Will R8 and XL7 ever get along? **crosses fingers**

[LucentDreams]

Won't happen, the issue lies mostly in the smart pointer use in R8. See objects are now identified by a specific ID, which is why in R* you can have five objects named cube and taret each one seperately. one example of how this would cause problems is if you opened that scene in XL 7, anything targeting an object named cube would then target all cubes and chos would ensue. when drastic changes to an app are done like this one thing often lost is compatibility. :/

[That Adrian Guy]

Times like these I wish I were blissfully ignorant!

Thanks for the answer though, time to start saving!

[AdamT]

I don't see why an export filter couldn't simply rename the objects Cube000, Cube 0001, etc. And to make things simple the exporter could simply bake animation. Obviously that would limit the usefulness of the export, but it would be better than nothing.

But...personally I'd rather see Maxon concentrate its efforts on improving R8+ rather than adding backward-compatibility--sorry Adrian. Maybe the ultimate solution would be to do the .fbx plugin for both XL7 and R8.

[JoelOtron]

I'm actually exremely peeved that we cant backsave files. I dont get it--despite the technical jargon. Can't they just strip r8 functionality, etc when exporting as 7? It works in Illustrator 10 which has features like transparency that illustrator 8 doesnt. Those feaures are just dummied down to a format that illustrator 8 can read. Same goes for Photoshop 7 --> 5.5.

I mean they programmed export to 3ds in R8 but not to its own native program? I think this is an important issue.

I am working with clients who are using R7 and sometimes I need to work on their machines in their studio. I don't know when they will upgrade, but its not my place to tell them to do so.

Sometimes I need to work on a file in 7 at home as well-- as there are plugins, etc that only work in 7.

This issue was a very unpleasant suprise and I hope it gets worked out soon. I'm wondering if this happens in other 3d app upgrades.

[AdamT]

Good point, Joel.

[LucentDreams]

yeah but think about what your losing, I mean hey they could easily make it so you move a mesh in weighted hypernurbs back to R7 and all you would lose is the weighting, but its very different from illustrator and photoshop, whose backwards compatibility is a pain IMO since the image often turns out quite different when you lose things like linerar dodge and such.

but in C4D its not just minor things like that we are talking about how every single individual object is referenced, all Fcurves would be gone as well, tracks for colour individual XYZ expresso I mean there are very few things that haven't changed in some way or another. heck even nulls have informatin to be lost, though minor in that area, there is just too much information to lose.

Look at it this way, you mentioned 3DS, well yes it does export to that, but all it exports is a mesh, you need to take a mesh from R8 to R7, save it as a 3DS or OBJ, its the same number of steps, and would be the only real backwards compatibility you'll ever get from R8. And I didn't even get into the problems you would run into with modules.

[squidinc]

theres always the R8 demo, if you just want to look at a scene :)

[manlio]

@That Adrian Guy : Plus, I reeeeeeeeeally want to be able to open up Squid's spider scene... along with a jillion of Sadie's files.


Sorry, but where I can find these files?
Thanks

[JoelOtron]

Look at it this way, you mentioned 3DS, well yes it does export to that, but all it exports is a mesh, you need to take a mesh from R8 to R7, save it as a 3DS or OBJ, its the same number of steps, and would be the only real backwards compatibility you'll ever get from R8. And I didn't even get into the problems you would run into with modules. [/B]

I don't know. You can make it sound like its all logical--but again, do other 3d apps have this issue in successive upgrades? Until you are in a situation where you're business is affected its easy to find reasons why its "just the way it is".

I know I am not the only one who has been affected by this on a professional level. I've already seen a number of posts with similar complaints on other forums. I tried the 3ds route and its a mess. Also, as you should know, OBJ doesnt save the material info properly.

I mean, I'm not complaining that c4d doesnt export to LW (not in THIS post anyway :)--but it should be able to do so on SOME level directly to R7.

Whatever the technical reasons are why it just can't work don't really matter to me. Many of us NEED it to work somehow (ie nurbs, etc). I'm no programmer--but someone could have given it some thought at least, when writing R8. Again--it was a surprise that I never foresaw when I upgraded.

[That Adrian Guy]

Originally posted by squidinc
theres always the R8 demo, if you just want to look at a scene :)

YOU RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Why didn't I think about... WHY!!?)

[LucentDreams]

Trust me teaching in R7, this was a problem for me (always looking for the AM when it wasn't there was a problem for me too.) I understand the frustration, but outside of basic mesh properties its really not doable, I mean as already mentioned you could do something like FBX for both if FBX was being developed for R7.

Do other apps have this problem?? Yeas and no, see other companies take the easy way out, don't be fooled by XSI and MAYA only being at their 3 and fourth versions compared to lightwave and C4D's 8th versions, see when maya did their big huge change they lost a lot of backwards compatibility, course they also changed the name of the application from Poweranimator to maya. When XSI did their big overhaul it was from softimage to XSI, and are their issue with backwards compatibiility, yes. SO Maxon simply chose not to change apllications names for no reason. Do apps always have these problems, no, only when they change things down at the roots.

As for changing cubes to cube0001 and such, so that possibly solves one issue, though what do you do if there is already a cube0001, nt a hug problem but a problem non the less, then there is the issue of seperate XYZ traks, how do they get merged, and someone who animates the fillet setting on a primitive cube, what happens to that? XL 7 doesn't animate every parameter. Edge selection tags, what happens to them? Hidden edges? Man making sure they covered every ingle issue and made choices as to how to treat them would take forever, then actually coding it all, then the complaints about why did I lose this animated track, or that edge weight, no there are simply more logical reasons not to then to for maxon.

Again with nurbs its a mesh do it like any mesh. Not saying I wouldn't like to see it done, just being realistic and trying to help you see why it likely won't happen.

[JoelOtron]

Thanks Kai. Gotcha. I understand.

I guess I would have just liked to have been prepared for this when I bought and started working in R8. Gotta love that "Oh Sh*t" moment.

But the point of this thread was to answer Adrians question--which seems to be answered now.

Thanks again.

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