the first bird will flap its wings like the original bird. The second bird will flap 5 frames after the first one; the third bird will flap 10 frames after the first one, and so on. The delay of the animation increases by the defined amount of time for each clone.

Variation

The Time Offset will eliminate the synchronicity of the clones’ animation, but may still look noticeably regular. In this case enable Variation. When this option is enabled, the Time Offset, the second bird will flap its wings somewhere between 0 and 10 frames after the first one.

Using greater values for Time Offset, this option is very suitable to create totally chaotic looking animation for great amounts of clones. With lower values for Time Offset it is a good way to add some slight variation to animation that otherwise should look pretty regular on purpose. Think of a marching company of soldiers. They should all march lock-step, but still each soldier will move slightly different.

Seed

Use this value to alter the variation. This way you can create an almost infinite number of different animation patterns.

Information

Here you can always see the length of the used path splines, the number of objects/clones and distance between the uniformly distributed objects.

Alignment

This tab controls the basic alignment of the objects or clones.

Mode ldquo

The alignment of the objects will not be altered. This means you can select the objects and rotate them as you want. If you use clones, the clones will inherit the rotation of the original objects.

Mode ldquo

The objects or clones are aligned tangentially to the spline. This means the Z axis of each objects will point along the spline. If you have problems with the alignment (e.g. with vertical splines) or want more control, a Rail Spline will help.

Along Trajectory (Animation Only)

If you activate this option, the objects/clones will not align to the spline tangent, but along the object’s real movement direction (trajectory). Since without animation (moving objects/clones) there is no direction of movement or trajectory, this option can only work correctly if you animate the objects (e.g. using the Offset or Shift parameters).

Mode ldquo

In this mode the Z axis will point to a target object, which you can define using a link field in the Target Settings. Optionally you can define a second object, which will work as an UpVector, to prevent potential problems with the alignment.

Target Object

Drag any object here that should be used as a target. The Z axis of each object will point to this target.

Up Vector Object

If you have problems with the objects’ alignment or just want to define the alignment more precisely, drag an object here that should be used as an Up Vector.

Target after Scattering

If you use the alignment mode “Target” and also the Scatter effect, the objects will not point exactly to the target object because they are moved after being aligned. Enable this option to change the order so the Scatter effect is applied before the objects get aligned. That way, the objects will point precisely to the target.

Mode ldquo

In this mode all objects or clones will be aligned in a fixed angle, which can be defined manually.

Angle

Define the alignment of the objects or clones with this angle.

Random

If you want to apply some variation to the objects’ alignment, to make the whole look more chaotic, use the parameters in this group.

Intensity

This parameter controls the intensity of the random alignment. At 0% no randomness will be added, at 100% the alignment will be totally random.

Max. Rotation

Define a maximum angle here, by which the objects can be randomly rotated.

Curve

This curve represents the complete spline. You can use it to control the intensity of the random alignment for each point on the spline. This way you can e.g. let the objects be aligned normally at the start and at the end of the spline, but make the alignment random in the middle of the spline.

Incremental Rotation

Sometimes it can be desired to twist the objects against each other. Imagine a chain: Each chain link is rotated by 90° against the previous one. This can be easily done with the incremental rotation.

Start

Set the start angle for the first object here. All angles for the following objects will be calculated using this angle as a base.

Rotation

Set the angle here by which each object will get twisted against the previous object. If you set e.g. 20° here, the second object will be rotated by 20°, the third object by 40°, the fourth object by 60° and so on.

Distribution

This tab contains parameters that let you control the distribution of the objects or clones along the spline.

Start/End

Constrain the distribution of objects and clones to a certain area on the spline using these sliders. Making Start greater than End order.

Offset

This parameter moves the objects along the spline, while keeping them within the area defined by the Start/End sliders.

Shift

This parameter moves the area defined by the Start/End parameters. If Start is 0% and End is 100%, the Shift parameter does the same as the Offset parameter.

Settings

This subgroup contains some detail settings to influence the objects’ distribution on the spline.

Use Full Range

Normally the objects will be distributed in a way that leaves a spot open at the end of the spline for one more object. This makes sense if you want to create an animation using the Offset or Shift parameters.

If you only use the SplineSPREAD for modeling, you will want to activate this option. Now the objects are distributed over the complete spline, also having an object at the very end of the spline.

Uniform Distribution

By default the objects are being distributed naturally. In more curved areas of the spline, more objects will be placed. Enable this option to distribute the objects with uniform distances to each other.

Circular Offset

If you change the Offsets end and not move any more. The objects gather at the ends of the spline.

Enable the Circular Offset to change this behaviour. Now an object that has reached the end off the spline will disappear and show up at the other end of the spline again, just to begin its journey along the spline from the beginning. This way, you can let the objects move circular along the spline indefinitely.

This is also the key to a loopable animation: Animate the Offset or Shift parameter, and choose just the right frame range. The parameters in the Automatic Animation group make this easy.

Random

If you want to give the objects a less uniform distribution, use this parameter. That way, you can turn the steady stream of objects into a kind of cloud or swarm; it looks more natural.

Noise Scale

This parameter scales the turbulence noise that is used for the random function. Greater values lead to more chaotic variation.

Multiply

With this multiplicator you can increase the intensity of the random offset. Negative values will invert the effect.

Curve

This curve defines the distribution density of the objects or clones for each point on the spline. It represents the spline on its X axis and the inverse density in its Y axis. In other words: The steeper the curve is at a certain position, the less objects will be placed at that position of the spline.

In conjunction with an animation of the Offset or Shift parameter this curve shows its full potential: It now becomes like a speed curve. The steeper the curve is at a certain position, the faster the objects will move at the related position on the spline.

Automatic Animation

If you want to animate the parameters Offset or Shiftt need to create any key frames. You can leave all work to the SplineSPREAD object, thanks to the Automatic Animation function.

