EN
b_lutz wrote:Thats OK Bernd .. we would much rather you working on the plugin fix than talking about it too
Thank you for all of your input.
I am a bit bussy at the moment. That is the reason why I don't answer directly to your posts. But I collect all of your input, it wont get lost.
Chao
Bernd
(sorry smart-arse Aussie humor)
Do keep us up to date with any developments when you can
owen wrote:Talking and reading about the needs of our customers is exactly my part of the work. If you prefer that I code and our developers talk, then this is OK for me, but not sure if you would be happy with my code.b_lutz wrote:Thats OK Bernd .. we would much rather you working on the plugin fix than talking about it too
Thank you for all of your input.
I am a bit bussy at the moment. That is the reason why I don't answer directly to your posts. But I collect all of your input, it wont get lost.
Chao
Bernd
Chao
Bernd
hehe .. pointy German humor beats slack Aussie humor again. You would think i would have learned by now 
Firstly thank you to the Graphisoft and Maxon people who have spoken up in this thread. It is indeed good to know that you are prepared to take on board the views of those who use your products.
I hope this post isn't too long - there is a bit to say you see.
I mainly do Architectural stills for residential projects (some commercial). I find that the ArchiCAD model will typically change 5-6 times in a project. I do renderings for almost every job as the easy updating ability of the ArchiCAD exchange add-on makes it extremely quick to do, so very little time is taken up by rendering. Because I use a template (described below) I can justify doing renderings for even the simplest alteration. I don’t do many animations and any I do are camera animation only.
I always export the .ac4d file from ArchiCAD11 using the “by material” option because this creates 1 polygon for each material (unlike the new exporter for ArchiCAD12).
For rendering I gave up on AR2 and used Final Render for some time. Since C4D11 came out I have been using AR3 which is infinitely better than AR2 and more stable (and other things) than FR.
Others have talked here about what they would like to see in a new, improved C4d exporter from ArchiCAD. For me the main thing is ensuring that the really useful features of the current (ArchiCAD 11) version are not lost.
C4D Template
I use a C4D template which contains a dummy building with correctly mapped cinema materials applied, lights, cameras, render settings, layers etc all set up the way I like it. I simply save the .ac4d file from ArchiCAD and merge it into the template, choosing to replace the dummy building. Cameras and lights are then just moved into position. It can take a bit of time to set up a template but once it’s done – it’s done for good (although it might need the odd tweak now and then).
Test Rendering
I might spend some time isolating elements 1 or 2 at a time doing test renders and checking the mapping etc. When there is only 1 poly per material and the object manager hierarchy being relatively simple it is quick and easy to turn on the visibility of one element only (concrete elements for eg). This could be done using layers with the new exporter but it would take much longer to set up.
Mapping materials
I generally only need to re-map once – at the first ac4d import into cinema. Using the texture axis mode I might increase the mapping size or alter rotation (this can’t be done using by scaling the texture tag). Note that using the texture axis mode you can work on only 1 tag at a time – hopeless when there are hundreds of polys with that texture applied.
Updating the model
The model needs to be updatable (as everyone else has said). Currently it takes about 6 clicks (not counting finding the file). That’s all. You might need to reverse some normals but everything will be as before (including the material mapping) except the model geometry has been updated. In fact the longest part of the process is probably in finding the file.
Baking for animation etc
I have recently looked into baking a bit more seriously than before. Baking GI and lighting onto poly’s takes time initially but saves time later in rendering animations (no lights or GI to calculate, no GI flicker either). With the ac4d approach (ArchiCAD11) it is easy because you are baking maybe a dozen or so objects. With the new exporter there are hundreds/thousands of objects. The only way to do it, I think, would be to select the materials you want to bake, choose “select texture tags/objects” then bake those objects. The problem is that in the hierarchy produced by the new exporter there are nulls with materials applied containing more nulls containing multiple poly’s with multiple textures applied so you end up baking things twice or more – not really workable.
I’m actually more interested in baking objects/materials for export to other applications such as a game engine (which is probably a long long way off) or to 3D pdf (which I haven’t quite mastered yet). The easy bakability is a feature I really want to keep.
Bodypaint
Similarly it is easiest to paint textures onto geometry when there is one material applied to one poly. Trying to UV map 1 material onto 85 poly’s sounds like a nightmare. I don’t bodypaint very much to be honest because it’s seldom needed but I will often look for an opportunity to use it on arch models (because it’s satisfying to do) and would hate to be prevented from doing that by the structure of the new exporters model hierarchy.
