Cinema4D R12 and Unity: any experiances yet?

Got mail from Maxon yesterday, that the R12 is out.
They have scipped the modular approach and now sell 4 fixed packages.
One other change is that they no longer support bones! So the question is weather I can update and still use Cinema4d to create/edit skinned meshes and export them to unity. As far as I know Unity needs bones and R12 can only produce Joints.

Any experiance anyone?

 

Joints or bones are practically the same, the difference is just in Cinema4D as "bones" are related to the old animation system and "joints" are the new one.
But both will be exported to Unity as a boned based animation.

 

As BIG BUG said: bones and joints are exported as bones to Unity. One more thing worth mentioning is that bones can be exported only by FBX6 plugin and joints only by FBX2010, IIRC.

We're planning to test R12 with Unity a bit later this week.

 

Yeah, and I think they bumped the price up a bunch too. I swear I looked at it a few weeks ago and it was $1000, now the lowest priced of the 4 editions is $1700. Not good for those of us on a budget.

 

Nope, prime is still $1000:
http://www.maxonshop.com/us/ps/CINEMA 4D CINEMA 4D Prime/1/s1/C100-CAT198

Overall the prices are about the same as before, but the mid level versions have different features than before (visualize, which is about equivilent in price to the old xl version no longer has thinking particles, but has sketch and toon... there's other changes too)

 

Any results yet about compatibility to Unity 3.0?

 

^What he said.

 

Result: Unity doesn't work with Cinema4D demo (since demo version doesn't work with -nogui option). No results for properly licensed yet - we're waiting for our licenses

 

I'm getting ready to buy C4D, so I'm anxiously awaiting your results. Hopefully everything works ok out of the box, but if not I hope Unity/Maxon (whoever's problem it is) addresses whatever issues quickly, since this seems to be a very popular workflow.

On a side note, I noticed that Maxon says that you can continue to use your C4D 11.5 license alongside R12. Unfortunately, since I'm a new user, I only have the option of purchasing R12. Does anyone know if R11.5 is available to new users as a downgrade until R12 is compatible (if there are indeed any problems)? I know I need to ask Maxon this, just thought I would throw it out in case anyone here already knew the answer.

 

I have ordered R12 yesterday anyway.
As I live in Germany I expect to get the version next week and I will post any problems/success as soon as possible.

I also have called Maxon itself whether they have tested Cinema with Unity and zthey told me that this is not in their test plan :evil: . So no info from them.

So let's see who gets any experiances first

 

To be honest, given that Unity has a big reliance on FBX as part of its workflow, why is UT not being more proactive in building relationships with the big 3D app companies, getting onto their beta teams to ensure any issues with FBX are solved before new releases are launched?

Am I missing a key point here??

 

Yes you and not only you are missing a key point

I dont want to be pedantic on this topic but it is a matter of fact that Cimema 4d staff do not care that much about the compatibility even with the most popular Indie game engine for the simple reason that Cimema 4d has been designed for movies not for games

It is true that also high end packages are more and more intersted in the game market but it is also true that the core of these softwares, most of their features, as well as the file formats ect are far away from the needs of real time graphics applications

It is not that easy to convert their complex data structure into something usable also by the game engines
These softwares have been designed to be self standing

FBX and Collada should in theory guarantee the data exchange but in the year 2010 it is still a theory

I do hope that these comapanies sooner or later would release a simplified version of their software,suitable for our use, stripping off all the redundat features

 

artzfx, you have a fair point. We're working on establishing these relationships. Frankly I completely missed the release of R12. If I had know that it is coming, I would have joined the beta list. My fault. You should understand that we're not lazy - we aren't overstaffed. We were very busy last months trying to complete Unity 3.0. It's in our best interest to release best software!

Please help us - raise these questions earlier. Just as someone did with Blender 2.5. It's in beta, but we have checked the compatibility already.


AlbertoT, you're right too, but we should make clear that there are two separate things:
1) Manual export/import through fbx
2) Direct import of c4d/max/mb into Unity

You're talking about #1 and you're right - I would expect software to be compatible by 2010. Situation is not perfect, but it's not so bad too I believe R12 will be as compatible as R11 or even better.

