Assets from Lightwave to C4D with Octane materials?

Maxon Cinema 4D (Export script developed by abstrax, Integrated Plugin developed by aoktar)

Moderators: ChrisHekman, aoktar

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biliousfrog
Licensed Customer
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:10 am

I'm in the process of transitioning from Lightwave to C4D, primarily because of Octane's integration - I know Octane so there's less to re-learn in the transition (I hope).

I've used Lightwave for about 20 years and Octane for almost 5 years so I have a lot of assets in my library which I'd love to transfer over - I'm curious what the best method might be?

[EDIT]

I've used ORBX to export and import into C4D but it comes through as a reference object or instance rather than actual geometry. It's a great starting point but still requires me to edit within LW or go through the long-winded export/import method to make adjustments in C4D.

Is there a better approach? It seems weird that there isn't an obvious method to convert files between apps that are using the same renderer.
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bepeg4d
Octane Guru
Posts: 10326
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2010 6:02 am
Location: Italy
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Hi,
there is not an automatic translation, you should have to save the octane materials from LW to LocalDB, then open/import your LW scene in c4d, download the materials from LocalDB, and assign them back to the scene.

ciao,
Beppe
dsol21
Licensed Customer
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2018 10:12 am

One of the problems might be that the C4D integration of Octane uses its own custom node editor, for which there's no third-party API to access (I assume). If the Octane integration switched to C4D's native nodal system, it might make it a bit easier to write a conversion utility/script (eg. in Python)

But yes, this is a general problem across all apps supporting Octane. What would be really, really, REALLY useful would be if Otoy created an app (or added to Octane Standalone) that could load ORBX files then export them directly to the native formats of the main DCCs (C4D/Maya/LW etc), preserving geometry/materials/textures - as much as possible.
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