VW to C4D Merge Changes

[barkest]

I have the start of a workflow for merging changes from VW to C4D but its not straightforward (it can be done). Is there an existing workflow for this process?

 

thanks

[barkest]

Now I have a bit more experience I can answer my own question and maybe help others.

 

For me the answer is to not merge any updated objects into the current project in C4D but to create a new project each time.

 

Update an existing object

 

In the original project I have two layers set up:

 

1. Objects to be updated

2. Objects updated

 

I place the objects to be updated in layer 1 and then copy and paste the new objects and place them in layer 2. I then solo both of these layers and check to make sure they are in the correct places. Once I am satisfied I delete the objects in layer 1 and move the objects in layer 2 to the correct layer.

 

Add new objects

 

I still open a new project and copy and paste into my layer 2 as above and check to make sure they are in the right place/scale etc. before moving them to the correct layer.

 

I have found that trying to merge is a minefield. I spent some time trying to work out what was happening but there were so many variables I gave up and adopted the process above.

 

I am still a novice with C4D so am happy to take any comments on how others work.

Edited May 1, 2017 by barkest

[zoomer]

That is the old way to exchange updates, the way you had to do when you had nor real exchange.

Why not use that working lossless exchange given between VW and C4D ?

It is one of the most important goodies in Arch Viz beside a lossless export at all.

 

I can't oversee the amount of changes I have done to do it manually and often these effect 80% of

the classes anyway. This is so error prone.

And as VW export is not able to combine whole Classes into a single Mesh Item for C4D or you will

use VW order, you would have to tediously put these separate objects back into their place in hierarchy.

 

VW exchange is reliable totally lossless if you can avoid to edit any VW geometry inside C4D.

If you also import C4D Materials before to VW and use only these, there can't even be any potential problems

with new VW parts that weren't already assigned in C4D.

(The case where you will import the old VW Material again, instead of the already altered Material of C4D)

 

As VW does not export Cameras 1:1 or does corrupt them in VW itself from time to time, I prefer

to do these with reliably cameras direct inside C4D. Same for lights.

Plants, complex terrain models or meshes, that can be edited much better in C4D , I also do in C4D.

These Objects reside outside of the VW Folder for me and that way aren't effected negatively at all by

any VW exchange update, this way.

 

 

Your proposed way of exchange is something I have to consider for Modo which does not provide

a real exchange and relies on FBX (one way) export.

And even there I tend to not manually update separate changed geometry only, but reimport the

whole VW geometry from scratch

[barkest]

2 hours ago, zoomer said:

Why not use that working lossless exchange given between VW and C4D ?

 

Are you talking about an plugin?

 

So to get things straight.

 

You create materials in C4D > Import to VW > Export to C4D 

Lights > C4D

Cameras > C4D

Organic objects > C4D

 

This leaves really the building shell created in VW

Edited May 1, 2017 by barkest

[zoomer]

No, no plugin, the VW  integrated "Sent to C4D" offer.

 

That works since VW 2017 successfully for the first time.

It was a mess and pretty unusable in previous VW versions as there were cases when all your

Materials+Assignments you adapted in C4D where overwritten after an Update. Image Textures

and Materials were renamed and duplicated redundently and all such things.

 

Yes, mainly the Building Shell in exchange only.

Because that is the main part that is growing constantly and where changes happen.

 

Things like the existing site DTM will only need slight adaptations from time to time. And a badly

meshed VW DTM will not help much for editing in C4D. You will import it once to C4D, optimize

it there for C4D usage and do modifications faster with mesh manipulations tools than with

"Modifiers" inside of VW.

(Your mileage may vary)

You can still create and develop things like your "proposed" hardscape surfaces and landscape

furniture in VW, or VW DTM smaller portion of the  DTM inside the property line by "Modifiers"

if you prefer.

[barkest]

29 minutes ago, zoomer said:

That works since VW 2017 successfully for the first time.

 

I have had very mixed results with Send. 

 

You can't move geometry otherwise the update will move it back (of course) and material changes in VW from original caused me issues as well. In addition Layer colours were not respected..... I could continue but honestly I found it to be a puzzle which is why I open a new project now as its much 'safer' for me to work that way.

 

My workflow (still early days) is to place the lights in VW but then to work on them in C4D. Mainly interior lights not exterior which I add in C4D. I did some earlier videos in the workflow forum on light exchange and that is a weak point on the exchange so I can see why you create in C4D

 

 

[zoomer]

52 minutes ago, barkest said:

So to get things straight.

 

You create materials in C4D > Import to VW > Export to C4D 

 

No

But I could.

 

Or better, I did not yet, but came to the idea when I created my new preset files for all my Apps.

 

Imported C4D Material may have much more features than VW can deal with and they may

therefore look wrong and pretty unusable in VW rendering.

