Materials
Use this menu to define if and how the material defined in the FBX file should be imported into Cinema 4D.
Please note that materials will only be approximated when importing between different applications. There is no guarantee that they will be identical because the applications and material definitions differ slightly.
Supported material properties
This list contains the supported material properties. FBX properties are on the left and the corresponding Cinema 4D properties (with regard to a default material) are on the right.
| FBX | CINEMA 4D |
| Emissive/EmissiveFactor | Luminance channel: Color, Texture/Brightness |
| Ambient/AmbientFactor | Environment channel: Color, Texture/Brightness |
| Diffuse/DiffuseFactor/Alpha | Color channel: Color, Texture/Brightness/Image alpha |
| Specular/SpecularFactor/Reflection/Reflection Factor | These material properties are passed on via the Reflectance channel. In Cinema 4D, very complex materials can be defined here that will, however, be strongly simplified for FBX. For multiple layers, for example, only the most influential will be used, etc. |
| Shininess | Reflectance channel: Width, Roughness |
| NormalMap | Normal channel: Texture |
| Bump/BumpFactor | Bump channel: Texture/Strength |
| TransparentColor/TransparencyFactor | Transparency channel: Color, Texture/Brightness |
| DisplacementColor/DisplacementFactor | Displacement channel: Texture/Strength |
Enable this option if you want to import Substances linked within the FBX file (this does not apply if imported as a Node Material).
Importing Redshift Node Materials currently only works in parallel: Substance textures baked in the material will be linked and will not be updated if the Substance Asset is modified.
Material exchange limitations
The FBX material exchange (this includes the FBX export) has the following limitations:
- Animated material values are not supported.
- Materials will be simplified (flattened) when imported/exported. For example, no layers or Node setups will be saved as such in the FBX file.
- If Cinema 4D Nodes are baked, only 2D/UV effects will be supported. 3D noises or effects, which will at first be added to the render time, cannot be baked.
- Nodes created in Cinema 4D do not support Substance Materials and do not import or export these.
- Displacement is not supported
Single Material Selection Sets
If this option is enabled, Cinema 4D will also create a Selection tag when the material is assigned to the entire object (which would not be necessary for Cinema 4D itself). This can be useful if you want to re-export the object (e.g., to Alembic) and want to maintain this selection (Face Sets).