Enabled

This option enables or disables the Automatic Animation function.

Apply To

Select here whether you want to animate the Offset or Shift parameter.

Frame Start/Frame End

Define a range of time in which the animation should occur. The unit is Frames.

Offset Start/Offset End

Set a start and end value for the selected parameter (Offset or Shift) here. The parameter will be animated from start to end value during the defined time range.

Get Frames From Scene

Sets the time range according to the document settings.

Create Loops

Calculates an Offset End value to create the defined number of loops.

Loops

With this parameter you can define how many loops should be created when clicking the Create Loops button.

Clamp Time

By default, the objects/clones also move outside the defined time range. Activate this option to make the animation stop if the scene time is outside the defined time range.

Curve

Use this curve to create ease-in and ease-out effects in the automatic animation. The X-Axis represents the defined range of time; the Y-Axis represents the range from start value to end value.

Effects

In this tab you will find a set of effects that can be applied to the objects. They can be used for modeling purposes, but the real fun begins when using them in an animation.

Scatter

The Scatter effect is one ob the most interesting effects in SplineSPREAD. Until now, it was always clearly visible that the objects are being aligned to and moved along a spline. Using the Scatter effect, you can move the objects away from the spline.

This way you can not only apply some variation in the objects’ positioning, you can scatter the objects in a way that it looks more like a cloud. The Scatter effect is essential for faked particle animations, bird flocks and any other related look.

Intensity

This parameter controls the intensity of the scattering. At 0% all objects will sit nicely on the spline, at 100% the scattering shows maximum effect.

Max. Distance

This parameter defines how far an object can be moved from its desired position on the spline.

Noise Scale

Like the Scale effect, the Scatter effect gets its random values from a turbulence noise field. This parameter is used to scale the noise field to get an almost infinite number of scattering variations.

Moving Noise

By default each object/clone has its own scatter value and sticks to it. Activating this option will make this value change individually for each object. This makes for a vivid motion, like e.g. in an insect swarm.

In a Row

With this option the function of the moving noise is altered in a way that all objects/clones are now moving in a row. You could also say, they go in single file.

Curve

This curve again represents the intensity of the effect for each point on the spline. The X-Axis represents the spline and the Y-Axis represents the scattering intensity.

Formula Shift

This effect works similar to the Scatter effect; however the displacement of objects is not calculated from a turbulence noise, but from a formula that you can write yourself. This way you can create totally unique effects.

The formula parser used is the standard parser of Cinema 4D. Therefore, you can use all mathematical functions that are also available in the Formula Spline object or the Formula Deformer. In addition to this, SplineSPREAD provides some additional variables that return values from the SplineSPREAD calculation.

Intensity

This parameter defines the intensity of the formula effect.

Formula

These three fields can contain formulas for the object shifting along the X, Y and Z axis. You don’t have to put something in every field; empty fields will be assumed to be 0 (which creates no shift effect along the field’s axis). The default is a formula that creates a helix along the spline. In addition to the variables Cinema 4D provides by default, a few more variables are available:

Surface Effects First

By default, the surface effect will be calculated after the formula effect. If you use the formula effect to make objects/clones jump, they will not jump when projected onto a surface. Activating this option helps.

Variables

Click this button to see a show of the additional available variables.

Curve

This curve controls the intensity of the Formula Shift effect for every point on the spline.

Attract

This effect had been newly added in SplineSPREAD 1.1 and offers an interesting possibility to influence the objects/clones in a particle-like way. Especially in animations, this effect is a mighty tool.

Attractors basically work like magnets: They can attract or repel objects/clones. If an object or clone is located within the radius of an Attractor object, it will be attracted to or repelled from the Attractor.

That way you can create interesting effects, e.g. a wide particle stream passing through a narrow hole (with a strong attractor in the middle of the hole); or a school of sardines dodging a predatory fish (with a repelling Attractor object on the predator).

Intensity

This parameter controls the overall intensity of the Attract effect. With a value of 0%, attractors will have no influence at all; with a value of 100%, all attractors will show full effect, according to their individual settings.

Create Attractor

A click on this button creates a new Attractor object and links it in the Attractors list. This saves you some clicks and makes for a smooth workflow.

Attractors

All Attractor objects that should influence the objects/clones must be linked in this list.

Surface

This effect offers you another interesting possibility to divert the objects from their way along the path. You can use this effect to adapt the objects’ trajectory to a geometry, or make the objects themselves travel on a geometry’s surface. The precise difference will become clear to you if you just read on.

Geometry

Drag an object here to whose surface the objects’ trajectory should be adapted. Supported are Polygon objects and Subdivision Surfaces, as well as Landscape primitives, Relief primitives and Plane primitives. The objects may also be animated (position, rotation and primitive parameters), deformers may be used, too (deformer parameters can be animated, of course).

Intensity

This parameter controls the intensity of the Surface effect. You can regard it as a blend between original and surface-adapted trajectory.

Projection Axis

Select the direction of the surface projection here. The selected axis is considered a local axis of the projection geometry. You can choose between different projections:

 

If the Surface effect seems to be not working, you may have chosen the wrong projection axis. In this case, have a look where the projection geometry’s axes are pointing and correct the Projection Axis, if necessary.
Select Result

Here you can choose if the Lowest or Highest result of the projection should be used. As an illustration, imagine a room: If you are projecting along the Y-Axis, the objects could either be going on the floor or on the ceiling. This parameter defined which of these possibilities will eventually happen.

Position

This parameter is only visible if the Projection Axis  is set to “Spherical”. Here you can link an object whose original should be used as projection origin. If no object is linked here, the origin of the projection geometry will be used as projection origin.

Offset

The origin of the projected objects is not always in an ideal position. For example, spheres have their origin in the center of the sphere. If you want spheres to roll over a surface, they must be offset by their radius in Y direction. This offset can be defined with this parameter. Greater values often also make sense, e.g. to define the altitude of a bird flock above the ground. In short: This parameter moves objects away from their projected position.

