Twinmotion Direct Link Resets Amended Materials

[Anonymous]

After spend hours amending the materials in my Twinmotion file I noticed one of my garden meshes was set at the wrong height which was obviously a problem in my original ArchiCAD model. I have amended this in ArchiCAD and need to up date the Direct Link however when I choose to update the direct link it resets most of the amended materials in my Twinmotion file to white however it has kept the added objects (cars, plants, grass etc).

Is there a way of updating my ArchiCAD model and subsequent Twinmotion file without having all the amended materials reset to white as this is going to take hours should I have to reenter everything again ?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Thomas Holm]

This is a Twinmotion bug. It’s supposed to be fixed in this week’s release of 2021.1.3.
https://twinmotionhelp.epicgames.com/s/article/Twinmotion-2021-1-3-Release-Notes?language=en_US
If not, report it to epic.

[Carstenem]

you can try to export as twinmotionfbx and when importing into same file (make a copy first) it should ask you if you like to use the scene materials or imported materials. Choose scene materials. I have not tried this myself but it could work. If it works you can easy update the fbx again and again if needed.

[Anonymous]

Carstenem wrote:
you can try to export as twinmotionfbx and when importing into same file (make a copy first) it should ask you if you like to use the scene materials or imported materials. Choose scene materials. I have not tried this myself but it could work. If it works you can easy update the fbx again and again if needed.

Apologies Carstenem I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Export the twinmotionfbx from Twinmotion or from the amended Archicad file and import it back into the Twinmotion file ?

[Carstenem]

No export a Twinmotionfbx file from Archicad. Open your Twinmotion problem file and import that new fbx. When prompted tell Twinmotion to use materials from the scene file. It probably won't work but worth a try. If you lucky it will apply the scene materials to your imported fbx geometry as they will have the same name.

[Emre Senoglu]

The method Carsten suggests should be an okay workaround for now. I've 'beta tested' the new plugin, and the problem is solved there. So the next version should fix this.

[Carstenem]

Thanks Emre for the feedback in regards to the plug in, let's hope it does fix it.

[Emre Senoglu]

copying this from a post on TM forum:

"Hello Robert,

The best way is to use our plugin currently in preview and either use the direct-link workflow or importing the content from a udatasmith file.

Here is the link to the datasmith plugin: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/datasmith/plugins

Example workflow with using Revit but the plugin works the same in Archicad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjBEUkYWUuc

The materials needs to be assigned something in Archicad then you can adjust and improve the quality in Twinmotion or replace them in Twinmotion as needed.

The changes in Twinmotion will not go back to Archicad so if you change the material in Twinmotion than need to match the material in Archicad, this will have to manually be done in Archicad. I recommend saving those different material you create in Twinmotion in your user library folder so you can apply them quickly when updating the model.

Kind regards,
Vincent B."

[Carstenem]

Thanks Emre for the update.

I just installed it and gave it a go and it looks like so far it works well. Instead of the twinmotion2020fbx export option you have in AC25 now a datasmith export option. This export you can import just like a fbx.

If you like to use the direct link this works now too again, just make sure you choose the right TM version see image below.

CORRECTION! The image below is for AC24 not 25. In AC25 you need to use the datasmith option.

Cheers Carsten