Changelog

Release notes and version history for MAX2C4D. Every update, fix, and new feature documented.

v1.4.3

2026-08-20Latest
Added1 change
  • Corona 15's Glints layer, the sparkle of metallic car paint or glittered plaster, is now carried over on the Corona target, colour ramp and per-knot textures included. Re-export needed.
Fixed13 changes
  • Imported objects came in with their transformations zeroed, as if you had run Reset XForm in 3ds Max: the object sat in the right place and looked right, but its rotation read 0/0/0 and its scale 100%. Every object now carries the exact position, rotation and scale it has in 3ds Max. Thanks to Nikita Gushchin for spotting it. Re-import needed.
  • Auto mode picked the target engine by counting materials, so a single leftover Corona or V-Ray material was enough to send a whole Redshift scene to the wrong engine, and a scene built on Multi/Sub-Object materials could land on V-Ray whatever you rendered with. It now follows the renderer that is active in your 3ds Max scene. Re-export needed.
  • In Auto mode, materials belonging to another engine were left as they were instead of being converted: a Corona scene holding a few V-Ray materials came in with those still V-Ray. Every material now follows the engine Auto picked, exactly as it already did when you chose the engine yourself. Auto also no longer targets an engine that is not installed in your Cinema 4D. Re-import needed.
  • Explicit normals were dropped on import, so CAD parts came in with their smoothing rebuilt from a 40-degree Phong angle instead of the normals 3ds Max carried, and surfaces looked flipped or faceted. Your normals now come across untouched, on a Normal tag, and 3ds Max smoothing groups follow with them. Re-import needed.
  • On top of that, an object carrying explicit normals and sitting at an angle in your scene came in lit as if it had never been rotated, because the 3ds Max OBJ exporter turns the mesh but not those normals. The import now spots it and puts the normals back where they belong, object by object, and leaves everything else untouched. Re-import needed.
  • Objects using several 3ds Max smoothing groups keep Cinema 4D's own smoothing instead of the normals in the file. 3ds Max writes a single averaged normal per point, which quietly rounds off every hard edge it declared one line earlier, so a plain box came in looking inflated. Meshes with a single smoothing state, CAD parts included, still get their normals exactly as 3ds Max has them. Re-import needed.
  • On Redshift, a Round Corners map was wired through a Bump Map node, which treated its rounding as a height and softened the edges instead of rounding them. It now plugs straight into the material's Bump slot. Re-import needed.
  • On Redshift, anything plugged into an RS Texture's Scale, Offset, Rotate, Colour or Alpha inputs was dropped, and the texture came in with those inputs empty. They are now carried over. Re-export needed.
  • A UV Context map placed under a texture was lost, so projections and randomisations did not survive the transfer. It now comes across on all eight Redshift maps that accept one. Re-export needed.
  • Chaos Scatter areas arrived with their Scale and Density forced to 100%, wiping out your 3ds Max settings. Corona 15 turned both into falloff curves, and those curves are now read and carried across. Re-export needed.
  • An area that could not be resolved in the scene shifted every following area's Scale and Density onto the wrong spline. Re-import needed.
  • Importing a scene could crash Cinema 4D with a Chaos Scatter error, right after the import reported itself complete. When a scatter's distribution surface was missing from the export, the import could end up pointing the scatter at itself, which Cinema 4D follows in circles until it runs out of memory; such a scatter is now left switched off, with the reason in the import log. Re-import needed.
  • A Chaos Scatter arrived empty whenever its distribution surface or its scattered models were hidden in 3ds Max, which is how most scenes are built: hidden objects are left out of the export, so the scatter came in with nothing to sit on and nothing to scatter. Everything a scatter points at is now exported even when hidden, and the export log names each one. On the test scene that is 28 objects. Re-export needed.
Changed2 changes
  • The Renderer dropdown now names the engine Auto is going to use, "Auto (Redshift)" for instance, as soon as you point it at an export folder, and the import log lists any material that belongs to another engine.
  • Exporting no longer runs a full memory collection in 3ds Max, which is the kind of housekeeping that can clear your undo history. The exporter now gives MaxScript a larger memory pool up front and only does light collections, so your Ctrl+Z stack is left alone. Thanks to Nikita Gushchin for spotting it.
Known limitation1 change
  • Cinema 4D's Chaos Scatter has a single Scale and Density per area, with no curve, so a curve that is not flat is transferred using its value at the inside of the area and the import log names it.

