Hi,

thanks for the kind words both from Maxon and the community. I am looking forward to my upcoming adventures with the SDK Team and Cinema community.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Hi,

as @Cairyn said the problem is unreachable code. I also just saw now that you did assign the same ID to all your buttons in your CreateLayout(). Ressource and dialog element IDs should be unique. I would generally recommend to define your dialogs using a resource, but here is an example on how to do it in code.

BUTTON_BASE_ID = 1000
BUTTON_NAMES = ["Button1", "Button2", "Button3", "Button4", "Button5"]
BUTTON_DATA = {BUTTON_BASE_ID + i: name for i, name in enumerate(BUTTON_NAMES)}

class MyDialog(gui.GeDialog):

    def CreateLayout(self):
        """
        """
        self.GroupBegin(id=1013, flags=c4d.BFH_SCALEFIT, cols=5, rows=4)
        for element_id, element_name in BUTTON_DATA.items():
            self.AddButton(element_id, c4d.BFV_MASK, initw=100, 
                           name=element_name)
        self.GroupEnd()
        return True

    def Command(self, id, msg):
        """
        """
        if id == BUTTON_BASE_ID:
            print "First button has been clicked"
        elif id == BUTTON_BASE_ID + 1:
            print "Second button has been clicked"
        # ...
        if id in BUTTON_DATA.keys(): # or just if id in BUTTON_DATA
            self.Close()
        return True

Hi,

that your script is not working has not anything to do with pseudo decimals, but the fact that you are treating numbers as strings (which is generally a bad idea) in a not very careful manner. When you truncate the string representation of a number which is represented in scientific notation (with an exponent), then you also truncate that exponent and therefor change the value of the number.

To truncate a float you can either take the floor of my_float * 10 ** digits and then divide by 10 ** digits again or use the keyword round.

data = [0.03659665587738824,
        0.00018878623163019122,
        1.1076812650509394e-03,
        1.3882258325566638e-06]

for n in data:
    rounded = round(n, 4)
    floored = int(n * 10000) / 10000
    print(n, rounded, floored)

0.03659665587738824 0.0366 0.0365
0.00018878623163019122 0.0002 0.0001
0.0011076812650509394 0.0011 0.0011
1.3882258325566637e-06 0.0 0.0
[Finished in 0.1s]

Cheers
zipit

Hi,

sorry for all the confusion. You have to pass actual instances of objects. The following code does what you want (and this time I actually tried it myself ;)).

import c4d

def main():
    """
    """
    bc = doc.GetAllTextures(ar=doc.GetMaterials())
    for cid, value in bc:
        print cid, value

if __name__=='__main__':
   main()

Cheers,
zipit

Hi,

the nature of your problem remains a bit unclear to me. You talk about polygonal data and beveling edges, which I would interpret as the question for bevelling in a network of curves, .e.g. a polygonal topology, but you show the image of a curve and also your code operates in a plane. I assume you want interpret your mesh as a series of cross-sections/curves?

That aside, beveling (either curves or curves in surfaces, i.e. edges) is an application of interpolation and can therefor implemented in various forms, here are some approaches:

1. Piecing in arc segments. This what you are basically trying to do from the looks of your code. You normally would properly define a series of transforms (i.e. "matrices" in Cinema) to transform a base vector and by that construct the vertices making up the arc segment. This solution is not very suited for a data of intersecting curve networks, i.e. surfaces, it works better in something like a 2D Vector app.

2. Than there are multiple ways to construct a smooth curve over a series points. The easiest one are Chaikin's Curves which also have spawned a whole group of algorithms all following more or less the same one fourth three fourth idea and some of them can also be applied to meshes.

3. The next obvious candidates would be quadratic or cubic polynomials/curves. They can the can also be viewed as a combination of linear interpolations. This is called De Casteljau's algorithm. To get from multiple curves segments to splines, you just piece them together (there are multiple ways to do this). But in you case of beveling you probably will only need a single curve. Depending on how deep you venture into this topic this reaches from splines and curves (.e.g. a B-Spline or a Bezier spline) to surfaces (e.g. a NURBS surface).

4. The last one, and that is the one Cinema probably uses for its edge tool is just Subdivision Surfaces. There are also multiple algorithms of varying complexity, but classical Catmull-Clark SDS have very nice properties (producing only quads for example) and are very easy to implement. The problem here is how to restrict the subdivision part of the algorithm so that you only generate new edges along the edge loop and not perpendicular to it and then come up with the correct modified weights for the smoothing.

Its all a bit vague, but your question is very broad, so I thought this might help.

edit: Forgot this, but should have put this first - Implementing a bevel tool is not trivial. Covering the default case is not that hard, but covering all the corner cases is, especially when you want to maintain secondary mesh attributes like texture coordinates. I would not go for reinventing the wheel here. Is there a reason why you do not want to use Cinema's edge bevel? Does it not work with SendModellingCommand?