Range

This parameter defines the range around a spline point or object in which SplineSPREAD looks for geometry to project the point or object onto. Normally you can just enter a great value here and everything will work fine. If you have a more complex geometry you can use this value to constrain the projection to a reasonable area. With greater values, however, the accuracy of the projection decreases. If you experience inexplicable results in projection, try to lower this value.

Mode

Here you can choose between two different modes for the surface effect. Both work totally different:

If objects behave bumpy in spite of Smooth Splines being enabled (often happens with mode Project Spline) it often helps to set Smooth Spline Mode to B-Spline.
Curve

With this curve you can control the intensity of the Surface effect for each point on the spline. This way you can e.g. make the objects stick to the spline at the beginning of the spline and then let them switch over to the surface smoothly.

Scale

The Scale effect is used to define the scale of the objects or clones for each point on the spline.

Intensity

This parameter controls the intensity of the Scale effect.

Random

To make the objects’ scaling appear more natural, you can use this parameter to add some randomness to the scale. This way you can let birds of different size fly in your bird flock, or different-sized trees grow at your alley.

Noise Scale

Change this value to scale the turbulence noise field used for the random scale. This way you get even more variation in the random scaling. Animating this parameter can give interesting results, too.

Min/Max

Set the minimum and maximum scale here. All objects will be scaled to some value between these.

Curve

With this curve you can control the scale of the objects for each point on the spline. The X-Axis represents the spline and the Y-Axis represents the range between min and max scale. With a nicely made curve you can create the most funky effects.

Seamless Scaling

This option just applies the first object’s scale to the last object. This way, sudden changes in the objects’ scale on closed splines can be avoided.

The scale of the original objects will be ignored! If you scaled your objects and want to keep this scale for use in SplineSPREAD, create a Null object and put your object into it as a child. Then put the Null object into the SplineSPREAD object.

Rotate

With this effect you can make the objects change from a start alignment to an end rotation while travelling along the spline. Used in an animation of the Offset parameter you can let objects make a back flip, for instance.

Intensity

This parameter controls the intensity of the Rotate effect.

Min/Max

Define the start and end rotation here. The start rotation will apply to objects at the beginning of the spline; the end rotation applies to objects at the end of the spline.

Curve

This curve defines how the change from start to end rotation is being performed. The steeper the curve is at a certain position, the faster the rotation will change.

SplineSPREAD Shader

This parameter group is the only one that doesn’t directly manipulate the objects’ position or rotation. In fact, it influences the data that is written into the objects and evaluated by the SplineSPREAD shader during rendering.

Generate Shader Data

Disable this option to prevent any shader data from being generated. With great amounts of objects or clones, they may speed up performance a little. Anyway, if you use the SplineSPREAD shader in any material on your objects in this SplineSPREAD object, you have to leave it enabled.

Intensity

This parameter defines the intensity of the shader data. With it you can control the shader in all shading modes. The bottom line is: You can use this parameter to blend between the normal shader result and the color on the left side of the shader gradient.

If the shader mode Intensitys value.

Cycle

This parameter you can scroll through the shader gradient in both directions. The effect of this is similar to the Offset parameter in the Distributiont move any object but the colors instead.

Take Random Scale into Account

Enable this option to make the shader react to the random scale, too, when used in shading mode Scale Value. When this option is disabled, the resulting color in this mode will depend of the Curve in the Scale effect only.

Random Seed

Change this value to alter the result of the SplineSPREAD shader in “Random” mode.

Mode

Select the mode of random calculation for the shader here. The “Standard” mode equally chooses colors equally from all parts of the gradient; the “Gauss” mode prefers colors from the middle of the gradient.

Attractor Object

Of course, the Attract effect can only work with special Attractor objects. These objects can be freely moved around the scene, and their parameters may be animated (as almost all parameters in SplineSPREAD).

Object Properties

Radius

This radius defines the area around the Attractor object in which it may influence objects/clones. The area surrounds the attractor spherically. Only objects/clones within this area may be influenced by the attractor.
If several Attractor objects are located near by each other, their radiuses may overlap. Passing objects/clones will be influenced by more than just one attractor at the same time. This way you can not only distract the objects from their normal movement, but lead them into a totally different direction.

Intensity

With this parameter you can control the attraction force of the attractor. Of course you can also set negative values here; in that case the attractor will repel the objects/clones.
Also note that values greater than 100% and lower than -100% are possible, which can lead to very interesting effects.

Falloff

The farther an objects/clone is away from the attractor, the more the attraction force decreases, that applies to the object/clone. Exactly how this force falloff is shaped can be controlled using this spline curve.

Visualization

Display

Activate this option do display a sphere symbol around the attractor, visualizing the attraction radius.

Visualize Intensity

By default, the sphere symbol simply has the defined color. If you activate this option, the color’s brightness will change, visualizing the attractor’s intensity.

Color

Select a color for the sphere symbol here. It’s a good idea to give e.g. red to attracting object and blue to repelling objects.

SPREADscape Object

The SPREADscape Object is SurfaceSPREAD’s mighty terrain generator. Use it to create anything from soft hilly landscapes to mountains, cliffs, rivers or road scenes, or totally abstract landscapes. All with minimum effort. The SPREADscape object offers far greater capabilities than the Standard Landscape Object found in Cinema 4D. SPREADscape uses a novel layer system, which you may have seen in a slightly different form in other landscape generators or 2D graphics applications. Using the layer system, you build the terrain by stacking up to seven layers, and mixing them with each other. SPREADscape gives you a base layer, and up to 6 detail layers. Each of these detail layers can receive its contents from one of several fractal functions, a spline, or a material. Mixing the layers with each other is done using different mix modes, which can be separately selected for each layer. This way, you can, e.g., combine the mountains from the base layer with smaller hills from the detail layers, add a river bed or a road with another detail layer (type “Spline”) and add other details. When experimenting with the SPREADscape object, you will get used to this workflow pretty easy.