v1.4.2

2026-08-14
Fixed13 changes
  • ACEScg textures, and any colour space other than sRGB or Raw, arrived as sRGB and rendered too dark. Every colour space your Cinema 4D document knows is now carried over. Re-import needed.
  • Texture colour spaces now also transfer on V-Ray, Corona and standard Cinema 4D materials, not just Redshift. Corona has no setting for colour primaries, so ACEScg comes in as linear there and the log says so. Re-export needed for V-Ray and plain 3ds Max bitmaps.
  • On V-Ray, a bitmap set to "Gamma corrected" in 3ds Max was applied upside down and rendered far too bright. Re-import needed.
  • Leftover settings in the 3ds Max "OBJ Export Options" dialog leaked into the export, and a single unticked box could break a whole scene. The exporter now sets what it needs, logs each change, and puts your settings back exactly as they were. Re-export needed.
  • Hidden objects now really follow the "Skip hidden objects" box instead of the 3ds Max OBJ dialog's own setting. Re-export needed.
  • Scenes with their sky set in Corona's own Scene Environment arrived with no environment at all, around five stops too dark. Corona's slot is now read first. Re-export needed.
  • The exposure of a Color Correct map wrapping the environment was ignored, leaving the sky too bright or too dark. It now carries over into the sky intensity.
  • "Match 3ds Max color management" did nothing on an ordinary 3ds Max scene, leaving your document in ACES when 3ds Max had rendered in Rec.709.
  • The same option also left documents half converted, in OpenColorIO when the scene should have arrived as Legacy. The import now reads which colour pipeline 3ds Max was actually on and says so in the log.
  • Corona lights arrived with the IES box ticked but no profile attached. The box is now only ticked when a profile is really there.
  • The secondary GI solver could be written with a value Cinema 4D does not recognise. It is now left at Corona's default, with a note in the log.
  • Material colours arrived washed out in Cinema 4D 2026, a near-black metal coming in around eight times too light. Colours are now written in whichever space your document uses. Re-import needed.
  • Note: Cinema 4D's colour picker will not show the same hex value as the 3ds Max one, because the two encode their display differently. The colour itself, and the render, do match.
Changed1 change
  • Every machine that runs a conversion now needs its own activation, including one that only drives a batch. Offline use is unchanged, the 7-day grace applies everywhere.
Added2 changes
  • Redshift can now be picked as the target renderer in the Batch Export window, which previously offered Auto, Corona and V-Ray only.
  • New "Match 3ds Max color management" option in the import dialog, off by default. Switched on, it sets your document to match the 3ds Max scene instead of leaving it untouched. Re-export needed.

