Which ArchiCAD API to use for Cineware and Redshift by Maxon engine to retrieve settings

[Emaa]

All the channels presented and explained in this section are found in the Surface parameter settings in ArchiCAD.

They can be accessed in Options > Element Attributes > Surfaces...

How can I retrieve the Cineware and Redshift by Maxon engine properties like Color, Fog, Glow, Grass, etc?

Operating system used: Windows 11 25H2

[Tamas Polyak]

Hi,

I've asked a developer about it.

Regards,

Tamás

[Tamas Polyak · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I've got the reply from the developer, see it below.

Regards,

Tamás

With general API you cannot access this data.

There might be a work around, using ModelerAPI, but this works with a generated model only, which can be good for example if you want to export the model into a 3D format.

Check the DumpMaterialRenderingSettings function of the ModelAccess_Test example add-on of the API DevKit (Examples\ModelAccess_Test\Src\ModelAccess_Test_Writer.cpp). This can print the C4D parameters stored for the material attributes like this:

Parameter 1 : C4D_VER_MAIN type: numeric value: 1.000000 Parameter 2 : C4D_VER_SUB type: numeric value: 8.000000 Parameter 3 : C4D_CHCOL_COLOR type: numeric array dims: 3x0 [1] value: 0.827451 [2] value: 0.784314 [3] value: 0.670588 Parameter 4 : C4D_CHCOL_MODEL type: string value: OrenNayar Parameter 5 : C4D_CHCOL_DIFFUSELEVEL type: numeric value: 1.500000 Parameter 6 : C4D_CHCOL_ROUGHNESS type: numeric value: 0.000000 Parameter 7 : C4D_CHDIF_MIXSTRENGTH type: numeric value: 0.150000 Parameter 8 : C4D_CHLUM_BRIGHTNESS type: numeric value: 0.000000 Parameter 9 : C4D_CHTRA_BRIGHTNESS type: numeric value: 0.000000 Parameter 10 : C4D_CHTRA_REFRACTION type: numeric value: 1.450000 Parameter 11 : C4D_CHTRA_FRESNELREFLECTIVITY type: numeric value: 0.000000 ...

However the mapping between the parameter names and the names displayed on the Surface Settings panel is not available here, these are part of the Cinema Rendering plugin only.