Projection man (C4D11 only)
Never tried it but someone might do one day. Like bodypaint I imagine it would be quite tricky projecting onto multiple poly’s
Archicad lights, camera, materials
I can’t imagine a scenario where I would want to use the ArchiCAD sun, camera or textures. Given that I use a Cinema template already containing those elements – the first thing I’d do is delete the ArchiCAD ones (waste of time).
Editing poly’s
Sometimes I will further edit the model geometry in cinema after the export – say to chamfer the edges of paving so it looks less CG-like. When the model needs updating I can make a copy of that paving and locate it outside of the @OS:Windows hierarchy (the name given to the null containing the ArchiCAD stuff) to save me having to do it again (unless the paving is itself changed meaning the edges will have to be re-done). Needless to say this is quickest when there is only one poly to deal with.
Poly normals
One problem with the ac4d file is that it creates geometry with normals reversed (as described in other posts). This isn’t always a problem but can be with glass (as others have said) and when editing the poly’s (say chamfering corners). The new exporter does create geometry with correct normals.
Object buffer
I will sometimes use object buffers (in multipass rendering) to create a mask for, lets say, the window joinery or anything else I might want to change the colour of in photoshop later for example. It goes without saying that I want to be dealing with a single object (poly) only.
Multiple AC4D imports – Xref’s (C4D11 only)
My C4D scenes will often contain several ac4d imports. At its simplest I might export the house structure separate to the furniture. This just makes it easier to handle within cinema.
If there are several buildings in the scene they will come from separate ArchiCAD files so separate imports are inevitable.
I have been using Xrefs in cinema11 which are great (sorry folks if you are on 10.5 or earlier). Having 1 master cinema scene with a separate file for each building model makes dealing with materials especially so much easier. For one thing I can have 5 buildings in a scene, each one has materials with exactly the same names (the ArchiCAD names) but because they are xrefs and not actually in the main scene file those materials can in fact be different. Try importing 5 ArchiCAD buildings with the same mat names into 1 file in cinema 10 – you’ll have 5 bldgs with the same materials.
I mention this because there has been some talk about bidirectional hotlinking. If this was to be made workable I personally would not want it to be at the expense of losing the ability to do the above things.
Maybe If each separate ArchiCAD import within the Cinema file was referenced to a viewset within the ArchiCAD file it might work but – Gee that sounds tricky. And how would xrefs affect it?
Summary
In summary my preference is for the functionality of the old ArchiCAD11 ac4d exporter to be present in the ArchiCAD12 exporter. I am all for further developing the connection between ArchiCAD and Cinema4D but it needs to be done in a managed way so that old, good functionality is not lost and new functionality is actually useful.
There were only a few small things wrong with the old version, I can’t understand why someone thought it was a good idea to discontinue it while the new one was being made.
Cheers
Steve
I hope this post isn't too long - there is a bit to say you see.
I mainly do Architectural stills for residential projects (some commercial). I find that the ArchiCAD model will typically change 5-6 times in a project. I do renderings for almost every job as the easy updating ability of the ArchiCAD exchange add-on makes it extremely quick to do, so very little time is taken up by rendering. Because I use a template (described below) I can justify doing renderings for even the simplest alteration. I don’t do many animations and any I do are camera animation only.
I always export the .ac4d file from ArchiCAD11 using the “by material” option because this creates 1 polygon for each material (unlike the new exporter for ArchiCAD12).
For rendering I gave up on AR2 and used Final Render for some time. Since C4D11 came out I have been using AR3 which is infinitely better than AR2 and more stable (and other things) than FR.
Others have talked here about what they would like to see in a new, improved C4d exporter from ArchiCAD. For me the main thing is ensuring that the really useful features of the current (ArchiCAD 11) version are not lost.
C4D Template
I use a C4D template which contains a dummy building with correctly mapped cinema materials applied, lights, cameras, render settings, layers etc all set up the way I like it. I simply save the .ac4d file from ArchiCAD and merge it into the template, choosing to replace the dummy building. Cameras and lights are then just moved into position. It can take a bit of time to set up a template but once it’s done – it’s done for good (although it might need the odd tweak now and then).
Test Rendering
I might spend some time isolating elements 1 or 2 at a time doing test renders and checking the mapping etc. When there is only 1 poly per material and the object manager hierarchy being relatively simple it is quick and easy to turn on the visibility of one element only (concrete elements for eg). This could be done using layers with the new exporter but it would take much longer to set up.