v1.4.1

2026-08-10
Changed1 change
  • A licence is now tied to the machine it was activated on, so the machine limit you paid for is the machine limit that applies. Your existing licence keeps working exactly as before: nothing to re-enter, no reactivation, and renaming your computer or changing its graphics card, drive or peripherals no longer affects it. If you move to a new machine, deactivate the old one from the License button first, or contact support at max2c4d.com.
Fixed23 changes
  • The contrast of a Corona tone mapping stack arrived saturated at the top of its range on the Redshift target too, burning out the image: a setting of 3 in 3ds Max came in as the maximum Redshift allows, instead of the third of the range it should be. Same fault as the one already fixed on the V-Ray target, which had never been carried over. Re-import needed.
  • The saturation of a Corona tone mapping stack was written to the wrong Redshift setting on the camera tag, one that multiplies rather than adds: a scene asking for more saturation got less. Scenes leaving saturation neutral, which is most of them, were unaffected. Re-import needed.
  • The import log now names what a Corona tone mapping stack loses on the Redshift target, and stays quiet about operators left at their neutral value. A highlight compression that Redshift cannot reproduce is called out with its value, and the points of a tone curve are listed so they can be re-entered by hand: Redshift's curves cannot be written by a plugin.
  • A Corona sky set to the "Rawa-fake" model arrived on the Redshift target as a late-afternoon sky, warm and golden, whatever colours it was given in 3ds Max. That model is not a physical sky at all, just a blend between a zenith colour and a horizon colour, and Redshift has no equivalent, so it was falling back to a real atmospheric sky that recalculates everything from haze and sun position and ignores both colours. Such a sky now arrives as a Redshift Dome Light carrying the actual gradient, ground colour included. Re-import needed.
  • A scene with a physical sky but no sun arrived with one anyway, adding direct sunlight the 3ds Max scene never had, coming from wherever Redshift places a sun by default. Redshift keeps sun and sky on a single object, so one had to be created to carry the sky; its disc and glow are now switched off, exactly as they already were for a sun disabled in 3ds Max. Scenes that do have a sun are unaffected. Re-import needed.
  • When a licence cannot be validated, both plugins now tell you why instead of always saying "No license". Long status messages no longer overlap the buttons next to them in 3ds Max.
  • Working without an internet connection now shows how many days of offline use are left. Until now the 7-day offline period ran silently and access simply stopped, with nothing having warned you.
  • Corona Legacy materials arrived with refraction switched on when it was off in 3ds Max, turning walls, floors and fabrics into clear glass; renders were far slower and could bring Cinema 4D down. Corona multiplies a refraction level by a refraction colour, and the level is 1.0 by default, so a black colour is the usual way to switch refraction off - only the level was being read. On one customer scene this affected 21 of 42 Corona Legacy materials. Their reflection glossiness was overwritten too, so they also came in mirror-smooth. All three targets (Corona, V-Ray, Redshift). Re-import needed.
  • Corona lights, sun, sky, moon, decals, proxies, Chaos Scatter and the Corona camera tag were all skipped on a non-English Cinema 4D, even with Corona properly installed - the import log simply said the plugin was not found. They were looked up by their English plugin name. They are now found by their internal identifier, which does not change with the interface language, and the log names what it actually found when a lookup still fails. Re-import needed.
  • The installer no longer reports success after installing into a Cinema 4D that cannot load the plugin. MAX2C4D requires Cinema 4D 2024 or newer; older versions are now listed, greyed out and named in the final message, instead of receiving a plugin that never appears in the Extensions menu. Copying the plugin folder there by hand cannot work around this either, and Cinema 4D's Python console now says so.
  • The installer no longer skips a Cinema 4D version whose `plugins` folder does not exist yet, which is the case for a freshly installed one. It creates the folder instead of silently leaving the version out of the list.
  • The colour Tint of a Corona tone mapping stack came into the V-Ray Frame Buffer the wrong way round: a warm tint arrived cool, and a cool one warm. It was written as a White Balance colour, which names the colour to be treated as white and therefore divides the image by it, where Corona's Tint multiplies. It now arrives as a Constant layer set to Multiply, which is the V-Ray Frame Buffer equivalent of Corona's Tint, and stays fully editable in the frame buffer. Re-import needed.