Cheers,
zipit

Hi,

you use GetActiveDocument() in a NodeData environment. You cannot do this, since nodes are also executed when their document is not the active document (while rendering for example - documents get cloned for rendering).

Cheers
zipit

Hoi,

@blastframe said in Moving a Point Along an Arc by Distance from another Point:

• In your code comment you mention spherical interpolation between the arc segment. Is that the same as the quadratic bezier interpolation from the example you provided (code below)? I think that's also called slerp?

Yeah, slerp is a synonym for spherical linear interpolation. While linear interpolation, a.k.a. lerp, gives you points on the line segment spanned by its two input vectors, a spherical linear interpolation gives you points on the arc segment spanned between the unit vectors of the two input vectors. Cinema does not have a slerp for vectors for some reason, only one for quaternions. The whole interpolation and interpolation naming situation in Cinema's classic API is a huge mess IMHO. So you would have to write your own slerp. And slerp is not directly related to splines, only in the sense that you will need it when you want to linearly place points on that spline, as you then have to do the arc-length parametrization of that spline for which you will need slerp.

• How do I get the points to stop at the limits of the arc? In this case, it would seem to be limiting the angle to 0 and math.pi, but what if the start & end angles are different?

Basically the same way you did it in your code. The computed angle is an angle in radians. So to limit it to let's say [0°, 180°] you would have to clamp it to [0 rad,π rad]. There is also the problem that angles work the other way around in relation to the circle functions sine and cosine and your example. They "start on the right side" of the unit circle and then go counter clockwise. Which is why my code flips things around. Getting back to "your setup" should just a matter of inverting the angle, i.e. -theta instead of theta, and then adding π, i.e. 180°.

• If I'm not to use c4d.Vector.GetDistance, how would you recommend I get the geodesic norm? I found modules online like geopy, but I'd rather do it with standard Python.

Its the same thing in green. You get the Euclidean norm, a.k.a the "length" of your vectors, implying the radius of the circle they are sitting on. Then you can compute the angle spanned between them with the dot product. Finally you put this into the relation shown above, solve for the arc length and you are done. And to be clear, Geodesic norm is just a fancy name for saying the distance between two points on a sphere, while the Euclidean norm is the distance in a plane.

Cheers,
zipit

Hi,

you have to invoke AddUserArea and then attach an instance of your implemented type to it. Something like this:

my_user_area = MyUserAreaType()
self.AddUserArea(1000,*other_arguments)
self.AttachUserArea(my_user_area, 1000)

I have attached an example which does some things you are trying to do (rows of things, highlighting stuff, etc.). The gadget is meant to display a list of boolean values and the code is over five years old. I had a rather funny idea of what good Python should look like then and my attempts of documentation were also rather questionable. I just wrapped the gadget into a quick example dialog you could run as a script. I did not maintain the code, so there might be newer and better ways to do things now.

Also a warning: GUI stuff is usually a lot of work and very little reward IMHO.

Cheers
zipit

import c4d
import math
import random

from c4d import gui

# Pattern Gadget
IDC_SELECTLOOP_CELLSIZE = [32, 32]
IDC_SELECTLOOP_GADGET_MINW = 400
IDC_SELECTLOOP_GADGET_MINH = 32

class ExampleDialog(gui.GeDialog):
    """
    """
    def CreateLayout(self):
        """
        """

        self.Pattern = c4d.BaseContainer()
        for i in range(10):
            self.Pattern[i] = random.choice([True, False])
        self.PatternSize = len(self.Pattern)

        self.gadget = Patterngadget(host=self)
        self.AddUserArea(1000, c4d.BFH_FIT, 400, 32)
        self.AttachUserArea(self.gadget, 1000)
        return True

class Patterngadget(gui.GeUserArea):
    """
    A gui gadget to modify and display boolean patterns.
    """

    def __init__(self, host):
        """
        :param host: The hosting BaseToolData instance
        """
        self.Host = host
        self.BorderWidth = None
        self.CellPerColumn = None
        self.CellWidht = IDC_SELECTLOOP_CELLSIZE[0]
        self.CellHeight = IDC_SELECTLOOP_CELLSIZE[1]
        self.Columns = None
        self.Height = None
        self.Width = None
        self.MinHeight = IDC_SELECTLOOP_GADGET_MINH
        self.MinWidht = IDC_SELECTLOOP_GADGET_MINW
        self.MouseX = None
        self.MouseY = None