General

This tab holds basic parameters for the landscape, such as dimensions and subdivision. Furthermore, you control the active detail layers here, as well as load and save preset files.

Size

Define the basic dimensions of the landscape here. The final height may differ from the value set here, due to the settings in the detail layers.

Segm. Width / Length

Use these values to set the subdivision of the landscape. Higher values produce more detailed terrain, but also increase the time needed for calculation. As a rule of thumb, use as much as necessary, but as little as possible.

Use Caching

Generally, this option should stay activated, since it significantly increases the editor performance and shortens the preparation time when rendering an animation. If you deactivate this option, the SPREADscape terrain will be recalculated much more often. This may be useful, e.g., to directly see the effect of changes made to shaders or textures used in a detail layer (type “Material”).

When clicking on the “Refresh” button in a detail layer of type “Spline” or “Material,” the caching will be activated automatically.

Enable Detail Layer (1 - 6)

Add the detail layers you need here. Each activated detail layer will appear as a separate tab in the SPREADscape Object’s Attribute Manager.

Presets: Load / Save

If you have created a really nice landscape, you can save the parameter settings of the SPREADscape Object to a .scape file, and load it later when needed. These buttons open the standard Load/Save dialogs.

Base Layer

A SPREADscape terrain always contains at least the base layer. Here you set the fundamental shape of the landscape. Set the parameters in a way that offers a good impression of what the terrain will look like, then add more details in separate detail layers.

Type

Select a fractal function that you want to use. You can choose from “Turbulence,” “Wavy Turbulence,” “Noise,” and “Ridged Multifractal.”

Scale

This parameter scales the fractal function. You can create anything from mountains to pebbles.

Octaves

The higher this value, the more detailed the fractal structure will appear. Very high values may decrease performance.

Shift

Move the fractal structure along the three axis of the object. Moving it along Y will cause a nice and soft variation.

Absolute

This value is only available for the fractal function “Turbulence.” It prevents the function from returning negative values. In practice, it makes the structure look more “knobbed.”

Normalize

This option is available for all fractal functions except “Ridged Multifractal.” SPREADscape will try to scale the landscape to the height (set in General tab) as closely as possible. However, there my be some minor bumps and jumps when moving the structure with the Shift parameter. If you don’t like that, deactivate this option.

Invert

Inverts the structure in Y direction. Especially useful for the fractal function “Ridged Multifractal.” This way, you can create either mountains with canyons, or a plain with ridges.

Detail Layer (1 – 6)

Here you have up to six detail layers that can be optionally activated in the General tab. All detail layers offer the exact same functionality.

Layer Type

Select the type of the detail layer here. You can choose from the following: “Noise” (Fractal functions), “Spline,” and “Material.”

Blend Mode

As in 2D graphics applications, you can define how the current detail layer is mixed with the underlying layers here. You can choose from the following mix modes:

Height

This parameter controls the intensity of the effect the current detail layer has on the terrain. If the value is 0, the detail layer has no effect.

Offset

If your landscape gets too high due to some of its settings, you can correct that using this value without losing the effect of the Height parameter.

Shaping

At the bottom of each Detail Layer’s attributes you will find a parameter group called “Shaping.” It provides you with a shaping curve and shaping presets found in the “Shaping” tab. For further information, please read chapter 2.4.7 Shaping.

Layer Type “Noise“

These type of Detail Layers are the classic element of a terrain generator. With a few Noise Layers and different settings, you can create an infinite variety of different landscapes with very little work. This layer type offers the following parameters:

Noise Type

Here you can choose from the same fractal functions (Noise types) that are also offered by the base layer: “Turbulence,” “Wavy Turbulence,” “Noise” and “Ridged Multifractal.” Each of these Noise Types has a characteristic look and is suitable for various types of landscapes.

Scale

This parameter scales the fractal function. You can create anything from mountains to pebbles.

Octaves

The higher this value is, the more detailed the fractal structure will appear. Very high values may decrease the performance.

Shift

Move the fractal structure along the three axis of the object. Moving it along Y will cause a nice and soft variation.

Absolute

This value is only available for the fractal function “Turbulence.” It prevents the function from returning negative values. In practice, it makes the structure look more “knobbed.”

Layer Type “Spline“

If you need a direct influence on the terrain to create things like river beds or road fundaments, or if you want to setup a whole mountain chain, this layer type is for you.

When using the mix mode “Set Spline Height,” a kind of spline sculpting is especially possible. This layer type was essential for the image “Autumn Road” that you see on the title page of this manual.

This layer type offers the following parameters:

Spline

Link a spline object here that you want to use for sculpting. Changes to the splines are recognized by SPREADscape automatically. Of course, you can also use segmented splines (e.g., Text Spline).

Accuracy

A spline layer has to sample a number of positions along the linked spline in order to work properly. With this parameter, you control the number of samples that are being recorded. Generally, a greater amount of samples is required if you decrease the radius (see 2.4.5.3) or increase the subdivisions of the SPREADscape Object.

This parameter is critical for the performance of a spline layer. The higher the value, the more precise the spline will be reproduced on the terrain. Values that are too high will likely cause a significant performance decrease, thus slowing down your workflow. You should check from time to time if you can decrease this value without noticeable quality loss.

Radius

The radius around a sampled spline point. In practice, this value defines the width of the river bed or road fundament you’re creating.

Falloff

This spline curve defines the profile that the spline will form on the terrain.

Radius

This spline curve changes the radius of the spline samples in the course of the spline.

Refresh

If the shape of the linked spline depends on other objects in the scene, SPREADscape may sometimes be unable to notice if the spline has changed. In this case, click this button to force a recalculation of the terrain. In case the SPREADscape Object’s Caching option is deactivated, it will be automatically reactivated.