Mapping materials
I generally only need to re-map once – at the first ac4d import into cinema. Using the texture axis mode I might increase the mapping size or alter rotation (this can’t be done using by scaling the texture tag). Note that using the texture axis mode you can work on only 1 tag at a time – hopeless when there are hundreds of polys with that texture applied.
Updating the model
The model needs to be updatable (as everyone else has said). Currently it takes about 6 clicks (not counting finding the file). That’s all. You might need to reverse some normals but everything will be as before (including the material mapping) except the model geometry has been updated. In fact the longest part of the process is probably in finding the file.
Baking for animation etc
I have recently looked into baking a bit more seriously than before. Baking GI and lighting onto poly’s takes time initially but saves time later in rendering animations (no lights or GI to calculate, no GI flicker either). With the ac4d approach (ArchiCAD11) it is easy because you are baking maybe a dozen or so objects. With the new exporter there are hundreds/thousands of objects. The only way to do it, I think, would be to select the materials you want to bake, choose “select texture tags/objects” then bake those objects. The problem is that in the hierarchy produced by the new exporter there are nulls with materials applied containing more nulls containing multiple poly’s with multiple textures applied so you end up baking things twice or more – not really workable.
I’m actually more interested in baking objects/materials for export to other applications such as a game engine (which is probably a long long way off) or to 3D pdf (which I haven’t quite mastered yet). The easy bakability is a feature I really want to keep.
Bodypaint
Similarly it is easiest to paint textures onto geometry when there is one material applied to one poly. Trying to UV map 1 material onto 85 poly’s sounds like a nightmare. I don’t bodypaint very much to be honest because it’s seldom needed but I will often look for an opportunity to use it on arch models (because it’s satisfying to do) and would hate to be prevented from doing that by the structure of the new exporters model hierarchy.
Projection man (C4D11 only)
Never tried it but someone might do one day. Like bodypaint I imagine it would be quite tricky projecting onto multiple poly’s
Archicad lights, camera, materials
I can’t imagine a scenario where I would want to use the ArchiCAD sun, camera or textures. Given that I use a Cinema template already containing those elements – the first thing I’d do is delete the ArchiCAD ones (waste of time).
Editing poly’s
Sometimes I will further edit the model geometry in cinema after the export – say to chamfer the edges of paving so it looks less CG-like. When the model needs updating I can make a copy of that paving and locate it outside of the @OS:Windows hierarchy (the name given to the null containing the ArchiCAD stuff) to save me having to do it again (unless the paving is itself changed meaning the edges will have to be re-done). Needless to say this is quickest when there is only one poly to deal with.
Poly normals
One problem with the ac4d file is that it creates geometry with normals reversed (as described in other posts). This isn’t always a problem but can be with glass (as others have said) and when editing the poly’s (say chamfering corners). The new exporter does create geometry with correct normals.
Object buffer
I will sometimes use object buffers (in multipass rendering) to create a mask for, lets say, the window joinery or anything else I might want to change the colour of in photoshop later for example. It goes without saying that I want to be dealing with a single object (poly) only.
Multiple AC4D imports – Xref’s (C4D11 only)
My C4D scenes will often contain several ac4d imports. At its simplest I might export the house structure separate to the furniture. This just makes it easier to handle within cinema.
If there are several buildings in the scene they will come from separate ArchiCAD files so separate imports are inevitable.
I have been using Xrefs in cinema11 which are great (sorry folks if you are on 10.5 or earlier). Having 1 master cinema scene with a separate file for each building model makes dealing with materials especially so much easier. For one thing I can have 5 buildings in a scene, each one has materials with exactly the same names (the ArchiCAD names) but because they are xrefs and not actually in the main scene file those materials can in fact be different. Try importing 5 ArchiCAD buildings with the same mat names into 1 file in cinema 10 – you’ll have 5 bldgs with the same materials.
I mention this because there has been some talk about bidirectional hotlinking. If this was to be made workable I personally would not want it to be at the expense of losing the ability to do the above things.
Maybe If each separate ArchiCAD import within the Cinema file was referenced to a viewset within the ArchiCAD file it might work but – Gee that sounds tricky. And how would xrefs affect it?
Summary
In summary my preference is for the functionality of the old ArchiCAD11 ac4d exporter to be present in the ArchiCAD12 exporter. I am all for further developing the connection between ArchiCAD and Cinema4D but it needs to be done in a managed way so that old, good functionality is not lost and new functionality is actually useful.
There were only a few small things wrong with the old version, I can’t understand why someone thought it was a good idea to discontinue it while the new one was being made.
Cheers
Steve
Still looking?