But that isn't important.

a) you can overwrite these in VW for its restricted legacy usage in VW

B) they will still keep all their C4D settings and goodies when exported back to C4D

 

(Not sure if that will still work when using VRAY Materials)

 

 

So you may have an important base set of C4D Materials that you will want to use over and over again

in every project, to not do it from scratch each time again.

(That is valid especially for "physically based" Material setups that WILL work correctly in any environments

or rendering conditions)

 

- Import these C4D Materials once into VW.

- See that imported Material Folder in your RM as a Shuttle Folder only.

- Drag them over to your official "RW Texture" (Materials !) Folder.

- Edit these Materials to be useful for VW legacy rendering.

- Delete the C4D Mat Shuttle Folder for possible later re-imports.

- Import these "Hybrid" Materials into your VW Preset File.

 

 

So if you use such Hybrid C4D Materials in VW, they will come into C4D already as your final C4D Materials

from the first import.

So there will be no need to "overwrite" poor VW Materials beginning from the first scene import in C4D.

And if there is no "overwrite" there can't be any risk to ever lose these adaptions in any case.

[barkest]

7 minutes ago, zoomer said:

Imported C4D Material may have much more features than VW can deal with and they may

therefore look wrong and pretty unusable in VW rendering.

 

Agreed. I was using Anisotropic for metal scratches and VW would not recognise it at all

 

The process of using a library of VW materials that were C4D based makes sense to me and I think it will save a lot of time with a list of 'most used/basic' materials that do not need to change in C4D (or very little).

 

I think we have an idea 

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by barkest

[zoomer]

1 minute ago, barkest said:

 

I have had very mixed results with Send. 

 

You can't move geometry otherwise the update will move it back (of course) and material changes in VW from original caused me issues as well. In addition Layer colours were not respected..... I could continue but honestly I found it to be a puzzle which is why I open a new project now as its much 'safer' for me to work that way.

 

My workflow (still early days) is to place the lights in VW but then to work on them in C4D. Mainly interior lights not exterior which I add in C4D. I did some earlier videos in the workflow forum on light exchange and that is a weak point on the exchange so I can see why you create in C4D

 

 

 

So for me,

to hardly discipline myself and do geometry changes of exchange geometry only in VW and not C4D,

is totally ok,

if I get a one button click solution to reliably get an updated lossless 3D Model to in my 3D Rendering App.

 

Yes, that C4D imported Layers get marked as "edited" and prevented from updating, Names and Colors,

just because you manually dragged them manually into an alphabetical name order that you can recognize them in

the same order you had in VW, is pretty annoying.

I think there were some changes lately, but not all as expected still.

 

 

For the Cameras and Lights,

if you already made them in VW, of course you can bring them into C4D at first.

Make copies of these outside of the VW folder, edit and optimize these

and finally set their originals in the VW folder invisible and ignore them.

 

But for what I got into C4D from VW so far, for me, it is easier to do those from scratch in C4D anyway

and renounce of that extra export file weight and complexity.

[zoomer]

Well, for the materials, that is just one (advanced) idea way of doing it.

There are several other ways to organize yourself.

 

 

C4D has its Material Exchange "System"

Simply meaning you can have a Material only File or any other File with Materials in it,

when you "Exchange Materials" from such a file, it will import all Materials

and overwrite those with the same names in one go.

 

Means that you can import a VW Scene, make your Materials better in C4D in save

those optimized Materials out in a kind of a Backup File.

And whenever something went wrong with the Materials and these getting overwritten you

can repair them in on go.

 

That would also be a solution to overwrite everything with VRAY Materials in case that VRAY

Materials would be destroyed in VW resources.

Or such a replacement needed in any other way, like switching back and forth between

VRAY and Standard C4D render.

 

 

[barkest]

Maybe with more experience I will use Send to merge existing files but at the moment  I will continue to use a new C4D file and copy/paste as I have control over what I am doing. To have such a complex file it 'worries' me that I missed something important on the merge that I will not find out until much later.

 

I understand about the lights as for example an area light in VW is not workable currently but I use it a lot already in C4D. Sending an area light to C4D from VW is a waste of effort

[zoomer]

I think there is a finally need for a Q&A, KB or other documentation listing at what will

exactly happen when exchanging between VW and C4D.

 

Which has priority when things were manipulated on both sides.

Concerning different cases and different types of things.

Like Geometry, Render Settings, Materials and Assignments, "UVW's", Class (C4D Layer) Settings.

[barkest]

55 minutes ago, zoomer said:

 

I think there is a finally need for a Q&A, KB or other documentation listing at what will

exactly happen when exchanging between VW and C4D.

 

 

Or we can do it ourselves via the workflow forum

[zoomer]

Yes.