Layer Type “Material“

Maybe you already have a height map generated in another software, or a topographical map of a real landscape? In that case, you can create a Material, put the bitmap into its color channel, and use it in this type of SPREADscape detail layer, to shape the landscape on the basis of the bitmap.

Of course, you can also use almost any channel shader available in Cinema 4D. That way, you can e.g., use a simple Cinema 4D Sunburst shader to create an impressive volcanic crater. Note that SPREADscape always uses UVW mapping to apply the material to a detail layer.

This layer type offers the following parameters:

Material

Link the material here whose color channel should be evaluated.

Soften

Maps with very high resolution, as well as some procedural shaders, tend to create edgy artifacts on the terrain’s geometry. Use the Soften parameter to compensate for this. It applies a simple Mip Mapping to the material.

Refresh

Changes in a linked material are not recognized by SPREADscape automatically when the Caching option is activated. If you want to refresh the terrain after changing something in a linked material, click this button. If the Caching option is currently deactivated, it will be automatically reactivated.

Shaping

If you thought the base layer and all the detail layers held all of the fun, take a look at the Shaping tab! With the functions found in this tab you can re-shape your whole terrain according to your wishes. Terraces, plateaus, dunes, changes to the slopes’ steepness — all of this is possible here.

Shape Curve Intensity

This parameter controls the intensity of the shape curve’s effect.

Shape Curve

Using this curve, you can apply a multitude of shapes to your terrain. Either create your own shaping curve, or use one of the preset curves.

Curve Preset

Here you can fine several shaping curve presets. Among these are standard curves like “Glaciation,” “Canonization,” “Plateau,” “Terraces,” and more.

Apply

Click this button to apply the selected curve preset. The previously set shaping curve will be lost.

Apply Shaping

By default, the shaping curve is applied to the terrain after all detail layers have been calculated. Using this parameter, you can insert the shaping curve at an earlier point of the layer stack. That way, you can displace the curve’s shaping by successive detail layers.

Even Border: Strength

Use this parameter if you don’t want a continuous landscape, but rather a single mountain. The value seamlessly blends between landscape and mountain.

Edge Curve

This curve controls the edge intensity, and therefore the mountain’s falloff.

Phong

This tab simply holds the same parameters that you already know from the Cinema 4D Phong tag. Generally, you will not have to change anything here.

SPREADrock Object

The SPREADrock generates a parametric rock. The time-consuming process of manual modeling different rocks for a bigger scene is now a thing of the past, thanks to the SPREADrock Object.

Pro Tip: Experimentation with the SPREADrock Object parameters will reveal applications for this function beyond mere rocks.

Object

Here you find the basic parameters of the SPREADrock Object.

Basic Shape

Here you can select if you want to use a sphere, a cube, a pyramid, or a custom polygon object.

Polygon Object

If you selected “Custom Polygon Object” as the basic shape, you can link a polygon object here.

Size

Set the basic dimensions of the rock here if you are using one of the preset basic shapes.

Scale

If you use a custom polygon object, you can adjust its scale here.

Orientation

This controls the rock’s orientation by flipping the geometry to the selected axis. To clone a rock with the SurfaceSPREAD Object, it’s a good idea to set this to “+Z” and activate the “Drop axis” option.

Drop Axis

By default, the origin of the rock is located in the rock’s center. This option moves the origin further down, making the realistic distribution on a surface easier.

Subdivision / Basic Subdivision

This parameter is only visible if you use one of the preset basic shapes. Define the geometry subdivision here. Anything from Low Poly models with only 20 polygons to High Detail meteoroids with several million polygons is possible. A higher subdivision always produces more details, while a lower subdivision offers better performance.

Pre Subdivision

This parameter is only visible if you have set the Basic Shape to “Custom Polygon Object.” It will apply a hard subdivision to the polygon object, preserving its shape more precisely.

Post Subdivision

This parameter is only visible if you do not use a sphere as the basic shape. It applies a HyperNURBS subdivision to the selected basic shape. This enables you to add more details without altering the basic shape too much.

Structure

This section holds the parameters for the rock structure.

Use Normals

If this option is deactivated, the structure is calculated on the basis of the basic shape’s origin. If you activate this option, the average vertex normals will be used. This is more precise, but calculates a bit slower.

Independent

If this option is activated, the scaling of the structure will be independent from the rock’s base dimensions. If you change the dimensions of the rock, you can create crazy effects while this option is activated. If you deactivate it, the structure’s scaling will change according to the rock’s dimensions.

Strength

Control the intensity of the structure with this parameter. If the value is 0, no structure will be visible.

Offset

If your rock gets too big due to the structure strength, you can correct it using this value without losing the structure’s intensity.

Type

Select the desired fractal function here. You can choose from “Noise,” “Turbulence” and “Wavy Turbulence”.

Scale

You can change the structure’s scaling along the 3 dimensions separately with this parameter.

Octaves

The detail of the structure can be controlled with this parameter. Very high values may cause a slight performance decrease.

Shift

With this parameter, you can move the structure in a three directions, creating an infinite amount of variations of a rock.

Absolute

This option is only available for the “Turbulence” fractal function. It changes the look of the structure, making it more “knobby.”

 

Details

This group offers the same parameters as the normal structure. Use these to add more details to the SPREADrock geometry without changing the basic structure of the geometry.

Presets

If you like the rock you’ve created, you can save it’s parameters into a .rock file and load it again when needed.

Load / Save

These buttons open the standard load/save dialogs.

Wire Object

The Wire Object is a little bonus object in SurfaceSPREAD. It creates a selectable type of spline (Linear, B-Spline, Cubic, Akima, Bezier) along any number of objects. Just take a couple of Null objects (we call them Path Objects), make them children of the Wire Object, and you will get a spline that is controlled by the Null objects. If you clone Null objects on a surface using the SurfaceSPREAD Object, you can link a Wire Object as “Virtual Parent” in the SurfaceSPREAD Object and get instant spaghetti, hair balls, or cable tangle.

