Manual Reference Objects Modelling Objects
Metaball Object
Metaball Object
Think of the Metaball object (Objects > Modeling submenu) as an elastic skin that can be stretched over spheres, splines and points. The skin becomes active the moment you make such an object a child of the metaball object. If you move any of the child objects, the skin — called the hull — updates in realtime.
You can use parametric spheres, splines (all types) or polygon objects with the Metaball object. In the case of polygon objects, each point is interpreted as a sphere.
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| Polygon cube with 3x3x3 segments in a Metaball Object. |
Splines have a special feature — you may use a second spline to control the hull’s thickness. This second spline must be a child of the first spline and also must be of the same type (you might want to copy the first spline).
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| The original circles. |
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| The circles in the metaball object. |
You can use a particle emitter with a metaball object.
Metaball Tag
You can assign a metaball tag to child objects of the metaball for further control. In the Object manager, select the child object that you want to fine-tune and choose Tags > CINEMA 4D Tags > Metaball.
The tag is added to the object and the tag’s settings are displayed in the Attribute manager.
Negative Influence
Normally, objects attract the metaball hull and make it expand. However, if you activate this option, the object will repel the hull instead and cause it to shrink.
Strength
You can use Strength to define how strongly the object affects the hull relative to the other objects.
Radius
This value determines the radius used by the object to affect the hull.
The Radius parameter has no effect on metaball spheres.