SioPio walks through using standard C4D tools to easily cheat a flocking simulation that can be used in many situations. This technique can easily create a convincing swarm or flocking simulation which is useful for animation multiple of objects, such as a school of fish, flock of birds, or swarm of insects.

In this short tutorial I show you how to use the Vibrate Tag with a Null and a Tracer Object to create a random sweeping path to clone objects using MoGraph and the Random Effector to create a super fast and easy cheat to generate a convincing swarm of bees, flock of birds, or a school of fishSioPio

Generally, if you have a few tools at your disposal and are clever, you should be able to find a solution that will suit the purpose. Probably one of the most flexible things about using a productive 3D application is using its components in novel ways.

Here SioPio poses the premise ” The client is calling and the deadline is quickly approaching! You need a bunch of random chaos and you don’t have the time to set up complicated particle simulations and dynamics calculations. What are you gonna do?! “. Clearly faking it or cheating is the answer.

SioPio walks through using the Tracer Object and the vibrate tag, and of course the MoGraph Module elements, Cloner, Random Effector, and Delay Effector to easily cheat a flocking or swarming animation in Cinema 4D.

Uwe Schweer-Lambers (otherwise known as Equiloud) showed a similar technique with the post Creating a Flock Effect Using Cinema 4D Mograph.