transfering C4D Corona -> 3ds max Corona

[brr]

Hello dear community,

I hope this is the right board for such a topic.
Does anybody know what the best workflow is to transfer a C4D Corona scene to 3ds Max Corona?
The idea is to use some animation skills of my colleague in Cinema 4D and then bring it into 3ds Max for others to do the fine-tuning for the lighting and perform the rendering.
How would you do it in Corona 13? Is *.vrscene an option?

Thanks for any feedback and ideas!

[TomG]

vrscene wouldn't contain any animation data, just so you know. So even if it works to transfer geo and textures (not supported so not guaranteed), it wouldn't work for what you describe.

[James Vella]

Sounds like your best free options are FBX or USD. I havent tested USD in 3dsmax however.

I remember this plugin from a few years ago, maybe someone here has used it, or you can email them directly and ask some questions - if you do can you also post back here.
https://www.3dtoall.com/products/c4dtomax/

[brr]

Thank you both for your responses!

vrscene wouldn't contain any animation data, just so you know. So even if it works to transfer geo and textures (not supported so not guaranteed), it wouldn't work for what you describe.

As I understand *.vrscene does support animations, but corona can not import it? :(
https://docs.chaos.com/display/VMAX/VRayScene

Sounds like your best free options are FBX or USD. I havent tested USD in 3dsmax however.

I remember this plugin from a few years ago, maybe someone here has used it, or you can email them directly and ask some questions - if you do can you also post back here.
https://www.3dtoall.com/products/c4dtomax/

I have emailed the questions to 3DtoAll plugin devs and will share any feedback once I receive a reply.

If anyone has other ideas, please share!

[TomG]

Corona doesn't write animation to vrscene either :) This is why rendering animations in Vantage is done via Live Link, and not available via vrscene export.

PS - Live Link is the standard for rendering animation from V-Ray too, because a vrscene with animation basically stores the whole scene for each frame or something very much like that; in other words, it gets massive, so even from V-Ray export to vrscene is not the standard way of sending animations to Vantage.

[brr]

Corona doesn't write animation to vrscene either :) This is why rendering animations in Vantage is done via Live Link, and not available via vrscene export.

Thank you for the information. My idea was to try to switch to vray in C4D and save corona assets as *.vrscene.

if you do can you also post back here.
https://www.3dtoall.com/products/c4dtomax/

I got some official feedback:
Hello!
I think c4dtomax won't fit your needs. The plugin c4dtomax needs to be updated in near future, the others supports animation (not complex rig)

[James Vella]

I think c4dtomax won't fit your needs. The plugin c4dtomax needs to be updated in near future, the others supports animation (not complex rig)

Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

In that case I would suggest doing a few tests with FBX (simple rigs or point cache), USD, and maybe alembic but not sure about the material process with alembic. Off the top of my head theoretically you should be able to take geometry back and forth with fbx/usd and do the materials in 3dsmax in this case, as long as you have some consistency along the way (potentially material names or some kind of object data to track things).

As an example when I worked in the tv/commercial industry the Animation team would use Maya and point cache out the mesh, then the Set team (us) would import that into the 3dsmax scene, run a small script that picks up the materials saved to a .mat file and apply it to the characters by material/object name. Not sure the extent of your situation but you could always do some proof of concept for your client in c4d - sign off, go to max for materials/light - sign off etc. Caveat is obviously animation changes and re-import/export at a later point so if this is an ongoing project, scripts will certainly be of good use. This could also be overkill for your situation but just some ideas to chew on.

[brr]

I think c4dtomax won't fit your needs. The plugin c4dtomax needs to be updated in near future, the others supports animation (not complex rig)

Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

In that case I would suggest doing a few tests with FBX (simple rigs or point cache), USD, and maybe alembic but not sure about the material process with alembic. Off the top of my head theoretically you should be able to take geometry back and forth with fbx/usd and do the materials in 3dsmax in this case, as long as you have some consistency along the way (potentially material names or some kind of object data to track things).

As an example when I worked in the tv/commercial industry the Animation team would use Maya and point cache out the mesh, then the Set team (us) would import that into the 3dsmax scene, run a small script that picks up the materials saved to a .mat file and apply it to the characters by material/object name. Not sure the extent of your situation but you could always do some proof of concept for your client in c4d - sign off, go to max for materials/light - sign off etc. Caveat is obviously animation changes and re-import/export at a later point so if this is an ongoing project, scripts will certainly be of good use. This could also be overkill for your situation but just some ideas to chew on.

thank you for ideas, James.

I will try to do some tests in this direction.

Have a nice day !