jrizzo

Hello all,

Our team at the office is working on finally setting up some standards, and I'm trying to conquer our standards for SketchUp -> Cinema files. We have a few employees who use SketchUp and then send the models to us, but when we get the files, everything is separated and difficult to navigate, so we end up spending hours just making the file usable.

I'm not a SketchUp user myself, though I know how to do the basics, and the SketchUp users here don't know the first thing about Cinema. Any advice on bridging the gap between the two?

STRAT

do you have autocad? if so, explode the entire model first, then import into autocad, then 3ds it to cinema from autocad. (or another cad package) SU to cinema isn't the best solution.

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jrizzo

Interesting! I don't have AutoCAD (on a Mac here), but everyone in the company does, including the SketchUp users.

What are the benefits of doing it that way? Would that solve some of the multiple object issues? I know the .3ds won't have instances or anything like that, but we're definitely running into problems with how many little objects there are in every file we get.

AJLynn

I do Sketchup > 3DS > Cinema and untriangulate and optimize in Cinema, but I'm lazy so don't go by what I do.

STRAT

going through cad allows you to export a 'cleaner' more organised model for cinema.

make sure you explode everything in your sketchup model first. most essential. there's a plugin freely available for SU called BOMB which allows you do explode in one swift operation. Exploding all and going to cad first also groups mesh elements into layers instead of individual objects.

then import into cad (autocad or formZ for example). in cad you can easily erase the unwanted messy bits that SU usually creates, purge the drawing, and generally get a cad happy mesh.

then export from cad as a .3ds file and it'll go nicely into cinema.

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jrizzo

Very nice. Thanks for the help!

Ernest Burden

This is something I was struggling through just a few days ago. I have a model from a client in SU and wanted to render it in C4D.

SketchUp works in triangles internally. You see n-gons in the program, but if you export to DXF or DWG you get triangles, not quads. Architectural models are usually best in quads for further editing in C4D. My CAD program, DataCad can directly import a SU6 model. But it comes in triangulated. That's the first issue.

The second issue is symbols/blocks/components (all the same, just different name depending on the 3D program). SU uses them, and doing a transfer with the Autocad DXF/DWG preserves the block structure, including nesting. That can be important for further work with the model, and in being able to send the model back to SU if someone needs that. But you lose the n-gons. Trying to import a DXF file with blocks in it will produce a problem in C4D. The blocks will be lost, except for a single copy placed at 0,0,0 3DS format will the block structure but preserve the placements, just in triangles.

I found that exporting a SU file to the good old .obj format will preserve quads and even some of the n-gons from your SU model. It will explode the blocks unfortunately. Your model will be complete, but split up into many, many objects. The positions and scale and all will be correct for the items that were components in SU.

So pick your poison.

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Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering

BrianKitts

this may be the dumbest question I have ever posted..... but how do you export a .3ds from autocad? I've never attempted it before, and the the usual suspects of doing a "save as" or "export" under the file menu for autocad2008 don't show .3ds as an option.

and I'm not seeing anything about in the help files..... it tells you about import, but no export...

am i nuts?

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Brian Kitts
ANSHEN + ALLEN

AJLynn

The command is 3dsout, but IIRC they removed that as of 2008?...

BrianKitts

No luck, but you did lead me to the answer I needed. Under the autocad help menu for 3DSOUT.... it says the command is now OBSOLETE (in 2008) and that it recommends exporting a DWG for taking models into MAX.

I was trying to run strat's route from sketchup into max (i know this is a cinema thread).... but the same concept applies.

In the end i found that exporting a FBX out of sketchup brought the complex model into max (and hopefully it can for cinema?) flawlessly. The model is one object, but it has one organized sub-object material and the whole model is properly organized by material ID.

I think AUTODESK is really trying to phase out 3DS.... speacially if you read about their creation of the FBX file type. Maxon is listed as supporting this FBX as well so I'm assuming it can work for C4D.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...&siteID=123112

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Brian Kitts
ANSHEN + ALLEN