Cinema 4D Exchange Add-on Downloads for Archicad 26

The Cinema 4D product family has everything to satisfy your professional 3D modeling, texturing, animating and rendering needs. Cinema 4D is a robust, professional, easy to use 3D Animation software that offers customizable configuration suitable for any industry and all skill levels.

Note: For architectural visualization, Cineware by Maxon, the built-in rendering engine of Archicad, provides most of the rendering capabilities of the Cinema 4D R20 version. For professional purposes and to further exploit the texture mapping, rendering and animating capabilities of Cinema 4D, please use the built-in export command in Archicad. The export feature lets you precisely export the Archicad model, together with the surface- and the rendering settings, into Cinema 4D with one click. You can learn more about the add-on on HelpCenter.

Installation of Cinema 4D Exchange Add-on for Archicad 26

1

Locate the desired language and OS version in the list below and download the installer. Further language versions are uploaded continually.

Language macOS (Apple silicon) macOS (Intel-based) Windows User Guide Last modified
INT 8.3 MB 8.5 MB 15.7 MB Jul. 14, 2022
AUT 8.3 MB 8.5 MB 15.7 MB Jul. 14, 2022
GER 8.3 MB 8.5 MB 15.7 MB Jul. 14, 2022
JPN 8.3 MB 8.5 MB 15.7 MB Mar. 5, 2023
2

Important: When installing Cinema 4D Add-on, you must be logged on as a member of the Administrator Group.

Windows:
Double-click the downloaded executable file, which will open the unpacker application. Specify a temporary location for the installer files, then click Extract. After files are extracted, the installer wizard will automatically start and guide you through the rest of the installation.

macOS:
Double-click on the downloaded image file to be automatically mounted by the system. Then double-click on the Cinema 4D Add-on Installer application in the mounted volume’s root directory. The installer wizard will automatically start and guide you through the rest of the installation.

User Guide:
After installing Cinema 4D add-on properly, you can find an electronic version of the Cinema 4D add-on User Guide in the Archicad/Documentation folder.

Notes on Uninstalling:

Windows:
Go to the Windows “Control Panel” and select “Programs and Features” to remove all Cinema 4D Add-on components from your computer. You can also browse to your Archicad 25 folder and execute the uninstaller in the Uninstall.C4D subfolder.

macOS:
Browse to your Archicad 25 folder and execute the uninstaller in the Uninstall.C4D subfolder. This will start the uninstaller, which will remove all Cinema 4D components from your computer.

Limitations

Limitations at importing Cinema 4D models into Archicad by loading, merging c4d type files and by freeform modeling:

  • During the import process only the material and geometry data is being converted.
  • Cinema 4D offers much more material setting possibilities than Archicad does. There are a large number of parameters for setting the materials’ visual behavior when affected by direct or indirect light or like glowing, transparency, etc. Some of these parameters have according material settings with exactly the same functionality in Archicad, some others can be converted, but there are some that cannot be interpreted by the rendering engine of Archicad, these are simply ignored.
  • Cinema 4D also offers textures that are based on singular algorithms that are computed during rendering. These cannot be converted, while these algorithms are not implemented in Archicad. The only textures one can convert are the bitmaps loaded from image files (jpg/png/bmp). While in Cinema 4D textures can be applied to many kinds of settings (like luminance, transparency), Archicad use textures only for determining object colors, so even the bitmap textures are ignored during the conversion when applied to non color material properties.
  • Beside the default material model structure there is the possibility in Cinema 4D to create materials based on different lighting model. In these cases parameters and parameter categories are used that are not known by the converter, so these settings are ignored, and if there is not any parameter among the material’s settings that could be converted, the whole material conversion is skipped, and no material is assigned to the converted object in Archicad. One should use the default material model for creating materials for conversion.
  • There are differences in the texture projection algorithms of Archicad and Cinema 4D, and Cinema 4D also offers more projection methods than Archicad. Those projections for that it is possible will be converted into the corresponding projections in Archicad, in other cases UV mappings are computed from the projections, and these mappings are used in Archicad. As UV mapping cannot be used for solid models in Archicad, one should use convertible projections for objects that should take part in solid operations, and for the other situations, one should set the resulted GDL objects’ model behavior parameter to ‘Preserve textures’.

Limitations at exporting Archicad models to Cinema 4D by saving 3D view and freeform modeling:

  • During the export process only the 3D geometry data, materials, lights and the 3D view are being converted.
  • When using the ‘by Class’ option for element grouping in the Cinema 4D Settings of the Add-on, all texture projections are converted during the export, but because of the differences in texture projections algorithms of the two programs, some projections in Cinema 4D do not get displayed the same as in Archicad. To avoid this situation, the UV mapping information should be used, which is also exported. When using the ‘by Material’ option, only the UV data is being exported, because of the object hierarchy, so this option is recommended to be used only for quick rendering tasks.
  • When using the ‘by Class’ option for element grouping in the Cinema 4D Settings of the Add-on, Openings won’t be exported into separate groups, although holes will appear on walls/slabs in Cinema 4D.

Earlier Cinema 4D add-on versions