Kinematic plugin, where to start

THE POST BELOW IS MORE THAN 5 YEARS OLD. RELATED SUPPORT INFORMATION MIGHT BE OUTDATED OR DEPRECATED

On 15/09/2012 at 12:41, xxxxxxxx wrote:

User Information:
Cinema 4D Version:   12 
Platform:      Mac OSX  ; 
Language(s) :     C++  ;

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Hi,

I have some C++ class that I use in Maya to determine joint angles on rigs and I would like to use them in C4D. In Maya, my plugin takes the form of a node in the hypergraph with the output connected to the desired joint to be controlled. I'm now looking at how to do a similar thing in C4D. I saw some IK plugins that seems to be in the same line of what I would like to achieve, but I have no clue about their approach.

Being new to C4D, I'm a little confused by all plugin types. It would be nice if I could be pointed toward some directions on how to write a plugin in c++ that control joint angles of a rig while animating.

Jeff

THE POST BELOW IS MORE THAN 5 YEARS OLD. RELATED SUPPORT INFORMATION MIGHT BE OUTDATED OR DEPRECATED

On 16/09/2012 at 04:28, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hello Jeff,

if you want to create a tool, similar to the selection-tool or the bevel-tool or the joint-add tool, you need to subclass the ToolData hook. For Tags or Objects, its TagData and ObjectData.

There are some examples in the SDK that should get you started easily when you are already experienced with Cinema 4D.
However, I'd suggest to get into COFFEE or Python because of the possibility to get live-feedback from scripts running in Cinema 4D. The possibility to do prototyping with a scripting language is very handy, especially when you need to learn an API. The Python and COFFEE API are mostly exact the same as the names and callings from the C++ SDK.

-Niklas