  • A Corona LUT arrived in the V-Ray Frame Buffer set to "Work in linear", where Corona applies it in sRGB, so the image on screen did not match the one in 3ds Max. The Lookup Table layer now arrives set to "Work in sRGB", and to "Work in log" when the Corona operator is set to a logarithmic LUT - a setting that was being dropped entirely until now. Re-import needed.
  • The contrast of a Corona tone mapping stack arrived saturated at the top of its range on the V-Ray target: a setting of 3 in 3ds Max came in as the maximum the V-Ray Frame Buffer allows, instead of the third of the range it should be. Re-import needed.
  • The exposure of a Corona scene now arrives as an Exposure value in the V-Ray Frame Buffer, where you can read and edit it, instead of a brightness multiplier buried in the render settings. The image is unchanged: 0.86 EV in the frame buffer is the same as the multiplier of 1.815 it replaces. Re-import needed.
  • Light colours arrived washed out on the V-Ray target, a gamma correction being applied twice. Most visible on lights set by colour temperature in 3ds Max: a warm 4500 K lamp came in pale peach instead of amber. White lights were unaffected. Re-import needed.
  • Corona Ray Switcher materials arrived on the V-Ray target reduced to a single one of their four materials, the other three silently dropped: a surface meant to look different to the camera, to reflections and to refractions came in uniform. They now become a V-Ray Override Material, which is the same idea on the V-Ray side, with the camera, global illumination, reflection and refraction slots filled. Re-import needed.
  • The hue, saturation and gamma randomisation of a Corona MultiMap or a V-Ray MultiSubTex arrived far too strong on the V-Ray target: a discreet 0.1% gamma variation came in at 10%, visibly shifting the tone of every scattered object. The two renderers do not use the same scale for these three settings either, and the Corona conversion now accounts for that. Re-import needed.
  • A directional Corona light arrived on the V-Ray target with its directional strength forced to a value neither 3ds Max nor Cinema 4D uses by default. V-Ray splits directionality into two settings where Corona has one, and the second was being set to 1.0 instead of V-Ray's own 0.9. Whether Corona's directionality matches V-Ray's on the same number is still an open question, so the neutral value is used rather than an invented one. A Corona sphere light loses its directionality entirely, the V-Ray sphere light having no such setting: the import log now says so instead of dropping it in silence. Re-import needed.
  • Corona Legacy materials came in too shiny on the Corona target: their reflection colour was dropped entirely. A parquet floor set to reflect at a third of its strength arrived reflecting at full strength, close to three times too much. Corona's newer material has no reflection colour, only an index of refraction, so the setting is now folded into that index rather than ignored. Mirrors and tinted metals are unaffected, and a reflection driven by a texture rather than a colour is preserved. Re-import needed.
  • Reflections were almost gone on the V-Ray target wherever a 3ds Max texture slot used a percentage below 100, leaving whole scenes flat. A parquet floor whose reflection is a grey colour with a texture blended in at 10% arrived with a reflection roughly ten times too dark and a glossiness of 0.07 instead of 0.70, which wipes out the highlight completely. 3ds Max blends the slot's colour with its texture at that percentage, whereas the equivalent V-Ray field is a gain applied to the texture alone, so the colour was being thrown away and the texture dimmed on top. The blend is now built explicitly. Affects the diffuse, reflection, reflection glossiness, metalness, refraction, opacity and self-illumination slots, from Corona, V-Ray and 3ds Max materials alike. Re-import needed.
  • Sheer curtains, lampshades and foliage came in opaque on the V-Ray target, and the room behind them went dark. A Corona material can let light through without being transparent, and that is how these are built; on the V-Ray side the same setting only works together with refraction, so on a curtain it did nothing at all and the sunlight it should scatter into the room was blocked instead. Such materials now become a V-Ray 2-Sided Material, which is the V-Ray way of doing the same thing. Materials that do use refraction are unchanged. Re-import needed.
  • Composite maps arrived on the V-Ray target with only one of their layers visible: a wood floor built from a texture, a grain overlay and a tint came in as a flat colour. Every layer but the first was created with an empty mask, which V-Ray reads as black, so those layers contributed nothing. All layers now come through. Re-import needed.