    """------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Overridden methods
        --------------------------------------------------------------------"""

    def Init(self):
        """
        Init the gadget.
        :return : Bool
        """
        self._get_colors()
        return True

    def GetMinSize(self):
        """
        Resize the gadget
        :return : int, int
        """
        return int(self.MinWidht), int(self.MinHeight)

    def Sized(self, w, h):
        """
        Get the gadgets height and width
        """
        self.Height, self.Width = int(h), int(w)
        self._fit_gadget()

    def Message(self, msg, result):
        """
        Fetch and store mouse over events
        :return : bool
        """
        if msg.GetId() == c4d.BFM_GETCURSORINFO:
            base = self.Local2Screen()
            if base:
                self.MouseX = msg.GetLong(c4d.BFM_DRAG_SCREENX) - base['x']
                self.MouseY = msg.GetLong(c4d.BFM_DRAG_SCREENY) - base['y']
                self.Redraw()
                self.SetTimer(1000)
        return gui.GeUserArea.Message(self, msg, result)

    def InputEvent(self, msg):
        """
        Fetch and store mouse clicks
        :return : bool
        """
        if not isinstance(msg, c4d.BaseContainer):
            return True
        if msg.GetLong(c4d.BFM_INPUT_DEVICE) == c4d.BFM_INPUT_MOUSE:
            if msg.GetLong(c4d.BFM_INPUT_CHANNEL) == c4d.BFM_INPUT_MOUSELEFT:
                base = self.Local2Global()
                if base:
                    x = msg.GetLong(c4d.BFM_INPUT_X) - base['x']
                    y = msg.GetLong(c4d.BFM_INPUT_Y) - base['y']
                    pid = self._get_id(x, y)
                    if pid <= self.Host.PatternSize:
                        self.Host.Pattern[pid] = not self.Host.Pattern[pid]
                        self.Redraw()
        return True

    def Timer(self, msg):
        """
        Timer loop to catch OnMouseExit
        """
        base = self.Local2Global()
        bc = c4d.BaseContainer()
        res = gui.GetInputState(c4d.BFM_INPUT_MOUSE,
                                c4d.BFM_INPUT_MOUSELEFT, bc)
        mx = bc.GetLong(c4d.BFM_INPUT_X) - base['x']
        my = bc.GetLong(c4d.BFM_INPUT_Y) - base['y']
        if res:
            if not (mx >= 0 and mx <= self.Width and
                    my >= 0 and my <= self.Height):
                self.SetTimer(0)
                self.Redraw()

    def DrawMsg(self, x1, y1, x2, y2, msg):
        """
        Draws the gadget
        """
        # double buffering
        self.OffScreenOn(x1, y1, x2, y2)
        # background & border
        self.DrawSetPen(self.ColBackground)
        self.DrawRectangle(x1, y1, x2, y2)
        if self.BorderWidth:
            self.DrawBorder(c4d.BORDER_THIN_IN, x1, y1,
                            self.BorderWidth + 2, y2 - 1)
        # draw pattern
        for pid, state in self.Host.Pattern:
            x, y = self._get_rect(pid)
            self._draw_cell(x, y, state, self._is_focus(x, y))

    """------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Public methods
        --------------------------------------------------------------------"""

    def Update(self, cid=None):
        """
        Update the gadget.
        :param cid: A pattern id to toggle.
        """
        if cid and cid < self.Host.PatternSize:
            self.Host.Pattern[cid] = not self.Host.Pattern[cid]
        self._fit_gadget()
        self.Redraw()

    """------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Private methods
        --------------------------------------------------------------------"""

    def _get_colors(self, force=False):
        """
        Set the drawing colors.
        :return : Bool
        """
        self.ColScale = 1.0 / 255.0
        if self.IsEnabled() or force:
            self.ColBackground = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_BG)
            self.ColCellActive = c4d.GetViewColor(
                c4d.VIEWCOLOR_ACTIVEPOINT) * 0.9
            self.ColCellFocus = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_BGFOCUS)
            self.ColCellInactive = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_BGEDIT)
            self.ColEdgeDark = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_EDGEDK)
            self.ColEdgeLight = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_EDGELT)
        else:
            self.ColBackground = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_BG)
            self.ColCellActive = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_BG)
            self.ColCellFocus = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_BG)
            self.ColCellInactive = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_BG)
            self.ColEdgeDark = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_EDGEDK)
            self.ColEdgeLight = self._get_color_vector(c4d.COLOR_EDGELT)
        return True

    def _get_cell_pen(self, state, _is_focus):
        """
        Get the color for cell depending on its state.
        :param state   : The state
        :param _is_focus : If the cell is hoovered.
        :return        : c4d.Vector()
        """
        if state:
            pen = self.ColCellActive
        else:
            pen = self.ColCellInactive
        if self.IsEnabled() and _is_focus:
            return (pen + c4d.Vector(2)) * 1/3
        else:
            return pen

    def _draw_cell(self, x, y, state, _is_focus):
        """
        Draws a gadget cell.
        :param x:       local x
        :param y:       local y
        :param state:   On/Off
        :param _is_focus: MouseOver state
        """
        # left and top bright border
        self.DrawSetPen(self.ColEdgeLight)
        self.DrawLine(x, y, x + self.CellWidht, y)
        self.DrawLine(x, y, x, y + self.CellHeight)
        # bottom and right dark border
        self.DrawSetPen(self.ColEdgeDark)
        self.DrawLine(x, y + self.CellHeight - 1, x +
                      self.CellWidht - 1, y + self.CellHeight - 1)
        self.DrawLine(x + self.CellWidht - 1, y, x +
                      self.CellWidht - 1, y + self.CellHeight - 1)
        # cell content
        self.DrawSetPen(self._get_cell_pen(state, _is_focus))
        self.DrawRectangle(x + 1, y + 1, x + self.CellWidht -
                           2, y + self.CellHeight - 2)

