With XPort you can easily convert your models from Cinema4D to A6 MED (since it supports .x import, dont know exactly the needed release number... [censored] hell... update! ) You just require a registered version of Cinema4D... well, so get even the CE edition, its cheap and you can learn a lot.

Download the XPort plugin here: http://213.239.195.198/~philipp/index.php

First, you are required to backup your data. Maybe you mess up your work.. so be wise and backup it. Well, good, now proceed, sir:

FIRST

XPort creates the .x file only sorted as groups. So.. in the case that you have a big mesh with some frozen selections and assigned textures - it wont work. So you you have to seperate each texture selection in the face mode as seperate groups, so.. when you've got a mesh with 3 different textures on it by selections you should have after that 3 groups with only one texture each.. like it would be in MED, you know. Even if you have one texture assigned on 2 selections but with different tiling/offset/scaling values, seperate both selections! Take care that each group has only one group and no selection anymore when you are ready.

Here you can see my testmodel: I made a quick bloodway with two textures: the floor and the tearing part. Easy stuff. Well, I had to invert the tearing texture scaling on the other side because of the automatic UV mapping C4D does, so I seperated it also as seperate group, even if it shares the same source material:



SECOND

I expect you to know how to install C4D plugins. So... select nothing and choose X-File export mode. Select a filename and in the following dialog you can select anything you want. If you have no animations (just the model like I) disable frames, bones and animation. Keep sure that all other export.. things are checked and disable use standard materials. Press OK and you are done - with C4D. Close it.

THIRD

Now open MED and load the generated .x file. In the dialog you can check easily that MED tries to import maybe two or more identical textures. These are for instance materials which are shared in C4D but you had to seperate those groups to save th UV maps. Well, just uncheck each material MED wants to import that is a duplicate and leave only one instance. Now you can see in the MED preview hopefully, that your model has been loaded correctly. The most important task is now to re-assign the materials you have unchecked previously. It could maybe hard, because the unassigned polygons will get another material assigned - silly. Just use the group tool, select the unassigned groups and assign the right source material in the material manager. If it is too hard to find out... well.. import all materials and do it step by step: select a duplicate material and delete it. The unassigned group will now be grey (or so) and you see it instantly where to assign the source material. After finishing you will be happy... it will be the same model as in C4D! In some circumstance you may see through polygons or complete groups.. but that is no failure of C4D or XPort.. its your failure. Be sure that your normals are correct when you are dealing with the FIRST part.

The model in MED looks like in the editor of C4D:



FOURTH

Now go into the preview mode of MED. Well... yeah. You see nothing... why? For some silly reason, alpha values are inverted by XPort, like it is in Cinema4D (0=solid instead of 100 in A6). So.. go through every material in the material editor and uncheck alpha in the directX material settings (select material / skin settings / material setup). After going through every material you should see your model solid in the engine preview:



NOTES

You should save alpha channels used in C4D directly inside the material texture file (TGA). XPort contains the texture files directly inside the .x file (and also MED does so when importing to MDL7), so you should link them as external textures manually (when you are done with the material cleanup, of course.. too much clicking).

AUTHOR NOTES

It was a pleasure to experiment with this tiny tool, I was so amazed that I had to write it down instantly. The reason is, that I'm originally a programmer and I have/had to work hard to do anything graphically that looks better than standard "programmers art", ya'll know. Well.. this could maybe help some people here which dont wanna buy other programs to waste more time to convert C4D to MDL like I did previously with Milkshape.. arrrr. BTW: this would be more complicated and the similar amount of workd in C4D, so, do it with XPort

Cheers, Christian

Days like these I wish I had chosen for Cinema4D in staid for 3DS Max 8 ^^
But the plugin and tutorial are looking quite usefull and helpfull for people who do use Cinema4D
Nice contribution HeelX !!!!

Cheers

Frazzle

Looks really interesting. Will give it a try soon.

really useful, thanks a lot!

Hi! HeelX!
Thank you for the tutorial! but I think that you have forgotten anything important, the standard texture that there is in Cinema4D is a jpeg, gif, and tif, format . There are no texture tga. or bmp.
Then once exported the model in X format, MED is not capable to recognize this type of texture. Then if you create a model in cinema4d , and you want texture it in cinema4d, you must use texture type tga. or bmp.


salva

No, that is not right.. I can regularily create a new material, and when I select the texture map, I am able to use *.tga as well: