Help importing messy CAD models into cinema 4D

[skern55]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on trying to texture and then animate a complex model that I have imported from SOLIDWORKS, into cinema 4D. So far I have tried importing a .obj, and an FBX file which was slightly better. As you may already know, the CAD files from engineers are extremely messy. This one in particular is a very heavy file, and am trying to retopo the whole thing piece by piece, so I can eventually texture in RedShift. Unfortunately, after countless hours of research, I am almost coming to an end to figure this out. I tried using the new Remesher in cinema 4D, tried Check Mesh tools, turned the messy meshes into volumes, and just tried to use Zbrush Remesher and non are working. The vertices and edges import unwelded, so all the tutorials I found do not address this. One of them I found does address that this happens, but the tutorial example of Zremesher to be the solution did not work. Using Zbrushes “Group by Normals” didnt work. It simply made a million different groups, which obviously does not work. Sorry for the lengthy post. I’m just not sure where else to go , and this project is super super important. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Als]

Solidworks makes solids. So the conversion is crucial. If you don’t unity the models in import, it’s impossible to do it later, because it’s just way too much work, plus the edges will not match.
So you need to reimport it, that is best solution. Maya, max, modo have better importers.
You can also try other solutions, there are plugins to import them if you don’t have those.
For example you can check out simlab plugins, or okino.com.
Depends on the format you got from the client…
Or just import them directly into UE, then export back as fbx.
Or get modo and this:
https://www.foundry.com/products/modo/addons/solidworks

[danielHinton]

C4d r21+ has a cad import module, meaning that you shouldn’t have to import an intermediate format like fbx or obj. Start with a .stp or .step file and go from there. There are many different options to optimise “raw” cad data in this way, including welding points and optimising the scene hierarchy.

[TobiasF]

Give Moment of Inspiration a try. I’ve used it on heavy models and it does the job fairly well.

[skern55]