The Shader Falloff

This is an additional falloff for particle modifiers. Its use is not restricted to X-Particles; it can also be used elsewhere in Cinema 4D if required.

Interface

The falloff appears in the Falloff tab of any object in Cinema which can use falloffs, including Fields. To use it, select 'xpNoiseFalloff' from the 'Shape' drop-down menu in the Falloff tab or the 'Type' menu of a Field object. The available settings are shown here:

The falloff works by sampling the shader colour at the particle's position in the falloff's field of effect, and returns a value ranging from 0 (if the colour is black) to 1 (if the colour is white). For non-monochrome colours, the average colour brightness value is used, so for example pure red would return a falloff value of 0.33.

Parameters

In Cinema 4D R20, the Shape, Box Size and Radius parameters are not available. More flexible results can be obtained by using this falloff as a Field object together with another Field such as Box, Spherical, etc.

Shape

This drop-down has three options:

Universal

The falloff is not restricted in size but works across the entire 3D world (equivalent to choosing 'Infinite' from the 'Shape' menu).

Box

The falloff has the shape of a box. Its size can be adjusted with the drag handles in the editor, or by changing the 'Size' values in the main falloff tab.

Sphere

The falloff is spherical. Its size can be adjusted with the drag handles in the editor, or by changing the 'Size' values in the main falloff tab. Note that only the first of the 'Size' values has any effect, the others are not used.

Box Size

Only used when 'Shape' is set to 'Box'. This is the size of the falloff box.

Radius

Only used when 'Shape' is set to 'Sphere'. This is the radius of the falloff sphere.

Shader

The shader to use. You can use a bitmap if desired, but any channel shader will work. Some, of course, will produce better or more predictable results than others. You can scale a bitmap or (some) shaders by using a Layer shader with a Transform effect added.

If there is no shader in this field, the modifier will have no effect.

Note: due to a limitation in the Cinema 4D falloffs, if you use a bitmap in this falloff it MUST have an absolute path, not a relative path. If it has a relative path the falloff will consistently return a value of zero and the modifier will have no effect.

Scale

This is a scale value applied to the bitmap or shader. Note that it may not have any effect on some procedural shaders.

Invert

This switch simply inverts the colour of the bitmap or shader, so white areas are regarded as black and vice versa.