Regarding #2 - it's more complicated we (and the makers of 3d tools) have to make sure that direct import is posible. It doesn't happen automatically - we have to write special code for every tool.

 

I have to say my experience of your support Paulius has been stellar over recent months from my own dealings. My post above was after spending 2 very long days knocking out, working around various issues with r11.5 fbx exporter hence I displayed some of that frustration unfairly.

AlbertoT, unfortunately you are not the only one who thinks Maxon are focusing on the MoGraph side of things. Back when I started with C4D I never intended to venture into games. There's always the possibility of learning Maya but its fbx into Unity doesn't seem without issue either.

Paulius, Maxon usually give beta access and early advice on upcoming release features to their plugin developers. I am sure Unity could be classed as such a developer

 

I ran a test tonight just to try things out, but I'm not 100% sure this is a valid test, so let me know if there is something else I should do. I am a noob at C4D, so keep that in mind.

Setup - C4D Prime R12 Demo, Unity Pro 3.0-f1, control model is an existing FBX 2009.3 file I bought from 3DRT, which is fully rigged and animated (>2000 frames).

Test 1 - First I brought the control model into Unity directly, adjusted the scale, assigned the material, dropped it in a scene. Result, character rendered and animated fine.

Test 2 - Brought control model into C4D, saved as a native file and exported to an FBX 2010.2 file. Imported the new FBX file into Unity, etc. - same result as Test 1!

Test 3 - Tried bringing the C4D file directly into Unity. I didn't really expect this to work, and it didn't. After launching C4D and waiting forever, it gave an error about C4D not being able to convert to an FBX file. I suspect this was a timeout issue and a generic error response. Maxon says there have been a lot of changes to the plugin API in R12, so it didn't surprise me that the current Unity plugin didn't work. That's ok, I can live with FBX import for now, if everything works as smoothly as this test did.

So right now I'm encouraged, although like I said this is nowhere near an extensive test.

 

Paulius and artzfx

First of all I appreciated your rational comments

As you may know I am against the use of high end packages for Indie game developers
In my opinion, they are absolutely redundant tools

Anyway it would be silly of me to deny that they offer also some (minor ) advantages vs low end packages even for low polys real time application

For this reason I am also interested in C4D thanks to its ease of use and reasonable price

The point is the I / O module is ( seem to be )buggy
I tested the C4D 11.5 demo

Some models and animations which I could import in Fragmotion without any problem , were completely messed up in C4D

My only explanation is that C4D data structure is too much complicated
C4d having being designed as a stand alone product

Apart from such, more or less technical,explanation
Do you also come across such issue ?

To me I /O module is quite important because I normally buy models on Turbosquid in different file formats and I make extensive use of .bvh files

As you can imagine it would be disappointing to spend 100+ usd for a model and not being able to import it in c4d

Thanks in advance

 

That's the most important functionality for us or actually the only one that we can affect The second test I expected to work out of the box, unless they messed up something badly in the FBX exporter.
Your test is not entirely valid, because you're using demo version - it doesn't support -nogui option which is used in our pipeline.

As I said I'm still waiting for my license, but don't hold your breath - I don't think support for direct import from Cinema4D R12 will make into Unity 3.0, because we're so close to the release and we are making only critical fixes. I'm quite sure we will fix it for Unity 3.1.

 

I actually changed gears and ordered Lightwave instead. It was a tough choice - they are both excellent packages.

 

Just a note to the Unity devs -- Maxon has released (well, pretty under the radar, but it's still out) a new toolkit called Melange which does this (and I quote from the docs):

So perhaps you guys can give that a shot instead of trying to go the FBX route. That would presumably only help people who are using R12, but AFAIK, none of the C4D FBX exporters have worked really 100% (or anywhere close to it). I know that R11.5 works better than R11 (can't even exported an animated model in R11 -- we used Blender for our character animation) but it'd be great to see something more native that may work better than FBX.

