Taking the flocking to the next step I decided to see how I could have music control different aspects of the flocking. There is a way to link mograph effectors within Cinema 4d into xpresso. You have to use the Sample Effector.

Here is an example of the music controlling the size of the flock and the size of the blocks:


For this one, I thought I’d go for something a little less abstract, yet ad a twist with the music controlling the flocking. I wanted the fluttering of the fishes tails to be proportional to their speed. Multiple ways of solving this problem were explored, yet no result was found. In order to get the tail to go back and forth without keyframes, I used a formula effector from mograph to create some useful pulsing values to move a bend deformer back and forth.

I tried changing the formula by using a variable that was hooked up to the same sound frequencies that were driving the flocking, that way, if the fish went faster from music, the pulsing fishtail would too. That didn’t work so well because every frame would be a new formula, and the tail would not make it through a full cycle, just lots of flicking fins. The other problem with the fish tail is that they all syncronized and not individual. There isn’t a particle input on the bend deformer, so it would just tell the reference bend deformer to update, and all of the instances would update together. Because of these problems yet to solve, I moved beyond literal fish.

Finally, I have a more abstract piece, yet I think its more visually interesting. Here I’ve incorporated a different mograph effector that creates splines from a moving object. I’ve also improved some on the gravity response to the music too.