3ds max migration to Cinema 4D

[Guest calumreid]

Have any of you migrated from max to cinema 4D? Care to share any details on the pains and tribulations? Use Vray at the moment in max so that will carry over to Vray for cinema 4D. Any issues with having to work with prior max scenes in cinema 4D? Does it take much effort to convert a scene from max to 4D? Basically looking for a migration guide! Cheers.

[lansd]

Hello Calum

 

I had seen your posting but waited a bit to see if anyone would first post their own comments. I'll chime in with some indirect info, although it may not completely cross over with what you are doing.

 

First, as technology that very few people are aware of, we have been the first and primary provider of all the high-end conversion software used by 3ds Max and Cinema-4D users for most of 20 years. All of Maxon's conversion software has been provided by us since those early years. Without going into specifics, our primary work has been to write the main conversion system between 3ds Max and Cinema-4D. The conversion process occurs entirely inside of 3ds Max and uses no intermediate file formats (which are always lossy when dealing with the the free converters which come with MAX and C4D). Hence, for those looking to make a clearn translation from MAX to C4D, that can be done accurately with PolyTrans-for-Cinema-4D, that runs natively inside of 3ds Max. The resulting files are loaded into C4D as .c4d files.

 

As for V-Ray, we have decades of experience with that + MentalRay. The basic concept is that 3ds Max works on the concept of "black boxes" and zero program functionality. It was an entirely new concept to the 3D graphics world back in 1993 when MAX came to market. Quite revolutionary at the time. Hence, all shaders are "black boxes" that, for the most part, cannot be peered into by any external plug-in used within 3ds Max. So, as my two cents of indirect comments to your questions, (1) if you want to convert over the V-Ray parameters then you'd need to do it relative to V-Ray itself and using a .vrscene file exported from 3ds Max and then loaded into Cinema-4D, or (2) in a more blind manner, our PolyTrans-for-3dsMax software has some unique functionality which "feels around in the dark" and picks off all the best-guessed material parameters from the black-box V-Ray and MentalRay shaders, allowing basic material data to be conveyed over to C4D as normal C4D shaders. Exporting shaders between animation programs is an undefined aspect of data translation because they are program specific and not something which normally travels across via 3D file formats (similar to the long-term usage of procedural textures often used by LightWave and Cinema-4D users since the early 90s).

[Francisco Penaloza]

As a freelancer I use Cinema 4D, my other option is a combo of MODO-Sketchup. At my day job I use 3D Max/VRay, been using it for many years, so transition is not easy, but to be honest, move from Max to Cinema 4D or from MAYA to Cinema 4D is a lot easy than move from Max to MODO.

Tools in Cinema 4D works in the same concept of 3DsMax, of course shortcuts are different and name are different but most of the tools are the same. Extrude, Chanfer, cut, weld, bridge, everything.

The main concept of Cinema is keep everything parametric, and this IMO work better than MAX. now Viewport performance seems to be better in 3DsMax but Cinema 4D seems more stable over all. The Mograph tools are great, and this is the best of Cinema4D, they are mainly design for motion graphics but they are flexible enough to be used on anything else, for instance as a replacement of raiclone.

 

The main flaw of Cinema 4D if we can call it that way is that anything related with archviz is controled by Autodesk, mostly here in USA, so receiving REVIT models from clients and setting it up to render in Cinema 4D take longer than 3DsMax. Also the whole plugin industry is a lot biger for Max than Cinema, this last one seems to be more pointed to Motiongraphics, but is getting there, for what I do I don't have any tool that I really miss from 3dMax.

File format that works better for me are FBX and OBJ, if you are working from Sketchup, 3Ds or Collada seems fine too.

When you move from 3DsMax to Cinema you keep basic materials, but it wont save your VRay settings in the materials even if you have VRay for cinema 4d, this supposed to be available some time in the next releases of VRay, they are trying to create a common material to be used in many applications, this would be great.

 

VRay in Cinema 4D works almost the same, the materials seems to be a little different and confusing, I don't know why, Cinema 4D native materials have pretty logical setup, but VRay integration got stucked in between I guess.

But over all if you know VRay, you should be fine, a few Youtube tutorial will put you up and running in no time.

My two cents

[Francisco Penaloza]

this is a good read too,

It may help you.

http://www.mattrittman.com/3d-modeling/migrating-from-3ds-max-to-cinema-4d