Collaboration with other software
About model and data exchange with 3rd party solutions: Revit, Solibri, dRofus, Bluebeam, structural analysis solutions, and IFC, BCF and DXF/DWG-based exchange, etc.

exporting to c4d

Anonymous
Not applicable
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.
151 REPLIES 151
Anonymous
Not applicable
I tried it and used the "old" way for the update. I saved the scene from 3D view in ArchiCAD (save as C4D) opened in C4D and setup the lights and materials. Later I modified the ArchiCAD model and saved a C4D file again. Then I used the merge function in C4D. All model modification applied in the scene! Although the work flow is now complete, the known problems are still exists.

Cheers
owen
Newcomer
so sounds like it works the same as the old pre-AC12/C4D11 exchange plugin - the difference being the data structure in C4D.

Graphisoft/Maxon (i assume you are still paying some attention to THE forum for discussion of this plugin) .... can you let us know:

1. Why it is not possible to get this plugin to work for R10.5 users - there are a lot of them who see no need to upgrade to R11. You said earlier the C4D API change ('Melange') that prompted this issue had actually occured back in R10.5 and not R11 so what exactly is the problem again? Note the 'old' way still works for AC12/R10.5 as the great work by two of your users recently has shown.

2. Now you have the model exchange mostly sorted, why can you not give us a few options for how we want the AC data structured at the C4D end - e.g by Layer, Material, Element Type, etc .... flexibility! I could see some use for the current structure IF you planned on doing extensive modifications to the model in Cinema .. but for general rendering use the extremely deep data tree we get now is a complete PITA

Seriously just try using this plugin as it stands for rendering and tell me it could not be improved by doing the above?

cheers,

os
cheers,

Owen Sharp

Design Technology Manager
fjmt | francis-jones morehen thorp

iMac 27" i7 2.93Ghz | 32GB RAM | OS 10.10 | Since AC5
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hello Owen,
thanks for your feedback.
owen wrote:
so sounds like it works the same as the old pre-AC12/C4D11 exchange plugin - the difference being the data structure in C4D.

Graphisoft/Maxon (i assume you are still paying some attention to THE forum for discussion of this plugin) .... can you let us know:
Yes, we do still pay some attention for THE forum.
owen wrote:
1. Why it is not possible to get this plugin to work for R10.5 users - there are a lot of them who see no need to upgrade to R11. You said earlier the C4D API change ('Melange') that prompted this issue had actually occured back in R10.5 and not R11 so what exactly is the problem again? Note the 'old' way still works for AC12/R10.5 as the great work by two of your users recently has shown.
There are several factors needed to make that update work. One is Melange, which enables ArchiCAd to read and write CINEMA 4D files. Those files also can be read by older versions of CINEMA 4D, but it might happen that some parts of a file can't be read by older versions, e.g. new features that were introduced in newer version. The other are internal CINEMA 4D routines, doing the actual update. Those routines could only be build into release R11. This is also the reason why the new update functionality only works with CINEMA 4D R11.027.
owen wrote:
2. Now you have the model exchange mostly sorted, why can you not give us a few options for how we want the AC data structured at the C4D end - e.g by Layer, Material, Element Type, etc .... flexibility! I could see some use for the current structure IF you planned on doing extensive modifications to the model in Cinema .. but for general rendering use the extremely deep data tree we get now is a complete PITA
We are currently working on improving the structure of the CINEMA 4D scene, based on the input of this forum and other sources we've got information from. I am in direct contact with product management and development at Graphisoft to enhance the quality of the exchange.

Greetings
Bernd Lutz
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hello Bernd,

Thanx for reading this topic.

Sadly, as I know the behaviour of Graphisoft, we will use the ArchiCad version 14 or 15, when their plugin could be used satisfactory in render mode.
For them, the new output was important only in modelling, to use it instead of the MaxonForm. IMHO there are still a lot of possibilities in the old exchange plugin, it could be developed: e.g. UVW mapping, polygon optimizing etc...
I would like to develop the plugin in render mode. It is quite simple in the ArchiCad part, but I started to write the Cinema plugin, and it is very difficult. I would like to ask You, that it seems Maxon don’t want to continue to develop the old plugin, is that possible to get the source code of the old exchange plugin? Or at least get the sourcecode of the core of one import plugin (e.g. wavefront object import)? Only a few examples can be found in the Cinema SDK. It would be a great help in my work, and I only would like to help those architects, who use Cinema for rendering.

Best regards,
Dinnye
Anonymous
Not applicable
I would like to know with some certainty that this ArchiCad/C4D connection will be supported and not dropped at some point. If that is the case I will probably continue rendering in Artlantis for now, but new (freeform) modeling would be done in C4D.
Not applicable
We will definitely support the data exchange between the two programs in the future. As Berndt wrote earlier, we (Maxon and Graphisoft) are actively working on improving the scene hierarchy and work-flow based on the feedback we receive on this forum and from our partners.
outpostarc wrote:
I would like to know with some certainty that this ArchiCad/C4D connection will be supported and not dropped at some point. If that is the case I will probably continue rendering in Artlantis for now, but new (freeform) modeling would be done in C4D.
Anonymous
Not applicable
PeterKis wrote:
We will definitely support the data exchange between the two programs in the future. As Berndt wrote earlier, we (Maxon and Graphisoft) are actively working on improving the scene hierarchy and work-flow based on the feedback we receive on this forum and from our partners.

only sometimes missed almost a full version
-June 16, 2008 ArchiCAD 12
-June 23, 2009 ArchiCAD 12 Connected with CINEMA 4D’s
Anonymous
Not applicable
PeterKis wrote:
We will definitely support the data exchange between the two programs in the future. As Berndt wrote earlier, we (Maxon and Graphisoft) are actively working on improving the scene hierarchy and work-flow based on the feedback we receive on this forum and from our partners.
outpostarc wrote:
I would like to know with some certainty that this ArchiCad/C4D connection will be supported and not dropped at some point. If that is the case I will probably continue rendering in Artlantis for now, but new (freeform) modeling would be done in C4D.
I downloaded the trial version of C4D and am unable to try out the connection with archicad because the trial is not the latest version. Is there a way?
Anonymous
Not applicable
outpostarc wrote:
PeterKis wrote:
We will definitely support the data exchange between the two programs in the future. As Berndt wrote earlier, we (Maxon and Graphisoft) are actively working on improving the scene hierarchy and work-flow based on the feedback we receive on this forum and from our partners.
outpostarc wrote:
I would like to know with some certainty that this ArchiCad/C4D connection will be supported and not dropped at some point. If that is the case I will probably continue rendering in Artlantis for now, but new (freeform) modeling would be done in C4D.


I downloaded the trial version of C4D and am unable to try out the connection with archicad because the trial is not the latest version. Is there a way?


If I remember right, it's possible to update the trial version too

(sorry for my very bad english)
Not applicable
ciciolo wrote:
outpostarc wrote:
PeterKis wrote:
We will definitely support the data exchange between the two programs in the future. As Berndt wrote earlier, we (Maxon and Graphisoft) are actively working on improving the scene hierarchy and work-flow based on the feedback we receive on this forum and from our partners.


I downloaded the trial version of C4D and am unable to try out the connection with archicad because the trial is not the latest version. Is there a way?


If I remember right, it's possible to update the trial version too

(sorry for my very bad english)
There is no update possibility for the demo C4D version >> It is not possible to try out the ACMerge functionality.