    def _get_rect(self, pid, offset=1):
        """
        Get the drawing rect for an array id.
        :param pid    : the pattern id
        :param offset : the pixel border offset
        :return       : int, int
        """
        pid = int(pid)
        col = pid / self.CellPerColumn
        head = pid % self.CellPerColumn
        return self.CellWidht * head + offset, self.CellHeight * col + offset

    def _get_id(self, x, y):
        """
        Get the array id for a coord within the gadget.
        :param x : local x
        :param y : local y
        :return  : int
        """
        col = (y - 1) / self.CellHeight
        head = (x - 1) / self.CellWidht
        return col * self.CellPerColumn + head

    def _is_focus(self, x, y):
        """
        Test if the cell coords are under the cursor.
        :param x : local x
        :param y : local y
        :return  : bool
        """
        if (self.MouseX >= x and self.MouseX <= x + self.CellWidht and
                self.MouseY >= y and self.MouseY <= y + self.CellHeight):
            self.MouseX = c4d.NOTOK
            self.MouseY = c4d.NOTOK
            return True
        else:
            return False

    def _fit_gadget(self):
        """
        Fit the gadget size to the the array
        """
        oldHeight = self.MinHeight
        self.CellPerColumn = int((self.Width - 2) / self.CellWidht)
        self.Columns = math.ceil(
            self.Host.PatternSize / self.CellPerColumn) + 1
        self.MinHeight = int(IDC_SELECTLOOP_GADGET_MINH * self.Columns) + 3
        self.MinWidht = int(IDC_SELECTLOOP_GADGET_MINW)
        self.BorderWidth = self.CellWidht * self.CellPerColumn
        if oldHeight != self.MinHeight:
            self.LayoutChanged()

    def _get_color_vector(self, cid):
        """
        Get a color vector from a color ID.
        :param cid : The color ID
        :return    : c4d.Vector()
        """
        dic = self.GetColorRGB(cid)
        if dic:
            return c4d.Vector(float(dic['r']) * self.ColScale,
                              float(dic['g']) * self.ColScale,
                              float(dic['b']) * self.ColScale)
        else:
            return c4d.Vector()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    dlg = ExampleDialog()
    dlg.Open(c4d.DLG_TYPE_ASYNC, defaultw=400, defaulth=400)

Hi @bentraje,

thank you for reaching out to us. As @Cairyn already said, there is little which prevents you from writing your own cloner. Depending on the complexity of the cloner, this can however be quite complex. Just interpolating between two positions or placing objects in a grid array is not too hard. But recreating all the complexity of a MoGraph cloner will be. It is also not necessary. Here are two more straight forward solutions:

1. As I said in the last thread (the one you did link), MoGraph is perfectly capable of driving arbitrary parameters of an object. I overlooked in the old thread that you did ask what I meant with ""drive the attributes of an object or its material"", so the file cube_bend_mograph.c4d shows you how you can drive the strength parameter of a bend object with MoGraph. The difference I then made was that while you cannot drive such attributes directly via the particle (arrays), but you can let MoGraphs interpolation system take care of it. Please keep in mind that I am everything but an expert for MoGraph. There are probably more elegant solutions for all this, but all this is out of scope for this forum. Please contact technical support or refer to Cineversity for questions about MoGraph.
2. One problem of MoGraph is that driving more than one arbitrary parameter of an object is a bit tedious. Since MoGraph's sole principle is interpolation and it can only interpolate on a single axis (between parameters), you will then have to start interpolating between two cloners to drive a second, third, fourth, etc. parameter. Here it would make sense to write a custom solution to have less complicated setups. Rather than rewriting a cloner, it would be however more sensible to just modify the cache of a cloner. This will only work when the cloner is in the "Instance Mode" "Instance", as otherwise the cache will only contain the instance wrappers (a bit confusing the naming here ^^). You could do this all inside a GVO, including building the cloner and its cache, but I did provide here a solution which relies on linking a cloner whose cache one wishes to modify. The idea is then simple, walk over all bend objects in the cache and modify their bend strength. You can find a scene file and the code below.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

file: cube_bend_python.c4d
code:

"""Example for modifying the cache of a node and returning it as the output
of a generator.

This specific example drives the bend strength of bend objects contained in
a Mograph cloner object. The example is designed for a Python generator 
object with a specific set of user data values. Please use the provided c4d
file if possible.

