OSC Xtension

OSC stands for ‘Open Sound Control’. It is a protocol for communication amongst computers and other multimedia devices. OSC was originally researched and developed at the Berkeley Center For New Music and Audio Technology. Although originating in music technology, it is now widely used to control all kinds of equipment.

The Griptools OSC Xtension opens the gates between iOS/Android/Mac/Windows apps on one side and Cinema 4D on the other.
The introduction of the smartphone type mobile devices is triggering the birth of a huge amount of apps implementing touch controllable interfaces. But also electronic devices can be designed to send OSC messages. If this data is send trough the network and if the GripTools OSC Xtension can pick it up, it will be available to create motion in the CGI world.

Read more about Camera GripTools features

Cross- or multipurpose usage

Apps now available for the Apple and Android platform range from straight linear fader control surfaces to multi dimensional controls, experimental audio, color, GPS, physics controls, etc.
You can use a straight fader app for easy control of a number of parameters or you can give the more intuitive, sensory events a chance by transporting music, color, noise and haphazard events to the world of CGI. Why not use brainwave detection?

You can use an app designed for a specific purpose to generate interesting motion. Or use that Arduino/Phidgets electronics project to move virtual things. This cross purposing is very interesting. The GripTools “CustomMode” is a great help to assign the motion to virtual properties.

Touch screen resolution

The resolution of a touch screen is not infinite, but approximately equal to the screen res. If the max fader path is say, 500 pixels long, there will be send no more than 500 steps in value change over the full length. If you apply this value to the Z position of an object, that should move 20,000 units in the virtual world, it will step with 20,000 / 500 = 40 units per fader value change. This will cause visible jagged, jumping motion. In this case you can use the GripTools filter to smoothen the motion. It’s called anti-aliasing. GripTools has an independent filter for every axis available.

Wired and Wireless

You can connect the OSC Xtension Wireless via WiFi or Wired via UTP cable as long as the sender uses UDP. You can even use your own special build Arduino, Phidget  or similar projects!

Your findings are important

If you have written or discovered a great and useful app capable of sending OSC, please let us know. We will try to maintain a list of apps on our website.
Links to your  projects or your video’s are welcome.

About the demo video

This little video demos the use of the OSC Xtension with several apps on an iPad controlling objects in a C4D scene.

TouchOSC
We use TouchOSC in the fader mode, controlling the GripTools crane model.
This app offers a huge amount of controllers and the usage is straightforward and very easy.

OSC Physics
Martin Jaroszewicz is a composer/developer/educator. OSC Physics is a very nice app to manipulate shapes, color, transformations, interaction, or whatever, in a intuitive way.

Musix
This app is originally intended to make music. We think that the hexagon layout not only allows the discovery of new musical relations, but is also very useful to create intuitive motion. It’s interface type is called ‘isomorphic’. See the website to discover what this means!

DeepFrames
This is our own application. It’s currently proprietary, for internal use and not for sale.
We wrote this Windows application to experiment with the new depth controller type(s). We adapted it for OSC messages and you can see some of the results with a Kinect.
Asus launched a depth sensor controller too with a higher resolution.
The depth data of this type of controllers is stored in large pixel arrays.  To retrieve useful data, like skeletons, extensive software processing is performed. This puts a heavy load on the processor running the sensor driver. There will be not a lot of CPU power remaining to run a complex 3D design application in realtime. That’s why the GripTools OSC Xtension is especially very useful in working with these controllers,  because it enables you to run the sensor on one and the 3D app on another workstation. Using OSC to transfer the sensor data minimizes the extra load on the Graphics workstation. The OSC Xtension can detect and send 64 axes to CINEMA 4D via the GripTools system, so that is enough to send skeleton joints (20x3). It is not only possible to animate just skeletons, but it should be possible to use your arm to wave a flower in the wind. No doubt there  will be new and interesting applications for these type of controllers. To be complete: we used a Kinect to control the joints, our iXplorer to control the puppet’s head and a joystick to blink the eyes. 

Simplified  OSC data type set. The supported OSC data types:
32 bit integer
32 bit float

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and up
Works with C4D in both 32 and 64 bit mode (Universal Binary)

Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / 7
Works with C4D in 32 bit mode only (does run in both Win 32/64bit

Network connection
OSC-Sender application compatible with the OSC Xtension

R12, R13, R14