A Generator which modifies visibility.
What does it do?
it modifies the visibility of object hierarchy, without cloning or rebuilding. it executes directly on generator caches, without copying, cloning, or rebuilding.
Why?
Speed and efficiency.
Cinema 4D has 2 types of general purpose objects. Generators and modifiers.
Modifiers always clone everything they effect. They are fairly fast, but even if you do not change anything, they still have the overhead of making a copy of everything, and having to run over each copy to make or even just test for changes. This is generally not really a problem, until you have a lot of objects. (See Fragment Object)
The Trim Hierarchy is a very fast way to reveal or hide Object Hierarchy.
How?
You insert it as the parent of any generator. (i,e, fragment object, or a cloner)
It sets visibility for anything it finds inside under it. You literally just insert anything under it, and get an ultra fast way to show/hide/transition the visibility of whatever is under it. you can insert entire scenes under it. It then walks though all objects and generators and transitions them between visible and not visible.
The concept is that it does not trigger any kind of reconstruction or regeneration. This makes it ultra fast for viewport animation and rendering, for effects effects that would otherwise bring cinema4d to its knees.
It is also very easy to use. this was made specifically for the Fragment object, but it turns out to be very useful for any situation where you have many objects under a generator. Using this can then be much faster than using an effector or trying to manually do this.
Limitations
It is limited to purely revealing or hiding existing hierarchy. There is a scale transition, which could be expanded for other things, and perhaps it would be worth adding a field modifier to it. It does what it is meant to do very well.
I am open to ideas and suggestions to expand on this idea. best is to try it and be amazed at what it does, and hoq quickly and easily it can do it :)
best
Paul