Note:
    This example makes use of the function `CacheIterator()` for cache 
    iteration which has been proposed on other threads for the task of walking
    a cache, looking for specific nodes. One can pass in one or multiple type
    symbols for the node types to be retrieved from the cache. I did not 
    unpack the topic of caches here any further.

    We are aware that robust cache walking can be a complex subject and 
    already did discuss adding such functionality to the SDK toolset in the
    future, but for now users have to do that on their own.

As discussed in:
    plugincafe.maxon.net/topic/13275/
"""

import c4d

# The cookie cutter cache iterator template, can be treated as a black-box,
# as it has little to do with the threads subject.
def CacheIterator(op, types=None):
    """An iterator for the elements of a BaseObject cache.

    Handles both "normal" and deformed caches and has the capability to 
    filter by node type.

    Args:
        op (c4d.BaseObject): The node to walk the cache for.
        types (Union[list, tuple, int, None], optional): A collection of type
         IDs from one of which a yielded node has to be derived from. Will
         yield all node types if None. Defaults to None.

    Yields:
        c4d.BaseObject: A cache element of op.

    Raises:
        TypeError: On argument type violations.
    """
    if not isinstance(op, c4d.BaseObject):
        msg = "Expected a BaseObject or derived class, got: {0}"
        raise TypeError(msg.format(op.__class__.__name__))

    if isinstance(types, int):
        types = (types, )
    if not isinstance(types, (tuple, list, type(None))):
        msg = "Expected a tuple, list or None, got: {0}"
        raise TypeError(msg.format(types.__class__.__name__))

    # Try to retrieve the deformed cache of op.
    temp = op.GetDeformCache()
    if temp is not None:
        for obj in CacheIterator(temp, types):
            yield obj

    # Try to retrieve the cache of op.
    temp = op.GetCache()
    if temp is not None:
        for obj in CacheIterator(temp, types):
            yield obj

    # If op is not a control object.
    if not op.GetBit(c4d.BIT_CONTROLOBJECT):
        # Yield op if it is derived from one of the passed type symbols.
        if types is None or any([op.IsInstanceOf(t) for t in types]):
            yield op

    # Walk the hierarchy of the cache.
    temp = op.GetDown()
    while temp:
        for obj in CacheIterator(temp, types):
            yield obj
        temp = temp.GetNext()


def main():
    """
    """
    # The user data.
    node = op[c4d.ID_USERDATA, 1]
    angle = op[c4d.ID_USERDATA, 2]
    fieldList = op[c4d.ID_USERDATA, 3]

    # Lazy parameter validation ;)
    if None in (node, angle, fieldList):
        raise AttributeError("Non-existent or non-populated user data.")

    # Get the cache of the node and clone it (so that we have ownership).
    cache = node.GetDeformCache() or node.GetCache()
    if cache is None:
        return c4d.BaseObject(c4d.Onull)
    clone = cache.GetClone(c4d.COPYFLAGS_NONE)

    # Iterate over all bend objects in the cache ...
    for bend in CacheIterator(clone, c4d.Obend):
        # ..., sample the field list for the bend object position, ...
        fieldInput = c4d.modules.mograph.FieldInput([bend.GetMg().off], 1)
        fieldOutput = fieldList.SampleListSimple(op, fieldInput,
                                                 c4d.FIELDSAMPLE_FLAG_VALUE)
        if (not isinstance(fieldOutput, c4d.modules.mograph.FieldOutput) or
                fieldOutput.GetCount() < 1):
            raise RuntimeError("Error sampling field input.")
        # ... and set the bend strength with that field weight as a multiple 
        # of the angle defined in the user data.
        bend[c4d.DEFORMOBJECT_STRENGTH] = angle * fieldOutput.GetValue(0)

    # Return the clone's cache.
    return clone

Hello @shetal,

thank you for reaching out to us. The reformulation of your question and the conformance with the forum guidelines on tagging is also much appreciated.

About your question: As stated in the forum guidelines, we cannot provide full solutions for questions, but provide answers for specific questions. Which is why I will not show here any example code, the first step would have to be made by you. I will instead roughly line out the purpose of and workflow around VideoPostData, which I assume is what you are looking for anyway.

VideoPostData is derived from NodeData, the base class to implement a node for a classic API scene graph. Node means here 'something that lives inside a document and is an addressable entity', examples for such nodes are materials, shaders, objects, tags, ..., and as such 'video post' node. As mentioned in its class description, VideoPostData is a versatile plugin interface which can be used to intervene a rendering process in multiple ways. The most tangible place for VideoPostData in the app is the render settings where video post plugins can be added as effects for a rendering process as shown below with the built-in water mark video post node.

