Cinema 4D (Windows) users please chime in...

Unity Engine
1

I’ve made this post so that we can help UT in any way possible by posting information about exporting objects from Cinema 4D (Windows) into Unity v2.6x.

If you’re having problems exporting animated / textured objects from C4D into windows, please list your issues and software versions.

With some luck, perhaps we can get the issues resolved so our export-import experiences will be on par with the MAC C4D users.

As a Windows user, if you have another successful art path for animated textured models into Unity, please let us know what you’re doing to help myself and any others that are having similar problems.

(Cut from a different thread to keep the focus on this issue)

Hi, I really appreciate the help you’re providing concerning this issue.

The Blender consensus was from reading various user posts here.

I’m just trying to get something successful going out of the packages I own; Softimage 2010, Lightave v9.6 / CORE and Cinema 4D XL R10.5.

I’m not sure of the release time tables, but I believe that when v2.6 was released (claiming fixed Windows support), Cinema was still at the R10.5 release.

It saddens me to hear that now only R11x is supported.

It will cost me $700+ to upgrade to R11 and I’m even sure if that covers my Mograph, Dynamics and other C4D plugins I own.

I would consider upgrading IF I hear positive experiences from Windows users using that version.

From reading your website, it claims that Cinema 4D (Windows) import is still not working (“3 Cinema4D on Windows is not yet supported for the “just hit save” capabilities.”)

So I can’t see myself spending the money to upgrade if issues are still there.

I see Softimage 2011 was just announced - It’ll be interesting to see if I receive that version before my maintenance expires in September. I had planned on letting SI go cause as a hobbyist, it’s too expensive for me to keep up with all these apps I have.

If I can get SI to work well with Unity, I’ll stick to that for now and let Cinema 4D go - as you can see I’m grasping for straws here to find anything that will work decently with Unity!
(Frankly, I’m really hoping that CORE becomes a great art path into Unity since they’re a more artist friendly company IMO…)

I’m willing to help in any way possible with the applications I have to get something going.

The other night I downloaded the Carrara 8 Pro beta (I also own Carrara 7 Pro) which has FBX export to see if that would be a viable animated / textured art path for Unity.

While way less expensive than my other 3 apps, Carrara (and DAZ Studio) has some great and unique animation features (Puppeteer and Animate+) so I wouldn’t mind using that package at all if it worked with Unity.

Cost wise, Carrara would be a great indie / hobbyist solution for Windows users if it turned out to work well with Unity.

I will try out your suggestions tonight and report back my findings.

Again, I really appreciate any time you spend on helping out here!

-Will

2

Cinema4D R11 definitely was available when Unity 2.6 came out - there was no way we could implement support for it otherwise.

Yes, it does claim that. It should state something like “Unity 2.6 (and later) support “just hit save” for Cinema 4D R11”. We’re fixing it right now. Thanks for pointing it out.

I would recommend staying with the package you know (of course it depends on how long it would take to learn a new 3d tool).

I admit that we do not support “just hit save” for Cinema R10.5 on Windows, but that shouldn’t stop you from using it - you can always do manual export to FBX - that is just one extra step. We do not support native C4D format for R11, we just do that one manual step for you - export from C4D to FBX in the background and then use FBX SDK to load the FBX file. So if there are problems in FBX exporter of Cinema 4D R10.5 they won’t disappear if we would implement “just hit save” for R10.5 in Unity. Although, as far as I know FBX support is greatly improved in R11.

Don’t get us wrong: we don’t do any discrimination for C4D: we use applications’ FBX exporter for all formats (Maya, 3dsMax, Blender and so on), see remark #1 on http://unity3d.com/unity/features/asset-importing.html

We treat all formats the same, because we want ALL our users to be happy. The quality of import depends more on how well the particular 3d tool supports FBX export.

Regards,
Paulius

3

Just to make one thing clear. Exporting out of C4D with either a Windows or Macintosh machine is not different whatsoever. They both use the same FBX exporter. What you have to understand is that there are two problems to your case. First, older version of C4D use the FBX 6 SDK which doesn’t support a lot of things and secondly there is a “converter” plugin running in the back to convert your native C4D files to Unity. So in essence, the plugin and the FBX SDK for C4D R10, 10.5 are a bit dated and will/can cause trouble in your pipeline.

This however was addressed with R11, 11.5. Maxon updated to FBX 2010.2 SDK and also, Unity updated the converter plugin that works in the background. So now that both parts have been updated things work MUCH much better so I really suggest to upgrade to R11.5 at this point. I can’t guarantee a 100% fail safe pipeline with R11.5 and Unity 2.6 but no one really can. There are always issues that need to be addressed and that’s what BUG REPORTERS are there for.

It doesn’t help to simply spread bad vibes on this forum (or any other for that matter). File a bug, be as detailed in your report as you can. Take screenshots, movies…etc. That’s the only way to fix issues.

Thomas P.

Thomas P.