Pro Tip: You can make good use of the Wire Object in everyday modeling as well as in as animation. For example, you can use animated Null object to create an animated spline, without the restrictions of PLA animation.

Bezier Splines

Since version 1.00.17, it is also possible to create Bezier splines. This is done by assigning child objects to the Path Objects to control the spline tangents. A Path Object without a child will create a hard spline point. A Path Object with one child will create a soft spline point with controllable tangent. A Path Object with two children will create a spline point with two controllable tangents. The parameters of the Wire Object are exactly the same as in all other standard splines.

Type

Select the desired spline type here (Linear, Cubic, Akima, B-Spline, Bezier).

Close Spline

Activate this checkbox to close the spline. The two ends of the spline will then be connected.

Intermediate Points

Set the desired interpolation for the intermediate points here.

Number, Angle, Maximum Length

These parameters control the quality of the selected intermediate point interpolation. Generally, more intermediate points produce better quality, while fewer intermediate points give better performance.

Show Visualization

Here you can activate the visualization for Path Objects and tangents.

Add Path Objects

In this section, you will find buttons with which you can directly create a new Path Object. If the Spline type is set to “Bezier,” you will find separate buttons for Path Objects without tangents, with one tangent, or with two tangents.

Distribution Override Tag

The Distribution Override Tag offers the interesting possibility to manipulate the clones’ distribution on an object basis. Think of a mountainous landscape with bushes, trees and rocks. The trees can only grow until a certain altitude level (natural tree limit). The bushes may even grow in greater altitude, but also have a limit. Rocks may even occur on the highest summit. However, trees and bushes may grow on relatively steep slopes, where no rocks are to be found (because they would roll down the slope). As you noticed, trees, bushes and rocks need quite different distribution settings. Of course, you could use a separate SurfaceSPREAD Object for each of these objects, but that makes for a more complicated workflow. Also, you would not be able to prevent the intersection between different kinds of objects using the “Minimum Distance” filter. The Distribution Override Tag is the ideal solution for this problem. Attach it to one or more of the original objects that you want to clone, and override any distribution setting from the SurfaceSPREAD Object with custom values that will only apply to clones of that particular object. All filter types that you already know from the SurfaceSPREAD Object are available, except for Polygon Selection in the Standard Filters (2.1.2.1),.

Override

Each parameter set in the Distribution Override Tag comes with an “Override” option. If this option is activated, the settings from the tag will be used for distribution. If it’s deactivated, the settings from the SurfaceSPREAD Object will be used.

SurfaceSPREAD Clone Shader

The SurfaceSPREAD Shader is a normal channel shader that can be used in all channels of the Cinema 4D standard material, as well as in the special materials of VrayForC4D. Of course, it can also be combined with other shaders or textures, using a Layer Shader or a Fusion Shader. The shader’s task is to visualize data that was calculated by SurfaceSPREAD. You can apply color depending on results of the SurfaceSPREAD filters, or you can use a random color for each clone. The latter is very useful for applying a different color to each tree in a forest. Which colors are available to the clones can easily be defined using a color gradient.

 

Important: The SurfaceSPREAD Shader has to be rendered in order to show the results. Therefore, the shader results won’t show up in the editor view. If you want a quick preview, you can use the Interactive Render Region of Cinema 4D. That way, a preview rendering in the editor is automatically generated when you make changes to the shader.

Gradient

A color from this gradient is applied to each of the clones. Define all colors here that should be available to the clones.

Source Data

The shader can evaluate different data sources. Most of them are derived from the SurfaceSPREAD Object’s filter system. The following data sources are available:

Random Noise Material

Fractal Breakup Altitude Slope

Noise

This parameter group is only visible of the data source “Noise” is selected.

Noise Scale

Greater values produce a more detailed color variation of the clones.

Noise Variation

Change this value to produce an infinite amount of different variations.

SplineSPREAD Shader

The special SplineSPREAD shader offers new possibilities to make the shading of objects and clones directly dependent of settings in the SplineSPREAD object. The shader works in all material channels and can be stacked in the Layer shader and mixed with other shaders.

How the Shader works

To make the Shader work, the SplineSPREAD object writes some data into the objects. In the shader you can select which of these data is evaluated. If you disable the generation of shader data in the SplineSPREAD object, this may improve the performance a little, but then the shader will not get any data to evaluate, of course. Since the shader data is written into the objects’ containers, an object that has once received data from a SplineSPREAD object will probably always remember that it once has been child object of a SplineSPREAD object (or was created by it). Therefore the shader will probably still work after the SplineSPREAD has been removed or converted using the “c” key.

Gradient

With this color gradient you define a selection of colors, from which the shader will pick one for the object it’s applied to.

Source Data

Here you can select from which SplineSPREAD generated data the shader will calculate its color. You can choose from the following sources:

Use Intensity

Normally the Cycle parameter in the SplineSPREAD object (Tab Effects, group SplineSPREAD Shader) applies to all shader modes. Disable this option to make the result of the shader independent from the value of the Intensity parameter.

Use Cycle

Normally the Cycle parameter in the SplineSPREAD object (Tab Effects, group SplineSPREAD Shader) applies to all shader modes. Disable this option to make the result of the shader independent from the value of the Cycle parameter.

Circular Cycle

This option is like the option Circular Offset in the SplineSPREAD object. Just this parameter works in conjunction with the Cycle parameter in the SplineSPREAD object.
When this option is enabled, you can increase or decrease the Cycle parameter indefinitely, the gradient will always repeat. Disable this option to clamp the shader to the gradient without repeating.

Curve

This curve provides an extra possibility to control the translation of data into a color form the gradient.

Attractor Settings

This parameter group is only visible if “Attractor” is selected as data source.

Mode

Here you can select how the attractor data is evaluated.

