jeff prince

Strange, I'm interested in the solution as well.

The problem remains unresolved and I hope to hear an explanation. Until it is resolved, I developed a work around involving a bit of unnecessary labor that I hope is eliminated. I have to go into the texture folder that Vectorworks creates during C4D export and manually look at each texture to figure out which ones VW decided to modify by adding a black background. I then take a copy of my master texture image used to create the plants, rename it to match the VW exported texture name, and replace the VW generated texture with my master. This automatically loads in Twinmotion and I can then get to work. Sure would be nice to know why VW is doing this in order to eliminate this unnecessary step. Here's a test of the 3D plants I have been working on with the texture replacement work around I just described. It's effective, but takes unnecessary time that the computer should do automatically. I'm really just trying to develop a successful workflow to add fairly realistic 3D representation of my plants into Vectorworks Plant Objects and fulfill the promises of landscape BIM. For this to be effective, the assets need to survive export to other rendering engines and then survive inevitable updates to the VW model exported back to Twinmotion.

You could: 1. make a copy of your nurbs area 2. select the copy and modify->convert to polygons 3. use the polyline paintbucket to create a clean polygon inside the group that was created in step 2 (delete that group now, you are done with it) 4. select the polygon created in step 3, right click, "create objects from shapes" and select landscape area. Not sure if it is the most efficient method, but I hope it helps. I try to avoid drawing with Nurbs for landscape structures that need to be built. It's unlikely anyone building what you design would be able to lay them out effectively and they can be problematic to dimension compared to standard arc and line geometry.

@grant_PD thanks for the reply. I have also gone that route during testing using my source png files with built in transparency within Twinmotion. It's easy enough when it is one or two object, but... I'm hoping the folks at Vectorworks can suggest a method to avoid this since their default plant imageprops do not exhibit this behavior. It just seems so odd that their plants will make the trip with the alpha intact, but my user created ones won't. I hope to understand why and apapt my workflow accordingly because remapping all those plants in Twinmotion is a deal breaker when you have 100 of them to do 😞

@sync1b did you ever figure out how to take care of this? If not, I can give you some pointers.

@jpccrodrigues Nice results! I'm a landscape architect trying to work between VW & Twinmotion. I have been making a bunch of custom imageprops and have been running into problems. Check out this thread and let me know if you have had these problems.

@jpccrodrigues I saw your Twinmotion example here on the forum. Have you run into this problem? Have any solutions?

@Dave Donley I'm at a total loss here. It seems that VW export to C4D is doing something here. In the example below, the plant with the black box is imported from VW->C4D export. The two plants w/o the black box have been retextured in Twinmotion using my original png with transparency. I don't know what goes into the programming of these tools, but it seems like it is a simple switch that is being flipped without my permission 🙂

@Dave Donley Why does Vectorworks add a black background to an image that originally had a transparent background? This seems to be the source of the issue. Here is the source files I used for the imageprop. Note, it has a transparent background and an alpha channel.

@Dave Donley Not sure what you did there, but here is the result.

@Andy Broomell Yes, I agree. Check out my latest frustration if you have a chance. Issues with imageprops, textures, and 3D models using alpha channels potentially.

@Dave Donley Thanks for looking into this. The image prop I created automatically set Glow the same as the VW stock plant. I also turned it off as a test, same result. So Glow does not seem to be a factor. I don't think it has to do with how Twinmotion imports the C4D based upon the test I did with my plants and a default Vectorworks plant. In that example, the VW plant was fine in Twinmotion, but my plants are not. Vectorworks seems to be changing my image file's alpha channel when exporting to C4D format. I'm fine with changing the way I make my plant images and textures, I just need to know the best practices before doing so. Here is another example. I purchased a textured 3D model of a plant in OBJ format. It uses texture files, a base image and an alpha channel image. When directly imported into Twinmotion, it looks fine. When the same model is imported into VW with the same texture references, it too looks fine. I hope to create a design in VW using this and many similar models. However, when I export that same model from VW to C4D format and import it into Twinmotion, welcome back black boxes 😞 I think this further strengthens the argument that something is happening during the Vectorworks export process. Here is the OBJ model loaded into Vectorworks, looks fine. Note the use of alpha channels for the thorns and flowers Here is the same OBJ model directly imported into Twinmotion. Note how the thorns look fine and are using the alpha channel correctly. And here is the OBJ imported into VW earlier and then exported to C4D format. Note how the thorns and flowers now have black where they should be transparent. The only thing I did was export it from VW....

I would like to know how we can print the plant sheets based on the plants found in a drawing. Looking each one up individually and manually generating the PDFs is getting pretty old. Would be nice if there was a hyperlink in the plant list that just pulled those plant info sheets up for us.

I'm curious if there is a workflow for taking lights objects specified and placed in Vectorwroks to other rendering software such as Twin Motion.

@Dave Donley Hey Dave, Here are the attachments you requested. The procedure I used to create that imageprop of the hesperaloe is as follows: 1. start new VW document 2. "Create Image Prop" command 3. use the file imageprop-source.png as the basis for the prop 4. use default settings to create the imageprop and select "Use Mask" option - create mask 5. create mask from "reuse image from another resource - this prop's color 6. Source for mask = alpha channel 7. prop created I created an all new test with a brand new image prop made from scratch using the imageprop-source.png file attached. The other images were generated by Vectorworks during export to C4D. You will note the source file has alpha channel and a clear background while the images created for the same plant has a black background in the exported texture. That seems to be where the problem is. It is also noteworthy that the default Vectorworks plant did not create this black background for the texture file. I have 100s of custom plant images with alpha channels created like this sample which I hope to make custom plant object from. Additionally, I am building a library of around 30 3D modeled plants that use images like this for textures that I hope to use for a custom library. While most of these work fine within the Vectorworks environment, exporting to C4D is where the trouble starts. My goal is to identify how to solve this issue so I can have a productive workflow to TwinMotion using my native and custom Vectorworks plants. Thanks for any insights on how to fix this, including flaws in my process or source images. thanks, Jeff Untitled 2.c4d Untitled 2.vwx