Hi Everyone,
I am new to Cinema 4D in the last few months, so my apologies as I believe this is a relatively simple problem. I have created an elevation model of a research watershed. It is currently a polygon object in Cinema 4D. What I would like to do is have shapes (cylinders) rise up from the elevation model to a height that corresponds to the amount of carbon in the soil at that particular point. I have set up my data in Excel (in preparation for creating a CSV for Cinema 4D) as follows. This is purely sample data
X (cm) Z(cm) Carbon
10 20 3
-10 5 5
The X and Z columns are the X, Z coordinates where the center of the shape needs to be located in Cinema 4D. I have already transformed all the data for X and Z to match Cinema 4D’s coordinate system. The Carbon Column is the height or Y value. Here is what I would like to have happen:
Cinema 4D places a shape (again I am thinking a cylinder) at the center of each X,Z location (40 total in my spreadsheet). The base (bottom) of that shape is clamped to the surface of my elevation model polygon. The shape then rises (in the Y direction) to the value of the carbon column over time. I would like the 40 different shapes to rise randomly across the elevation model landscape. Also, I would like all the shapes to have the same material.
While I could program this manually, I will be doing more of this in the future, and I know Cinema has the capability to do it with Xpresso/Python. Unfortunately, I haven’t done much programming since high school. I have been watching tutorials on Python/Xpresso, but it is a bit overwhelming with all the different options. I learn best from examples, so if someone can get my started with the right syntax and commands - I would sure appreciate it.
Thanks for any help you can provide!