VideoPostData is an effect, meaning that you cannot use it to invoke a rendering process and on its own it also cannot forcibly add itself to a rendering and must be included manually with the RenderData, the render settings of a rendering. However, a user could make a render setting which includes such watermark effect part of his or her default render settings. One could also implement another plugin interface, SceneHookData, to automatically add such effect to every active document. We would not encourage that though, as this could be confusing or infuriating for users. Finally, such VideoPostData plugin would be visible by default like all NodeData plugins, i.e., it would appear as something in menus that the user can add and interact with. To prevent this if desired, one would have to register the plugin with the flag PLUGINFLAG_HIDE suppress it from popping up in the 'Effect ...' button menu. I cannot tell you with certainty if it is possible to hide programmatically added effect nodes from the users view in the effect list of a render settings. There are some flags which can be used to hide instances of nodes, but I would have to test myself if this also applies in this list, it is more likely that this will not be possible.

To implement a VideoPostData plugin interface, one can override multiple methods and take different approaches, the most commonly used one is to override VideoPostData::Execute(Link) which will be called multiple times for each rendered frame. The method follows a flag/message logic which is commonly used in Cinema 4D's classic API, where one gets passed in a flag which signalizes in which context the method is being called. Here the context is at which state of the rendering this call is being made, and the chain is:

• VIDEOPOSTCALL::FRAMESEQUENCE - Series of images starts.
• VIDEOPOSTCALL::FRAME - Image render starts.
• VIDEOPOSTCALL::SUBFRAME - Sub-frame starts.
• VIDEOPOSTCALL::RENDER - Render precalculation.
• VIDEOPOSTCALL::INNER - Render precalculation.
• VIDEOPOSTCALL::INNER - Immediately after rendering.
• VIDEOPOSTCALL::RENDER - Immediately after shader cleanup.
• VIDEOPOSTCALL::SUBFRAME - Sub-frame rendering done.
• VIDEOPOSTCALL::FRAME - Frame rendering done.
• VIDEOPOSTCALL::FRAMESEQUENCE - Complete rendering process finished.

These flags are accompanied by information if the flags denotes the opening or closing of that 'step' in the rendering process. A developer often then restricts its plugin functionality to a certain flag. I.e., in your case you only want to execute some code when the closing VIDEOPOSTCALL::FRAME is being passed, i.e., after a single frame and all its sub-frames have been rendered. Execute() also passes in a pointer to a VideoPostStruct(Link) which carries information about the ongoing rendering. One of its fields is render, a pointer to a Render(Link). This data structure represents a rendering with multiple buffers and provides the method GetBuffer() which returns a pointer to VPBuffer buffer. In your case you would want to retrieve the RGBA buffer for the rendering by requesting the VPBUFFER_RGBA buffer (Link) with GetBuffer().

This buffer is then finally the pixel buffer, the bitmap data you want to modify. The buffer is being read and written in a line wise fashion with VPBuffer::GetLine() and ::SetLine(). Here you would have to superimpose your watermark information onto the frame. I would do this in a shader like fashion, i.e., write a function which I can query for a texture coordinate for every pixel/fragment in every line and it will then return an RBGA value which I could then combine with the RGBA information which is in the buffer at that coordinate. The details on that depend on what you want to do, e.g.,

• Should the watermark be tiled across the frame or just live in a 'corner'?
• Should it contain alpha information?
• Can the user influence it, or is it just a png file on disk?
• etc...

and the answers to that are mostly algorithmic and not directly connected to our API which limits the amount of support we can provide for them. If this all sounds very confusing to you, it might be helpful to look at our video post examples I did post in the previous thread, e.g., vpreconstructimage.cpp, as this will probably make things less daunting.

If you decide that you do not want to take this route for technical or complexity reasons, you could write a SceneHookData plugin which listens via NodeData::Message for MSG_MULTI_RENDERNOTIFICATION(Link), a message family which is being sent in the context of a rendering. There you would have to evaluate the start field in the RenderNotificationData(Link) accompanying the message, to determine if the call is for the start or end of a rendering. Then you could grab the rendering output file(s) on disk with the help of the render settings from disk and 'manually' superimpose your watermark information. This will come with the drawback that you might have to deal with compressed video files like mpeg or Avi and all the image formats. Some complexity in that can be hidden away with our BaseBitmap type I did mention in my last posting, but not all of it. There is also the fact that you might run into problems when this plugin runs on a render server, where you cannot easily obtain write or even read access to files of the render output.

I hope this give you some desired guidance,
Ferdinand

Hey @wickedp,

So, I spent some time on this but unfortunately there are also a few other things on my plate, so I did not have too much time to invest on it. Here are my findings for now:

1. You are right, ::Command is not the right way to go here, since you are effectively unable to distinguish there between right and left mouse button clicks, as the input event already has been consumed inside that method (you have to actually release the mouse button to trigger ::Command).
2. You then must go with the second approach I proposed, although poorly explained as I now see. You must instead move to GeDialog::Message and do the handling manually (that was what I meant with BFM_GETCURSORINFO).
3. I tried that, only to find out that in the context of BFM_GETCURSORINFO you are unable to poll the mouse inside ::Message, when you poll for the right mouse button, it will always return 0, although the button is pressed.
4. But you are able to do it in the context of BFM_INTERACTSTART.
5. There is still quite a bit to be fleshed out here, the restriction part to the actual tab header thingy, for example, but this will at least open a popup menu when RMB is being pressed (without doing the evaluation all the time for that). I cannot tell you exactly how much of the remaining way is possible, I would have to poke a bit myself.

