c4d & architectural visualisation

[MoThBall]

The way i do it is, Export my Autocad drawings into 3ds and then open them with c4d. only problem with that i found ( i wouldent mind finding the awnser too aswell) is that the whole 3d object gets converted to one mesh. Making texturing rather dificuilt. also only uses Triangle polys rather then the more easy to use Square ones. quite anoying for housing i would think. So i guess i would be looking for an awnser to this question too. Its clear to me know. they way i do it, is dumb!!

[pygoh]

I guess i'm more interested in finding out how to import 2D architectural drawings into c4d to model from. Not to keen on modelling in autocad.

Hey mothball, i'm from perth as well. nice to see know someone from the west in here.

thanks.

[AdamT]

Cinema can import .dxf directly.

[MoThBall]

was just playing around with this. But i can get cinema to open any DXF first of all. and when i tried Exporting a 3ds of a line drawing it came up with nothing.

with autoCad. Modling can be done with Solids or Polys. but when you export simple line drawings it comes up with problems. If anyone has worked out how to over come this please tell me!!.. Any help would make my job a bit easyer. i know when i did CNC programming making shure the lines were polylines. But im not shure about that with C4d.

Oh and phgoh modeling in AutoCAD 2002/2000/R14 is easy. if you just want the structure of building. use Extrude tool and put youe all highs in. the roof i found i bit more challenging.

And yeah PERTH ROX!!! what Suburb you in mate?

[AdamT]

Maybe if you extruded the plan just a bit in Autocad it would come into Cinema as a solid?

[MoThBall]

You are a 100% right there AdamT. The problem like said is. It only exports them as triangles. No square/rectangle polys. from what i remember in very limited use of polys in autoCAD. you can only build on Triangle polys. the Solid modeling is a much better option. But when you convert it into polys to export to 3ds format, It seams autocad keeps its own dodgy poly system.

So i think what pygoh and myself are asking. can you export line drawings (spline, polyline, points) into C4D?

[flingster]

dunno about autocad what formats can you export to...if its just lines then how about ai (adobe illustrator)?

(also i know its a dummie question but gotta check have you checked out import preferences for dxf files.
eg edit - preferences - import - dxf etc etc....no i'm not trying to take the p**s its been known, they might help...)

[B-A-R]

If you get one big mesh,.. you should try to change your line colors in Autocad..or maybe use different layers..
I'm using Vectorworks and when i export my files to cinema, i always change the line color so that Cinema sees them as different objects...

Don't know if this works with autocad, but you can surely give it a try...

[raycerx]

well i thought i was the only one building achitecture in cinema....
anyway i found a work around that may help. All the work in our office is Autocadd and its release 2000 so what i do is make a coppy of the DWG file (incase something goes horribly wrong) Then open the file in Illustrator... I have R9. Then save the file , in the options that will pop up save the file as R8( that way Cinema can read it ) Thats it.. You can now merge the file into a cinema document... O by the way... NO viewports, Illustrator cant deal with them AND put a BORDER around your dwg file that you can scale correctly later on once it is in Cinema.... This has worked well for me... the drawback is needing illustrator but at least it is fairly inexpensive.

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