C4D Import with Editable Materials

[kittonian]

Working in AC21 and when I merge in a model I created in C4D, no matter if I have polygon selections, or set C4D materials, AC creates the GDL object with those material settings hard coded and I have no option to select surfaces in AC.

I can use C4D to create the materials and have them hard coded upon import (which is what I've been doing), but there are often times where I need to change a surface.

Is it possible to create a model in C4D and have it create the GDL object with the ability to select the surfaces in the settings of that new object? I am not interested in turning it into a morph and manually selecting the polygons in AC in order to assign a surface. That would take forever.

[kittonian]

The only solution I've found so far is to manually edit the 3D script of the object, take out all the predefined materials that came through from Cinema, and add a few material variables to the parameter section.

Btw, a heads up to anyone creating objects in C4D and importing them, remember that for every object in Cinema that uses the same material, run a connect and delete so that they appear to AC as a single polygonal object. Otherwise, you'll get tons of the same materials being created.

I would love to hear from anyone else who has a better solution as this is really cumbersome.

[Fran_ois Chatelain]

Hi kittonian,
a looooong time ago there used to be an add-on for AC 9-10 called MaxonForm that would do exactly what you're asking for.
You could import several file formats, edit them with pretty much all of C4D modelling tools available at the time, and then convert them to editable (in terms of materials) AC objects. You could also create new objects from scratch.
If you ask me, it was the best addition to AC of all times.
Unfortunately it has never been updated for subsequent versions of AC, even though Nemetschek has acquired Graphisoft. A real pity.
I still have a legacy mac running 10.6.8 (last version with Rosetta) and AC 9 just to be able to use MaxonForm.
I know that doesn't help you that much, but every now and then I try to bring MF back in the discussions hoping that someone would be brave enough to revive it 😉
Cheers
Francois

[kittonian]

Thanks Francois. I have heard of MaxonForm, but never tried it myself.

I think it's a little ridiculous that creating an object in Cinema and bringing it into AC is so limiting, considering how tightly integrated Graphisoft is with Maxon. You would think Maxon would have a vested interest in ensuring that it's as flexible as possible to use their software in conjunction with AC, and vice versa. It only serves to sell more copies and further gain new customers who may use one platform or the other right now, but haven't experienced the synergy of using them together.

[Steve Jepson]

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