C4D add-on for ArchiCAD 13 public beta test

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Dear Archi-Talkers,

We would like to invite you to the ArchiCAD13 compatible C4D add-on beta test!

Cinema 4D add-on has been significantly rewritten for ArchiCAD 13. We provide this package as “public beta” - the estimated release date for the final version is mid-November. If you find any errors in the program, please report to C4Dsupport [at] Graphisoft [dot] com. All feedback is welcome, but please note that we can only undertake bug fixes in the ArchiCAD 13 release. This version is International English – which means that the interface is English. It does not work with Japanese ArchiCAD.

New features added (compared to ArchiCAD 12)
- Export / import configuration dialog
- Configurable element hierarchy export (Class based, Material based)
- Optimized object geometry

Installation
1. Download the Cinema 4D add-on for ArchiCAD 13 installer file on your computer.
MAC(INTEL) version
32/64 bit PC version

2. Double click the installer file to place the Cinema 4D add-on in the Cinema 4D folder inside the Add-Ons folder of your ArchiCAD 13 folder.

3. Download, uncompress and place the Cinema 4D 11/11.5 plug-in version to your CINEMA 4D Plugins folder. (Cinema 4D plugin)

Note: Scene update functionality is available in Cinema 4D R11.027 version and up.

Compatibility
The add-on is compatible with Cinema 4D 11/11.5 program versions.

Known Issues

- On Windows operating system sometimes the “Send to ArchiCAD” menu is not available in Cinema 4D if the program is initialized by the “Create new elements in Cinema 4D” or “Edit selected elements in Cinema 4D” command.
Workaround: Close Cinema 4D. The program will display the following alert: “Do you want to send the changes back to ArchiCAD before quitting?” Choose “Yes”.
- Edited elements below zero level get resized at further freeform editing
- "Create element in CINEMA 4D" works just the same as "edit selected elements in CINEMA 4D"

Limitations
Limitations at importing CINEMA 4D models into ArchiCAD by loading, merging c4d type files and by freeform modeling:

During the import process only the material and geometry data is being converted.

CINEMA 4D offers much more material setting possibilities than ArchiCAD does.
There are a large number of parameters for setting the materials’ visual behavior when affected by direct or indirect light or like glowing, transparency, etc. Some of these parameters have according material settings with exactly the same functionality in ArchiCAD, some others can be converted, but there are some that cannot be interpreted by the rendering engine of ArchiCAD, these are simply ignored.

CINEMA 4D also offers textures that are based on singular algorithms that are computed during rendering. These cannot be converted, while these algorithms are not implemented in ArchiCAD. The only textures one can convert are the bitmaps loaded from image files (jpg/png/bmp). While in CINEMA 4D textures can be applied to many kinds of settings (like luminance, transparency), ArchiCAD use textures only for determining object colors, so even the bitmap textures are ignored during the conversion when applied to non color material properties.
Beside the default material model structure there is the possibility in CINEMA 4D to create materials based on different lighting model. In these cases parameters and parameter categories are used that are not known by the converter, so these settings are ignored, and if there is not any parameter among the material’s settings that could be converted, the whole material conversion is skipped, and no material is assigned to the converted object in ArchiCAD. One should use the default material model for creating materials for conversion.

There are differences in the texture projection algorithms of ArchiCAD and CINEMA 4D, and CINEMA 4D also offers more projection methods than ArchiCAD. Those projections for that it is possible will be converted into the corresponding projections in ArchiCAD, in other cases UV mappings are computed from the projections, and these mappings are used in ArchiCAD. As UV mapping cannot be used for solid models in ArchiCAD, one should use convertible projections for objects that should take part in solid operations, and for the other situations, one should set the resulted GDL objects’ model behavior parameter to ‘Preserve textures’.

Limitations at exporting ArchiCAD models to CINEMA 4D by saving 3D view and freeform modeling:

During the export process only the 3D geometry data, materials, lights and the 3D view are being converted.

When using the ‘by Class’ option for element grouping in the CINEMA 4D Settings of the Add-on, all texture projections are converted during the export, but because of the differences in texture projections algorithms of the two programs, some projections in CINEMA 4D do not get displayed the same as in ArchiCAD. To avoid this situation, the UV mapping information should be used, which is also exported. When using the ‘by Material’ option, only the UV data is being exported, because of the object hierarchy, so this option is recommended to be used only for quick rendering tasks.