Find the example code in Python below (sorry, I know that you are on C++, but I really did not have much time today). Just tell me when you want this to be explored further, I will then invest some time next week.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

The code:

"""Opens a popup menu over a GeDialog when the right mouse button is being pressed.

This can be run in the Script Manger.
"""

import c4d

class TabDialog (c4d.gui.GeDialog):
    """Provides a dialog with two tabs.
    """
    ID_GRP_MAIN: int = 1000
    ID_GRP_TABS: int = 2000
    ID_GRP_TAB_FOO: int = 3000
    ID_GRP_TAB_BAR: int = 3001

    def CreateLayout(self) -> bool:
        """Adds the gadgets to the dialog.
        """
        flags: int = c4d.BFH_SCALEFIT | c4d.BFV_SCALEFIT

        self.GroupBegin(TabDialog.ID_GRP_MAIN, flags, 1)
        self.TabGroupBegin(TabDialog.ID_GRP_TABS, flags, c4d.TAB_TABS)

        self.GroupBegin(TabDialog.ID_GRP_TAB_FOO, flags, 1, 0, "Foo")
        self.GroupEnd()  # ID_GRP_TAB_FOO
        self.GroupBegin(TabDialog.ID_GRP_TAB_BAR, flags, 1, 0, "Bar")
        self.GroupEnd()  # ID_GRP_TAB_BAR

        self.GroupEnd()  # ID_GRP_TABS
        self.GroupEnd()  # ID_GRP_MAIN

        return super().CreateLayout()

    def Message(self, msg: c4d.BaseContainer, result: c4d.BaseContainer) -> int:
        """Opens the popup menu.
        """
        # Bail when this not the start of a GUI interaction.
        if msg.GetId() != c4d.BFM_INTERACTSTART:
            return super().Message(msg, result)

        # Poll for the right mouse button being pressed.
        state: c4d.BaseContainer = c4d.BaseContainer()
        if not c4d.gui.GetInputState(c4d.BFM_INPUT_MOUSE, c4d.BFM_INPUT_MOUSERIGHT, state):
            raise RuntimeError("Could not poll input state.")

        # Bail when RMB is not being pressed.
        if state[c4d.BFM_INPUT_VALUE] != 1:
            return super().Message(msg, result)

        # Open a popup menu at the cursor.
        x: int = int(state[c4d.BFM_INPUT_X])
        y: int = int(state[c4d.BFM_INPUT_Y])

        bc: c4d.BaseContainer = c4d.BaseContainer()
        bc.InsData(c4d.FIRST_POPUP_ID, f"Cube&i{c4d.Ocube}&")
        bc.InsData(c4d.FIRST_POPUP_ID + 1, f"Sphere&i{c4d.Osphere}&")
        res = c4d.gui.ShowPopupDialog(self, bc, x, y)

        return super().Message(msg, result)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    dialog: TabDialog = TabDialog()
    dialog.Open(c4d.DLG_TYPE_MODAL_RESIZEABLE, defaultw=500, defaulth=500)

Hello @kng_ito,

Thank you for reaching out to us. You have deleted this topic, which likely means that you found the solution yourself. This question has been answered before and you likely found one of these answers, but I think it does not hurt to answer this again, especially since I already wrote the answer and then sat in a never ending meeting In general, we also prefer topics not to be deleted, but rather have them pointing to the correct solution, so that future readers will find solutions over multiple search entries.

Answer

This can be solved in this specific case with c4d.IsCommandChecked. I have provided an example at the end of the posting. A related subject is GeDilaog folding and opening for dialogs a user has implemented; an example for that can be found here.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

"""Example for opening the Material Manger.

Run this script as a Script Manger script, it will only open the Material Manager, but not close
it by executing the command twice.

Using c4d.IsCommandChecked allows to execute commands only when they indicate to not already be 
running. In the case of commands which open some form of dialog, this means that the command is
only executed when the dialog is not already open. This requires the CommandData plugin hook to
implement CommandData.GetState() to return its state.
"""

import c4d

IDM_MATERIAL_MANAGER: int = 12159

def main() -> None:
    # When the Material Manager command indicates not be already running, invoke its command.
    if not c4d.IsCommandChecked(IDM_MATERIAL_MANAGER):
        c4d.CallCommand(IDM_MATERIAL_MANAGER)
    
    
if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Hey @Dunhou,

great, as I said, we are aware that there are currently gaps in the Python documentation. Just try to start out, and then post what you got when you hit a wall. I will help you then, i.e., write a specific Python example, if necessary, and show you how to accomplish things in Python.

