exporting to c4d

[Anonymous]

I think that I've tried just about all the various options and so far find the OBJ format to work the best. However, when I export by materials, which makes sense, ALL the AC geometry of that material comes in as ONE single polygon object in C4D. This is a major, major pain as there is no easy way to split all the polygons like the explode command in autocad...you have to do it polygon by polygon. What I would really like to see in the file transfer is all the polys of one material to come in under a single null object in C4D so that each part is easily accessed amd edited in C4D and yet comes in already "sorted" by material under the null object. This would save a lot of time. By the way, that is the way FormZ objects come in, except I used to do it by layers, but same concept.

Have I missed an option here somewhere that might work better? I did try the AC to C4D exchange plugin...and offhand can not remember the results as far as how the geometry came in.

[Wokka]

adeel,
Usually we do it incrementally throughout the job. We are not just a 'architecural renders' and work with the designers from start to finish. Often starting the mass modelling with Archicad Sketch render/vray combination all the way through to the final photorealistic render. These renders are often used for colour and material selections, so flexibility at the final render stage is important. Thats why we use the exchange plugin (and also why we still us R11 because it still isn't updated ). Right to the very end we can update the archicad model and just re-render the base image and plug it into the photoshop montage or setup.
Does anyone know if the exchange plugin is progressing or when it's update is due?

[Anonymous]

Wokka wrote:
These renders are often used for colour and material selections, so flexibility at the final render stage is important.

Yeah, I'm more or less in the same boat, doing interior design work on the project. But I'm guessing you do all the material assignments/creation/property in ArchiCAD and just have it transferred over, rather than re-assigning materials in C4D to all your elements?

From my understanding of Maxwell, the real power of the engine lies in the level of detail of their materials, so is it possible to use their materials as ArchiCAD materials?

[Anonymous]

When using Maxwell Render plugin for Archicad, I first select and/or make my own Maxwell MXM materials, then simply assign those in Archicad...very easy and quick...except the render time of course. That is where VRay has such a huge advantage over Maxwell (much faster), maybe not quite the quality of Maxwell, but that little difference only a few of us who are very visually oriented would only perceive. I've had issues with UVW mapping in Archicad that limited what I could do with displacement, so have gotten away from doing any renders from inside Archicad....but then I/we have not needed "progress" renders, only final renders.

I've not tried Maxwell using the Lightworks materials...does not make sense to me to use one of the very best render engines but not use the system components (like the Maxwell materials) that allow the render engine to produce those fantastic images.

[Anonymous]

Much thanks Josephus
Your explanations cleared some things up for me I just wasn't getting.
Bier

[Anonymous]

Josephus wrote:
When using Maxwell Render plugin for Archicad, I first select and/or make my own Maxwell MXM materials, then simply assign those in Archicad...

Interesting, I never noticed the option to load/assign MXM materials inside of ArchiCAD. I wonder if there's a way to batch create the ArchiCAD materials from the MXM library that is freely available.

The way I have been working was to export the model from ArchiCAD to C4D, and then re-assign the materials to all the objects inside C4D. So any model updates in ArchiCAD would result in having to re-assign all the materials again, which as you can guess became extremely annoying and cumbersome.

Thanks for the tip though, definitely cleared up some things for me

[Wokka]

Just to ley you guys know.
The R12 version of C4D plugin was released over the weekend.

[Wokka]

I take it all back.
I just tried the 'new' plugin and I really don't get it.
There is a discussion on the VrayforC4D site about import/export methods for rendering in C4D/Vray.
http://vrayforc4d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=35583#35583
I mentioned how happy I was with the previous plugin (R11) and I was looking forward to the new plugin. I was quiet surprised when someone beat me to it by testing the new plugin. The relevant points are:
1: It doesn't update the previous model anymore. Just adds more geometry AND new texture files that are totally unusable. Any work you do on the original model before changes (and there will be changes) will be lost if you want to use the new model. You will now need to stuff around with all the materials.
2: There tree structure is completely overly complex. Most elements are buried 5-6 layers deep.
I don't know what the line of reasoning was for this plugin, but I don't think anyone spoke to the people that use it. It looks like they took the old Maxonform and tried to re-work it with R12. It was pretty obvious by Maxonforms poor takeup that architectural visualiser or modellers, really don't care a lot about being able to manipulate ArchiCad models in C4D and re-inserting them back into ArchiCad with 5 gazillion polygons.
Has anyone else tried the plugin?
Please tell me I'm wrong and there's a little button called 'use old reliable method to export' that I just didn't see.
This just does not work, so in the meantime it's back to R11 or obj export.

[Eduardo Rolon]

This is not the exchange plug-in
This is the substitute for Maxonform

They don't work the same. The Exchange plugin is produced by Maxon and they still list AC11.

[Wokka]

I hope you're right! The wording and description is pretty ambiquous and it was located on the same page as a previous update. I'll have to hassle Maxon to see if the 'exchange' plugin is available 'soon'.
Have you got a link to the relevant Maxon page, I can't find it on their site?
Cheers

[Eduardo Rolon]

Here's the link

http://www.maxon.net/pages/download/plugins_e.html

When I asked last year for AC11's the only reply I got was that they were working on it. If you see the date of release for AC11's it might be February before we see it, 3-4 months after Maxon releases their C4D update.