I've got a load of textured (baked) objects - all textured up nicely (with separate materials) - and I want to merge them all into a single object. I'd like the single object to reference all the individual materials. If I use 'connect' then the UV co-ords seem to get messed up - either that or perhaps the resulting object retains the UVs but it may be using a single material.. hard to tell...
What steps should I take before connecting separate objects such that the resulting object keeps all the texture coordinates and materials intact..?
I hope that makes sense, and that someone is able to help - I'm new here, so please forgive if I havent explained myself in enough detail - am happy to provide more info... :)
Re: connecting objects mess up texture co-ords.. by Adam Trachtenberg on Sep 1, 2009 at 10:00:53 pm
Unfortunately it's a limitation of Cinema's connect function. There is, however, a partial workaround.
You'll need the free Riptide plugin for importing/exporting .obj files. You use the plugin to export your objects as .obj and reimport them using Riptide with the Mesh>Don't Split box checked.
All of your objects will be connected into one and the UVs and poly selections will be preserved. The only hangup is that you will have to go through and replace the basic materials with your original materials.
Re: connecting objects mess up texture co-ords.. by Mike Afford on Sep 2, 2009 at 9:43:13 am
Adam, that's brilliant.
You have saved me many (more) hours trying unsuccessfully to connect within C4D - at first glance the Riptide plugin works like a charm - the geometry has re-imported perfectly, and all of the materials have also re-appeared intact, and mapped correctly. I'm not sure if this is because the project and materials were all in the same directory, but it looks as though I won't need to re-attach any materials.
Strangely enough the next step will be exporting the whole thing out as an fbx file and re-importing into a virtual set package - so there's still a couple more steps before I'm in the clear, but just thought I'd say a BIG thanks for your help. Much appreciated.
Re: connecting objects mess up texture co-ords.. by Adam Trachtenberg on Sep 2, 2009 at 7:26:05 pm
Cool, I'm glad it worked for you. I should have mentioned that this limitation does not exist in the newly-released R11.5. It does a perfect job preserving UVs and materials.
