TOPIC:

Hi folks, I'm new to the site and relatively new to Motion 5. I'm looking for guidance on creating a background with hexagons in different positions relative to Z axes. So it can be shown with shadows. Also, the idea is to get them to move up and down randomly (each individual). I've attached an example from the folks of Honeycomb Aeronautical from where I took the idea.

Piece of cake (the start of *so many* lies...)

Start with a Hexagon shape (Library > Shapes).
Add a Drop Shadow (start with 75% opacity, 5 blur, 15 distance, angle 315).

Create a Replicator from the Hexagon. Just for expediency, set:
Shape Rectangle — Tile Fill
Size > Width 1980
Size > Height 1728
Columns = Rows = 16
Tile Offset = 50%
Origin = Lower Left (or one of the other corners)
Build Style (start with By Column)
Select Shuffle Order (you can use Replicate Seed to randomize the patterns you'll get).
Select 3D
Set Angle to 30
Scale = 47% (after you get this set up, you can play with all these options)

———— Add a Color Solid, set the color to 97% gray and move it in the layers list Under the Replicator.

Turn the Group containing the Replicator and the Color Solid into a 3D group. Set the Color Solid Width to 3840 and Height to 2160 (actually, any sizes larger will do.)

To the Replicator:
Add a Sequence Replicator
Add Parameter Opacity
Set Sequencing to "To"
Spread 12 (you can adjust later)
Traversal to Custom
Location to 50% (adjustable and will be used to control how many Hexagons are visible).

Okay, at this point you're probably looking at this and saying to yourself: this guy's an idiot... (you'd probably be right, but let's continue...)

You will notice that a bunch of the hexagons are semi-transparent and so not what you want. So here' the trick:
Add to the Replicator a Filters > Color > Color Mixer.
To the Color Mixer:
Go down to Alpha Output and set the Alpha-Red, Alpha-Green and Alpha-Blue to 2.0.
All the semi-transparent hexagons will become opaque!

Add another Sequence Replicator.
Add Parameter > Position
Set the Position>Z parameter to about 20 to 24 (I used 22)
Set the Sequencing to "To"
Set Spread to 100
Set Traversal to Custom and the Location to 75 (this can be variable as well... just not animated.)

Select the Color Solid.
Set the Properties > Transform > Position Z to -65.
Turn the Reflection Property on.
Set Reflectivity to about 50% and Blur amount to about 40%.

This should get you in the neighborhood.

HTH

Thank you very much! I really appreciate your taking the time to explain it in such a clear and detailed way!

I was able to do something I think a little closer to what you wanted. I also do 3D in Cinema4d and was impressed I could render out a fairly decent honeycomb hexagon background with lighting and shadows in less than an hour. The only thing I could not control for was the shadows, which definitely pixellate and as far as I know there is no way to get that to be sharper.
My method was to use 3D text and get a font that had a hexagon. Then I did a similar method to what the poster above did. Added a light, turned on shadows and was pretty much done.

Would you mind sharing the method you used to get that? Thanks!

I'll just post the project and you can play around with it. It's pretty taxing on the system, so don't expect it to go very fast.

www.fonts4free.net/fnt-basic-shapes-1-font.html

this is the free site I found the font on