Connecting Cinema 4D with After Effects

[zeez505]

I linked the project to After Effects through Cineware
But I had a problem, as the Corona materials appear in white only!
While Cinema 4D materials appear without problems
I hope to find a solution for you

[BigAl3D]

I have never heard that Corona is supported in AE via Cineware. Maybe I missed something.

[TomG]

Yep the connection from C4D to AE only supports native C4D materials, no third party render engines are supported in AE.

[zeez505]

Are there ways to export the project as a video directly from Cinema Forde using Corona materials?

[BigAl3D]

You cannot export any 3D objects with Corona material to After Effects. You can only export videos or objects with an alpha channel. Not 100% what you're asking for.

[TomG]

As BigAl3D mentions, would be good to hear your use case described.

You can of course get video from Corona into C4D, but not in some "direct link" manner. You simply render the animation out from Corona as normal (preferably as an image sequence, never straight to video format), then import that image sequence into AE or other video editor, where it works exactly like any other video (or image sequence). If you make any changes to your scene in Cinema 4D, you need to render again.

This would be no different if there was some single button to "export video to C4D", as you'd still be waiting for Corona to render the animation. Indeed, once the save location is set up in C4D, you just hit render, the images are replaced, and on loading the project in AE the new image sequence is there, so it's not a complex process in that regard :)

But, do tell us what you are hoping to achieve, so we can understand your situation better. Thanks!

[Beanzvision]

It sounds like what you need here is texture baking options which is not supported (at this time) with Corona. If AE supports standard C4D materials then the best bet would be to convert them and then bake out the mats for AE.

[BigAl3D]

Personally, I just never have seen the real advantage of dropping C4D files into AE before I started with Corona. It's just cumbersome, slower and some features aren't supported. Easier to just jumping to C4D and exporting. In my opinion.

[zeez505]

I want to export 4K footage from Cinema 4D
My device specifications are high..

I would like to have a video or photographer explain to me how to export video from Cinema 4D without losing the material
thank you in advance

[TomG]

You set your keyframes for whatever animation you are doing, as normal in C4D (see C4D documentation)

You set your render range from single frame to whatever range is appropriate, let's say 0 to 90 for 3 seconds at 30 fps (see C4D documentation)

Change Corona's UHD or 4K to "Animation" rather than "Still frame"

Set your render target for Corona (noise/passes/time) which will define how long each frame renders.

Set C4D to save the renders, and choose the name for your saved file (I'd suggest .PNG as the format - as noted, do not render direct to video here; see C4D documentation for saving and naming files)

Set your render resolution to 4K in C4D (see C4D documentation)

Press render. Let Corona render every frame. How long this takes will vary, could be lengthy.

Once all frames are done and rendering finishes, import the image sequence of PNGs into your video editor, and do what you like / need with it in the video editor :) (See video editor documentation for importing image sequences)

Export from video editor to final video format (see video editor documentation for exporting to mp4 or whatever your chosen video format is)

As a note, you do not "export" video or images from C4D, you "render" them through the render engine, to get the terminology correct. Exporting would mean moving the actual 3D content to e.g. FBX or OBJ or other 3D format, while rendering just gives you the end 2D result from your render engine.

[BigAl3D]

Seems like you need to hit the tutorials and learn the basics of Cinema 4D.