The basic information is there in the Asset API and Nodes API examples for Python I have posted above. The Redshift API is just a special case for that, and it is not fully documented yet (even in C++) because the underlying integration of Redshift into Cinema 4D has not been fully finalized yet. I have pushed the C++ Manual out because I knew users will be asking for it, but this C++ Manual is also only a temporary solution. For now, we will solve Redshift API questions with direct customer support in Python.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Hello @dunhou,

Thank you for reaching out to us. And no worries, everything is fine with your posting. Thank you for making the effort to adhere to our forum rules, much appreciated!

About your Question

The general answer is, yes, this is possible. There are however a few ambiguous points in your posting.

1. You state it quite clearly, but just to be sure, you are talking about the Asset Browser and assets it, right? Because there are also a few similar concepts in Cinema 4D.
2. Assets must not be downloaded, at least not by the user, the Asset API hides away that detail. Assets are referenced by their asset ID and refer to content stored at an asset URL. This URL can be local, but it can also be on some server. Cinema 4D, the Asset API, will handle the resolving and caching of asset URL content.
3. So, there is no checking if an asset is on disk to be done, and assets are also not referenced by file names as for example si-v1_deposits_06_15cm.png but asset identifiers, e.g., file_edb3eb584c0d905c.
4. What is also not quite clear to me, is what you mean when you 'redshift Node'. Are you referring to the old Xpresso based node setups, now running in legacy mode as of S26, or are you referring to the new standard nodes of S26? It is possible to link a texture asset in both cases as the bump map, but it requires different approaches.

For the S26.1 C++ docs, we recently added a small manual for Redshift wich goes through exactly that case, creating a Redshift standard node material, and linking texture assets to the channels of the material. Although it is for C++ I would recommend having a look, as the Python code will be almost identical.

There is also a plethora of other things I would recommend having a look at, such as the Python Asset API examples and the Python Nodes API examples, as your goals are only a specialization of the things shown there.

If you have questions along the way, please do not hesitate to ask. The Nodes and Asset API are two fairly complex subjects, and their documentation on Python is still in its infancy. I will provide the necessary guidance or examples where necessary.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Hey @indexofrefraction,

Well, that is because Mograph is one of the areas where the type symbols have not been exposed. So, to be clear: There is no cloner object symbol.

But now that you brought this up again, I just realized that we (the SDK Team) never talked about fixing this and I do not see (fully) why. I have a suspicion why this might have been postponed or refuted in the past, but I will bring it up again. In the end we just must add a few defines to ge_prepass.h and then users do not have to jump through these hoops anymore. It will be difficult to catch all the missing symbols, but we could at least start with the ones we know. I will update the thread with the outcome of our discussion.

Edit: So, we talked about this, and came to the obvious conclusion, that we should do what we should have done a long time ago, and fix this. I cannot give an ETA, but I will try to give it priority as I think this is a problem which impacts many users.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Hello @indexofrefraction,

thank you for reaching out to us. While it is sometimes true that we do this and I recently hinted at why this this happening, it is not true in this case.

The symbol for SDS is c4d.Osds. You can find a list of all object symbols here. The bottom line is here: Programmers love acronyms

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Dear Cinema 4D Community,

On June the 29th, 2022, Maxon Computer released Cinema 4D S26 SP1. Alongside this release, the updated Python and C++ SDK and documentation have been released, reflecting the API changes for S26 SP1. Please visit the release announcement for an overview of the changes in SP1 in the application itself.

Happy rendering and coding,
the Maxon SDK Team

Hello @未凡fh,

Thank you for reaching out to us. Support on this forum is only being provided in the English language, as this serves our community best, and because we also simply do not speak all languages of the world. I think the language you posted in is Simplified Chinese, please excuse me when I wrong, but that is what Google said. No-one on the SDK Team speaks that language. And even if we would, we would refuse to answer in this language as it would lock out large parts of the community. As we do for requests which come in German, French, or Spanish (languages we do speak).

Running your request through Google Translate, I got this:

Let me ask: How do I detect an object moving and send a message when an object moves?

Please confirm that this is your request and that we can communicate in English.

Thank you for your understanding,
Ferdinand

Hello @noseman,

well, the problem is that we do not really have a good place for it at the moment (a subject we could list it under). And it is also technically out of our collective domain, i.e., the things we consider putting into our documentation. We only collect things which are directly related to out APIs and this is a generic computer graphics example. Note that you found your example code in the context of the GeUserArea example, so this was only code which sort of was provided "en passant" while explaining something entirely different: How the type GeUserArea works. Which is rather something we like to reduce than increase: Overloading examples with random complexity.

I made a note that there is some interest in having an example for spline interpolation, e.g., the provided one. I cannot promise more for now.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Hello @conductor,

Thank you for reaching out to us. I am glad that you could solve your problem yourself. Please do not hesitate to ask further questions you might have.

Cheers,
Ferdinand