There are also some developers in the C4D community who have done quite a bit with character animation (Cactus Dan and Keith Young in particular) who may be able/willing to write a custom export module if encouraged (i.e. paid) to do so, which might even work for R11 and up (I know I'm still on R11 and not necessarily planning to upgrade anytime soon, if I can help it, unless they make some major changes).

Anyway, don't know if this is the proper place for that, but hopefully that'll help you guys get pointed in the right direction. I'm a huge fan of C4D and would love to see proper integration with Unity, rather than being the app that's quickly becoming known for it's bad Unity support.

 

The problem with Unity's importer is that it's a jack of all trades, master of none. It has wide support, but your animations don't import (as an example).

I think the best way of doing this is to handle the import process in the same way Pixologic handles importing/exporting of zbrush models and 3d app models through GoZBrush. Can we have something along the lines of GoUnity, please?

 

unseenthings, fair point, but that's not so easy. If we decide to add direct C4D import (which as you say might require different solutions for different versions) that might mean that it would be fair to add same solutions for other formats as well. So instead of supporting just fbx we would have to support: FBX, C4D, Max, Ma/Mb, Blend, Modo, Liw and so on. It means it would require at least 7 times more development and support work. Is it really reasonable? Unity (especially Unity 3.0) has quite good fbx support, so it sounds to me like problem is on Cinema4D side, so someone from C4D community could write a proper FBX exporter instead?

Show me the case number or it didn't happen But seriously, could you be more specific what would you like to see improved in Unity?

Thanks, this was very interesting. Actually with Unity it's even more simple, because meshes need to go only one way. And if you think about it - you can do it already: Unity has very extensible Editor interface and all mesh+animation API is fully exposed so you can actually load it from your custom formats But I agree that Unity is now in that stage where it has a very strong community which does smart things and exposing better custom-importer-API would allow it to take it even further.

 

Well ... I think for a few people here using Cinema4D I just throw in my personal biased oppinion:
1. Maxon still lets you use Cinema4D 11.5 for compatibility reasons because they changed to Python instead of their own scripting language apparently. No harm done - use the old version if it does not work, yet.
2. Changing to the most up-to-date version in any running production is a bad idea - no matter what. Mostly every software has their fair share of having to mature a little to find all the issues and be completely productive. It's good to have people buying the newest things ad test it but seriously: if you HAVE to have the newest all the time: expect problems. That goes for mostly every software nowadays: games, OSs, applications.
3. I think Cinema is very well suitable for game creation. I don't think that professional software has "too many" tools for indie developers. Indie is no brand for "created on low budget and low tech". In my book it's more like: "A product being produced by passionate individuals who try to get most out of their existing equippment to create a product they want to be in existance. Those people may be anything from ambitioned fans to professionals. But they do everything they do for themselves and because they believe in the product."
That does not say that they don't know too much of 3D and thus don't need the tools because it's "over the top". Doesn't say if some software qualifies as "not in the price range of indie any more" either. That's nonsense. Find something you like and be good at - no matter if it's blender or Maya. Not every indie developer needs to use Blender and the Gimp to be Indie.

 

So does this mean I've to stay on R11.5 even if I have R12?

 

at the time: yes unless you want to work manually through the problem over and over again.

 

And this is a C4D-export or U3-import problem with R12?

 

Ok, let me get my facts strait here.
So in C4D R12 they dumped FBX 6 and only have FBX2010.
Does Unity not support FBX2010? That is what I assume because of this page http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-ImportObjectCinema4D.html
but maybe thats outdated ???

Seems like, if Unity3d v3 supports FBX2010 then we shouldn't have a problem getting our animations from C4DR12 to Unity3d v3....right?

 

Hi guys, just quick hello to chime in on this thread.

I'm part of the C4D beta team and trying to get R12's FBX problems reported properly, so I'd like to ask you to bring up any issue you come across with R12's FBX (or else) that are still outstanding, if possible.

So far, I've only made a few simple tests of animated characters, and it all imports and plays back fine in Unity, but I don't know Unity at all, so I might have glossed over a few things.

Thanks for your help.

P.S: this is all with FBX 2010.2, by the way.