SurfaceSPREAD Distance Shader

The Distance Shader can be compared with a Proximal Shader that refers to the distance between the active camera and the geometry surface. It is very suitable for use, e.g., as a mask in the Fusion Shader to blend between two different textures or shaders. That way you can e.g., create a material for a mountain that, if seen from greater distance, shows a non-tiling procedural structure; but in a close-up will show a photographic texture.

Start

The shader activates starting with this distance from the camera. All parts of the geometry that are nearer to the camera will get the color of the gradient’s left end.

Depth

This parameter controls the spatial depth of the gradient. Starting with the distance defined by the Depth parameter, the shader picks a color from the gradient. All parts of the geometry that are further from the camera than Start + Depth will get the color from the right end of the gradient.

SurfaceSPREAD Road Shader

The Road Shader generates a procedural road. It provides detailed parameters for the character and condition of the asphalt, as well as for road markings, tire abrasion and surface damage. In most cases, you won’t need to create cumbersome combinations of numerous Tiles, Noise and Layer shaders anymore, which are difficult to operate. The SurfaceSPREAD Road Shader does it all for you and, in most cases, renders faster than an equivalent self-made shader combination. Since the road markings and tiremarks go along the V direction in UV space, the Road Shader is ideal for being used on streets that were created using a SweepNURBS. The Road Shader is divided into several layers, which are explained in the following:

Asphalt

The Asphalt layer is the basic layer of the road. Many styles are possible, ranging from concrete to tar.

Asphalt Color

The basic color of the asphalt.

Granularity

Higher values make the asphalt look more coarse.

Blotchiness

This parameter creates a variation in asphalt color and brightness, increasing the realism.

Darkness

This parameters adds variations in asphalt brightness and makes for a dirtier look.

Marks

This layer paints road marks on the street. The marks can also be damaged.

Marks Color

The marks’ color. Normally, this will be yellow or white.

Centermarks Count

The count of centermarks in V direction. A value of “1” creates one continuous stripe. Higher values will result in a dashed line.

Centermarks Width

The width of the centermark.

Distance

The distance of side marks from each other (or in other words: the width of the road).

Sidemarks Width

The width of the sidemarks.

Soften

The higher you set this value, the more blurry the edges of marks will be. This parameter often help with anti-alias problems on more distant parts of the road.

Breakup Intensity

Increase this value to add damage to the marks.

Breakup Sharpness

Lower values will produce a soft variation in the marks’ opacity. Higher values will look like the marks have been damaged or ripped off.

Breakup Scale

This parameter controls the size of the marks’ damage.

Blend

Use this parameter to control the opacity of the marks.

Blend Along Road

With this parameter, you can selectively control the marks’ opacity along the road.

Tiremarks

This layer creates high traffic traces on the road, as they are found in the real world. Use this setting to make the road look as if many cars have driven on it.

Scale

The overall scale of the Tiremarks layer.

Track Size

The distance between the two tiremarks on each lane.

Tire Width

Increase this value to get thicker tiremarks.

Soften

The higher you set this value, the softer the tiremarks’ falloff will appear.

Blend

This parameter controls the opacity of the tiremarks.

Blend Along Road

Use this parameter to selectively control the tiremarks’ opacity along the road.

Cracks

You can often see cracks at the roadside where the asphalt is crumbling or tearing, especially on older or low quality roads. With this layer, you can easily recreate this effect.

Scale

The scale of cracks and fragments.

Coverage

The cracks start at the roadside. The higher you set this value, the further the cracks will reach to the road center.

Coverage Sharpness

This parameter controls the cracks’ falloff from the roadside towards the center.

Random

This parameter creates a variation in the cracks’ occurrence.

Random Scale

With this parameter, you can control the scale of the random variation.

Blend

This parameter controls the opacity of the cracks layer.

Apply To Marks

Enable this option to get cracks on the sidemarks and centermarks, too. If the option is disabled, marks will be painted over the cracks.

SurfaceSPREAD Data Node

The XPresso node “SurfaceSPREAD Data” grants XPresso access to the data of the clones created by the SurfaceSPREAD Object. You can retrieve, e.g., the number of created clones, but also their position, rotation, scale, global matrix, surface normal at a clone’s position, filter weight and more. Using this node, you can even combine SurfaceSPREAD and ThinkingParticles. You will find the node in the XPresso editor’s X-Pool or in the context menu under “XPresso -> SurfaceSPREAD -> SurfaceSPREAD Data.” Here’s a complete list of the available ports:

Object (Input)

Type: Object
s not a SurfaceSPREAD Object), the node will not work.

ObjIndex (Input)

Type: Integer
If you want to access the data of a clone, you must specify the index number of the desired clone here. The clones are numbered from 1 to n (number of created clones).

ObjCount (Output)

Type: Integer
Outputs the number of created clones.

Position (Output)

Type: Vector
Outputs the global position of the specified clone.

Rotation (Output)

Type: Vector
Outputs the global rotation (HPB) of the specified clone.

Scale (Output)

Type: Vector
Outputs the scale of the specified clone.

Global Matrix (Output)

Type: Matrix
Outputs the global matrix of the specified clone.

Poly Normal (Output)

Type: Vector
Outputs the surface normal of the surface geometry at the position of the specified clone.

UVW Position (Output)

Type: Vector
Outputs the position of the specified clone in UV coordinates of the surface geometry.

Weight: Constrain (Output)

Type: Real
Outputs the weight of the Constrain Filter (e.g., Vertex map) for the specified clone.

Weight: Geo (Output)

Type: Real
Outputs the weight of the Geo Filter for the specified clone.

Weight: Performance (Output)

Type: Real
Outputs the weight of the Performance Filter for the specified clone.

