Importing objects from Cinema 4D

Unity natively imports Cinema 4D files. Unity imports:

• All objects with position, rotation and scale; pivot points and names are also imported
• Meshes with UVs and normals
• Materials with texture and diffuse color; multiple materials per mesh
• Animations FK (IK needs to be baked manually)
• Bone-based animations

Limitations

Unity does not import Cinema 4D’s Point Level Animations (PLA). Use bone-based animations instead.

Cinema 4D does not export visibility inheritance. Set the Renderer to ‘Default’ or ‘Off’ in Cinema 4D to avoid any difference in the visibility animation between Cinema4D and Unity.

Requirements

You need to have Cinema 4D installed to import native .c4d files directly into Unity. If you don’t have Cinema 4D installed, use the .FBX format instead. For more information about importing FBX files, see Importing models.

Behind the import process

When Unity imports a Cinema 4D file it automatically installs a Cinema 4D plugin and launches Cinema 4D in the background. Unity then communicates with Cinema 4D to convert the .c4d file into a format Unity can read.

The first time you import a .c4d file into Unity, Cinema 4D has to launch in a command line process. This can take a while, but subsequent imports are very quick.

Export settings in Cinema 4D

Animated characters using IK

If you are using IK to animate your characters in Cinema 4D, you have to bake the IK before exporting using the Plugins > Mocca > Cappucino menu in Cinema 4D. If you don’t bake your IK prior to importing into Unity, you only get animated locators and no animated bones.

Maximizing import speed

You can speed up file import into Unity by turning off the Embed Textures preference in Cinema 4D before you export. Check the Cinema 4D documentation for instructions.

• 2018–03–12 Page amended with limited editorial review