 

As I have not yet upgraded to R12 I can't add anything more to the discussion so far ... sorry.
Yet I am also really interested in how this will turn out - and when. I know that R 11.5 already exported two UV maps (which should not be necessary any more with Unity3) and to some extend .... joints.

I also know that R12 dropped bones completely, now and only supports bones in the earlier versions, any more.
So anyone with C4D or from Unity ... pretty please ... post here and keep us updated
There's loads of changes in both programs and I'm really curious how this turns out since Cinema still is my favorite program.

Thanks

 

The problem is for us new users. According to the salesman I have been talking to, I can only buy R12 now, and they don't offer this dual licensing option for new users. This is the main thing keeping me from pulling the trigger on C4D, even though it's my favorite app of all the ones I've evaluated.

I really want to go ahead and get C4D, but since there is no legal way for me to get my hands on 11.5, I guess I need to wait until we get a green light that everything is ok with R12 and Unity.

 

I just bought R12 a few weeks ago, still haven't opened the box because of this issue. If maxon fixes the fbx problem then that would be great.

 

There are two ways to import models from Cinema4D into Unity:
1) Export manually from Cinema4D (using FBX6/FBX2010) and then import that FBX file in Unity. That should work just fine with R12, or even better than R11.5, because I believe that they fixed some problems/bugs.
2) Drop C4D file directly into Unity and expect Unity to do the conversion. As far as I know this doesn't work, because the conversion from C4D to FBX is based on Cinema4D plugin (that is written by Unity) and I assume that that plugin doesn't work in R12, because it's based on R11.5 SDK. We (Unity) have to fix this problem and we will do that as soon as we can.

I hope that makes situation more clear. I'll update this thread once I have more news.

 

That's a very reasonable response, of course. I was under the impression that Cinema was the main app that was having issues getting its stuff into Unity intact. We used Blender for the character stuff and it came through just stellar. But I've seen or experienced or heard various issues with Cinema R10, R11.5 and R12, ranging from no animation to no textures to only one UV set, etc. To be fair, C4D is my main app, so I'm not as aware as what some of the other ones are doing. I'd love to see someone in the community write a proper FBX exporter, though I have no idea how feasible that is. I'll start bugging a couple of people who would, though. Using an intermediary program (or two) like going through I/Ogre and Milkshape is something I explored a while back, but not in depth. Seems kinda silly, though.

Maxon lets you use 11.5 *if you bought it* -- I'm still on R11, and other people just got R12, so we're all pretty hosed. And I can't complain being a couple of versions back, but from everyone I've talked to, Cinema 4D -> Unity has *never* worked right in recent versions (r11, 11.5 or 12). It's always something. Cinema is a stellar product and it's very suitable for game creation... until you're ready to export your data. Then you've got a problem. I use C4D because I love it and have a lot of time and money invested into it. It's a shame that Blender's Unity support (from the Unity side) is so much better. Little things like FBX never working right hint that Maxon just isn't all that concerned about C4D as a game creation platform.

 

Just wanted to confirm that it does work fine so far. Animations, textures, UVs are all imported properly based on my tests (tested several files, with different rigs/models and materials types).
Keep in mind that when baking and exporting to FBX, it is always preferable to bake the rest pose as well, as it provides a good starting point and will fix flipping issues if they occur. This rest pose can then easily be excluded in Unity.

Please report any problem you encounter and share your experience with R12<>Unity, as this is the only sensible way to get eventual problems with FBX fixed by Maxon (R12 has seen a lot of improvements in that regard, especially with keyframing).

As for opening the R12 c4d files directly, you'll have to wait for the Unity team to port their plugin to the new SDK, which might take a while since R12 now uses double precision, true units and dual transforms. Not everything is supported by the FBX exporter, but it definitely needs a fair bit of plugin rewrite.

Cheers.

 

Thanks fluffy, that gives me the courage to open the box and lock myself to the c4d license. Gonna do it now.

 

I hope that will be fixed soon, it's lot of work to export everything manually.