An example for the usage of the Data Node is the combination of SurfaceSPREAD and ThinkingParticles. You can e.g., make the SurfaceSPREAD clones work as TP emitters:

This setup places a TP emitter on each of the created clones and aligns the particle stream along the clones’ Z axis. The result looks like this:

SplineSPREAD Data Node

The XPresso Node “SplineSPREAD Data” is a special node which provides access to the data of objects/clones controlled by SplineSPREAD. This section of the manual will explain the usage of the node and the function of its ports.

Object (Input)

Connect an object node here, that points to a SplineSPREAD object in the scene.

ObjIndex (Input)

Input an integer value here, defining which object/clone you want to get the data from. Values range from 1...[ObjectCount].

ObjCount (Output)

This integer value shows the number of objects/clones. The inport ObjIndex does not have to be connected for this.

Position (Output)

Returns a vector value that gives the global position of an object/clone.

Rotation (Output)

Returns a vector value that gives the global rotation of an object/clone (as HPB vector).

Velocity (Output)

Returns a vector value that gives the velocity of an object/clone (how far and which direction an object/clone has moved since the last frame). Of course, this only works correctly while the animation is running.

Offset (Output)

Returns a real value that gives the relative position of an object/clone on the spline (value ranges from 0%...100%).

SurfaceSPREAD Commands

There are also three useful commands that help you control bigger scenes with multiple SurfaceSPREAD objects.The commands are located at the bottom of the SurfaceSPREAD submenu in the Plugins menu. They don’t create any objects or tags, but perform an action when clicked. If you like those commands, it’s a good idea to integrate them into you Cinema 4D layout. The commands are quickly explained here:

Toggle SurfaceSPREADs

This command toggles all SurfaceSPREAD Objects in the scene. That means currently inactive SurfaceSPREAD Objects will be activated, and currently active SurfaceSPREAD Objects will be deactivated.

Enable SurfaceSPREADs

This command activates all SurfaceSPREAD Objects in the scene.

Disable SurfaceSPREADs

This command deactivates all SurfaceSPREAD Objects in the scene. This is very useful if you don’t need any clones at the moment because you want to concentrate on other elements of your scene.

Appendix

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

In this chapter, you will find answers to frequently asked questions.

Q: I bought and installed the plug-in, but it doesn’t start.
A: Please take a look into the Cinema 4D Console (Shift+F10) and see if there is an error message. Send this error message to sales@4d-jack.de.

Q: The plug-in does not start, and there’s also no error message in the console.
Further information on this topic can be found here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751
http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=3810

Q: I want to test the demo version, but it doesn’t load.
A: The demo version of SurfaceSPREAD only runs in the Cinema 4D DEMO. This can be downloaded from http://www.maxon.de. Within this demo, you can test SurfaceSPREAD without restrictions. If you register the Cinema 4D DEMO at Maxon, you can even save your scenes for 40 days, thus giving you the functionality of a SurfaceSPREAD full version.

Q: I run a render farm and want to use SurfaceSPREAD for the clients. Do I have to buy a license for each machine?
A: No, you can use SurfaceSPREAD on any number of NETrender clients and servers without having to purchase individual licenses. You only have to buy a license for each workstation (normal Cinema 4D application) that you want to use the plug-in on.

What will not work?

Surface geometry as a child object of the SurfaceSPREAD Object. The SurfaceSPREAD object as a child object of its own surface geometry. Both constellations are not supported. Cloning a landscape on itself, or looping the result of SurfaceSPREAD back into SurfaceSPREAD are not possible.

Cloning emitters
Particle emitters can not be cloned in Cinema 4D. This also applies to SurfaceSPREAD.

Troubleshooting

4.3.1 Improving SurfaceSPREAD performance
The most common reasons for low performance in the SurfaceSPREAD Object are clones with many polygons. This compromises the editor performance, e.g., by overloading the OpenGL graphics card memory with too much geometry.
s value.
4.3.2 Improving SPREADscape performance
may also affect performance.
detail layers automatically.
4.3.3 Delayed refresh of SurfaceSPREAD Object
If you animate the surface geometry of SurfaceSPREAD (e.g., by keyframing position, rotation or scale, or using deformers) ensure that the SurfaceSPREAD Object comes after the geometry object in the scene hierarchy. This is important for Cinema 4D to evaluate the objects in the correct order. If the SurfaceSPREAD Object comes before the geometry object, it will adapt to changes in the geometry with one frame delay.

Thanks

Very special thanks to:
creator of SurfaceSPREAD

Special thanks to:
Rath for exemplary technical support.
Dagmar Patzer from Motion-Gimmick.com Rath for compiling the MAC builds.
Westermann for tireless beta testing, many good suggestions and a lot of pretty demo images.
Althoff for the very good inspiration for the Road Shader.
Rath for the superfast XeArray class.
Eissrich for the SurfaceSPREAD-Icons.
der for the bookshelf tutorial.
Buket for all the patience you had with Frank during the development phase.

Copyright/Legal

All rights reserved. This manual and the associated software are copyright protected and must not be reproduced, transmitted, duplicated, distributed or translated into other languages without permission of the original author first.

Although software and manual have been made with all possible care and accuracy, errors can never be completely prevented, due to the multiplicity or different hardware and software configurations. Therefore, the author does not take responsibility for damage caused by software failures or by wrong descriptions in this manual.

MAXON und Cinema 4D are registered trade marks of MAXON Computer GmbH.

C.O.F.F.E.E. is a trade mark of MAXON Computer GmbH and MAXON Computer Inc.

Adobe and Photoshop are registered trademarks of Firma Adobe Systems Inc.

V-Ray is a registered trade mark of Chaos Group Ltd.

VRAYforC4D is a product of LAUBlab KG

All further products or brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

© 2013-2015 by Laubwerk GmbH, © 2009-2010 by Jack’s Secret Stash

 

Here you can always see the length of the used path splines, the number of objects/clones and distance between the uniformly distributed objects.

This curve provides an extra possibility to control the translation of data into a color form the gradient.