Cinema4D to Unity3D: Model has a different look

Hey,

Even I'm using Unity3D for some years now I have always been very bad in designing like creating 3d objects. So I spent some time on improving my Cinema4D skills and I came up with some models I am very happy with even they are very simple. But now that I wanted to start my next game with these models I have a demotivating problem:

The models look different after importing them to Unity3D:



That's what my tree model looks like in Cinema4D R10. I really love that "low poly"-style I came up with so I really want to keep this style! It's such a basic model still I'm very proud of it since it's the first object that I ever created and that I like.


That's what my tree looks like in Unity3D 5. It lost it's very nice style. One big difference is the texture: In Cinema4D every Polygon has a little different colour so you can see every single polygon. I think that's what this "low poly"-style is made of. But now this texture is lost and it looks different and I don't like it anymore. I exported the model to .3ds to import it into Unity again. I tried fbx but that made model loosing all the colours so I switched to .3ds.

Can anybody help me? What did I do wrong or what can I do to give the model in Unity3D the same look again as in Cinema4D?

 

Cinema 4D can't export hard edges due to an outdated FBX exporter, unfortunately.
Though you are lucky that you want that hard edged look - so all you need to do is set the edges in Unity to a hard edge threshold on import yourself.

You can do this by clicking on your model in your Assets folder and then setting the Normals to 'calculate' instead of 'import':


Set the smoothing angle all the way down to 0 degrees because you don't wnat any smoothing to happen at all.
Hit apply.

Also see the documentation for more infos about these settings: http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/FBXImporter-Model.html

 

Thank you very much, that's exactly what I was looking for!

 

This depends on the Cinema4D version. The FBX export has improved heavily over the last few years.

 

Very good to know.

I'll have to look into seeing if it's better now.
@Tayfe what version of C4D are you using?

 

For that simple task you can even use C4D 1.01 in DOS . I would recommend always to do this smoothin / tweakin inside Unity. And if these are static objects you can also do the workaround with seperating all / specific polygons .

 

@redthrawn he said Cinema 10 .. which does not have the new FBX exporter yet.

@sledgeman that is not true. Smoothing can only be done inside unity for fixed smoothing angles. You don't always want a fixed smoothing angle across the whole mesh. It is possible to do in this specific case and in all cases where no hard edges are set manually. In all more specific cases the exporter needs to be able to export edge breaks with the mesh. Cinema can only do that since R13.

 

As i said, you can make this workaround, for specific areas, if you don´t want the whole mesh to be hard-faced (or break all tris to make the whole mesh looks like hard edged style). Of course, the export with normals / angles is a benefit, and saves time. But mostly you don´t need it, if you work with normal-maps

 

Breaking edges physically is a very bad hack and workaround for if everything else fails. The result may look the same but for editing the mesh further or making changes to the UV Map this introduces a lot of pain further down the road. It's bad form and should only be used if everything else fails.

That is absolutely not true, either.
Here and here is why. I won't repeat it here because these two links explain it very well and repetition would be redundand. I can also confirm this from own experience. Very rigid hard surfade models will not play as nicely with 180° smoothing as you claim.

 

He has some ways to do his task, right :

- breaking edges
- smooth groups / hard edges EXPORT
- normal maps
- etc

Therefore all three ways are legal and true . It depands on it, if you DONT have any other way to slove your idea / prob

Normal-Maps are a bit more complicated (but if this is his last chance, he can try it of course, why not). The hard-
surfaces task in normalMap generation is a bit "harder" to handle than the soft / organic task. But you can handle them all, if you want, if you have the software in your pipeline, the right workflow, the time... and so on.

 

I'll tell you why not: If you want to use normal maps to simulate hard edgebreaks that's not only an even more inflexible decission than breaking off all the triangles to individuals - it also takes up a lot more file size because of the normal maps. And it increases the drawcalls significantly for nothing. It is technical a doable way but is got so many drawbacks that it's not a real option.

We've already stated: smoothgroups cannot be exported into FBX from C4D versions below R13. And repeating that over and over won't change it. It would be the best option but for OP it wasn't an existing one. And that's what I was answering to the whole time.

If there's not going to be things like vertex animation via shaders or rigged bones on the model this is the best option if no Phong Angle is capable of creating the desired result. Still: See my answers above for details.

I don't even know what you mean by "etc".

I also won't answer to this thread any further now because I think this discussion is going nowhere any more.

 

Agree, getting nowhere with your conversation.

As i said, you have more ways to slove the task. And everybody knows there are many free Apps out there, if C4D can´t handle some of the task. You prefer the elegant way (as everybody else), but if there IS NO ELEGANT way, you have to choose another one (depends on your software, skills, hardware, etc). I´ve listed only three of the possible ways.

Of course he can try NM out. It is his decision (if he want to learn something about). As i pointed out in my fist answer, breaking edges as a "one-click" solution was a tip with his C4D-App. I didn´t said he should use NM

etc.= et cetera = more ways, than my listed ones