 

The Problem I had was that the Phong Settings (via "break phong edges" in c4d 12, then fbx export manually) didn't import at all, the model was all smoothed out. The only way to bring the Phong settings to unity was via Collada, but here the animations weren't imported...

see here: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/21751/bring-phong-settings-from-cinema-4d-into-unity (no answers yet)

 

Thanks, I'll check the phong breaks, report and see if there's a workaround.

 

Phong brakes in Cinema never really exported well.
If you want the Phong breakes to be applied in Unity check your model for the value of your Phong Tag in Cinema. Then apply that value to the model import settings in Unity. At least that's what I've been doing all along (R11 ).

The result's the same as in Cinema. It's just one step more.
A little annoying but nothing serious.

 

That's true if you have a consistent angle limit for the phong shader. But if you want to break shading manually for selected edges ("break phong edges" tool), they can't be set in unity. In my model i want to be able to decide which edges are broken and which are smoothed.

 

I checked and this is a known issue. In fact, neither normals nor phong breaks are exported properly by C4D at the moment. Hopefully that will be fixed soon, I'll give a push at least.
I'll try to export the mesh with Collada and inject animation with FBX and see if it works.

 

Thank you very, very much, it's good to have someone with (some) influence here

 

I've always had a hard time getting things in and out of Cinema 4D, so I hope R12 gets those things straightened out!

 

Just to be sure: This means I can export my C4D-12-file with all features to a FBX-file and import this to U3? So everythings works fine, just manually?

 

I have R12 Studio and I have never successfully imported a C4D model with it. In R10 it came in in seconds...or less! In R11.5 it took like 15 to 115 seconds to import and left a C4D icon in my dock for every file. I can export FBX from R12 but now have to store those meshes outside my Assets folder or Unity will try to import them and fail taking about a minute for each fail. Please get save and import load functionality back up to par and if possible stop using the no-gui option as it just leaves a mess in the dock. Thirty icons of C4D to Force Quit after 12 hours of meshing ain't pleasurable

We are banking on you Paulius. Fluffouilee. Please get on the Maxon team to implement this smoothly. They need to understand that Unity users will be a decent segment of their market if there are no hiccups. After all..their big selling point is ease of use coupled to powerful tools. Make the C4D->Unity bridge seamless (GoUnity like GoZ??) and there will be lots of happy campers. On the cgTalk thread some of the devs were blowing this off with "all software has bugs". BS. I have produced dozens and used hundreds of complex apps without bugs over the years and we are talking a basic industry standard exporter here. That is utterly and bemusedly lame as an excuse for not being up to snuff. We just handed them several grand for two seats of R12 to use these apps exclusively with Unity.. Perhaps one of the talented plugin writers there can cobble together a script or plugin to accomplish this bridge..with phong edge breaks!

Thx
BTH

 

You should really report bugs like these, because I wasn't aware of it. I haven't seen this problem and none of our QA or Beta testers reported this. We can't fix the problem if we're not avare of it.

Regarding everything else: we're working on that - I hope to get our Cinema4D R12 licenses soon (it is my fault that we missed the whole beta...) and I'll fix direct import as soon as I can. I hope MAXON will do some work on their side making FBX support in Cinema4D better.

I'll keep you posted.

 

I didn't report it as I assumed you knew this from folks complaining in this thread already.. As for Maxon. They need a kick in the pants
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=47&t=923995
I find this lack of proper attention problematic to say the least. As for the icon in the dock issue. There appears to be no quit command after doing its thing. They pile up and cause a Force Quit to remove from dock.

HTH
BTH

 

So this means: C12 FBX Export won't work correctly and is (at the moment) useless for U3?

 

I'm evaluating FBX import and export with R12, and I've noticed, in certain cases, there's something wrong
with the way R12 deforms the mesh on import. It's kind of screwy for meshes with weighted vertices.
My mesh looks like a blob. The importer dialog says FBX 2012.2.

 

No, Cinema4D R12 is not useless for Unity3. Just read this:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/59...xperiances-yet?p=396580&viewfull=1#post396580

 

Ok, but know I'm confused. Bluster and Talon said that a lot of things going wrong, when I'm using FBX export in C4D R12!?