v1.4.0

2026-08-05
Added7 changes
  • Choosing V-Ray as the target now converts Corona and 3ds Max materials into native V-Ray materials, instead of leaving Corona materials inside a V-Ray scene. Their maps come with them, as do the Light, Layered, Ray Switch, Select, Portal, Hair, Skin and Toon materials; tinted glass keeps its absorption and old-style Corona metals are converted as real metals. Anything untranslatable is listed in the import log. Re-import needed.
  • The V-Ray target now converts the whole Corona scene, not just its materials: lights with their real units and IES profiles, sun and sky, camera exposure, decals, global volume, proxies, and render settings that switch Cinema 4D to V-Ray. The Auto and Corona modes are unchanged. Re-import needed.
  • The Corona tone mapping stack now arrives as real, editable V-Ray Frame Buffer layers, LUT and lens effects included, instead of an empty default stack. Re-import needed.
  • Lights switched off in 3ds Max no longer arrive switched on. Affects all target engines. Re-export needed.
  • V-Ray IES lights now use the intensity set in 3ds Max, instead of the power prescribed by the IES file. Re-import needed.
  • The RGB Multiply map is now converted on all three targets, colour slot included. Re-export needed.
  • Background .max conversions keep a `log/batch.log` in the export folder, recording every 3ds Max launch, completion and error. Handy to attach to a bug report.
Fixed22 changes
  • Scenes whose 3ds Max system unit scale is not 1 (typically "1 unit = 10 cm") arrived at the wrong real-world size. Nothing looked wrong, since the geometry and cameras were scaled together, but depth of field, light falloff, the Distance and Round Edges shaders and volumetric absorption were all silently off. Re-export needed.
  • Chaos Scatter arrived empty: bare ground where 3ds Max showed a full forest, and nothing in the import log said so. Re-import needed.
  • Importing a V-Ray scene with Corona as the target dropped the physical sky, the whole exposure of a V-Ray Physical Camera, the colour mapping and the aerial perspective. Three of the four went without a word. They now come through, and whatever has no Corona equivalent is named in the import log. Re-import needed.
  • Importing with V-Ray as the target could freeze Cinema 4D 2026 and close it without any error, just as the Material Manager drew its previews. A V-Ray import now only ever contains V-Ray and standard Cinema 4D shaders, and several maps that used to be approximated are converted natively. Re-import needed.
  • Scenes from a non-English 3ds Max, or from a repackaged renderer plugin with translated type names, lost most of their materials and textures. Types are now identified by an internal identifier that never changes with the language, so you can keep your software in your own language. Re-export needed.
  • Gradient and Gradient Ramp maps arrived on the V-Ray target as a default ramp, losing every colour stop. Re-import needed.
  • The installer could report success while 3ds Max kept running the previous version. It now asks you to close both applications first, says which files it could not write, and drops a `version.txt` next to the exporter.
  • A failed export could look like a successful one when the destination folder could not be written to. The destination is now checked before the export starts.
  • "JSON file not found" in Cinema 4D now explains which case you are in and gives the exact path to use.
  • A file missing from your installation let the export run to the very end before failing with a cryptic message, leaving a folder that looked complete but held no scene data. It is now checked first, and named.
  • Materials using a V-Ray Switch (common on floors and mirrors) arrived pure black. Re-import needed.
  • In scenes containing faces with 5 or more sides, Multi/Sub-Object assignment could put the wrong sub-material on some faces. Re-import needed.
  • On the Redshift target, the volumetric absorption of Corona materials was dropped and tinted glass arrived colourless. Re-import needed.
  • The refraction IOR of Corona Legacy materials was never exported, on any target. Most visible on sheer curtains, which turned into thick dark glass. Re-export needed.
  • On the Redshift target, Corona Legacy materials with a disabled reflection but a leftover Fresnel IOR were converted to opaque metals, losing their colour and transparency. Re-import needed.
  • Mix maps (3ds Max Mix and Corona Mix) arrived fully mixed: a subtle 20% blend became a full swap of the two inputs. Re-import needed.
  • V-Ray materials with Fresnel reflections turned off were wrongly converted to metals on the Corona and Redshift targets. Real old-style metals still convert as metals. Re-import needed.
  • Color Correction maps: the Standard lightness mode could cause wild colour shifts (green leaves turning purple), and the Saturation value arrived much too weak. Re-import needed.
  • Textures wrapped in a Corona Mapping Randomizer rendered 100 times too large, typically floor planks noticeably bigger than in 3ds Max. Re-import needed.
  • Objects with ring-shaped faces (window frames, picture frames) could arrive with the hole filled in, turning a frame into a solid panel and blocking the light through windows. Re-import needed.
  • Scenes with Chinese, Japanese, Korean or accented texture names could arrive with every texture missing, depending on your Windows language. Copied textures now get safe ASCII names and the originals are never touched. Re-export needed.
  • Batch conversion: .max files whose name or folder uses those characters failed to load, importing several files in one go stopped after the first, and a background 3ds Max that dies before an export now restarts once by itself.

v1.3.0

2026-07-31
Added3 changes
  • Redshift is now supported as a third target engine, alongside V-Ray and Corona. A 3ds Max scene built with V-Ray, Corona or Redshift materials can be imported directly into a Redshift scene in Cinema 4D: materials and textures, lights, sun and sky, cameras and their exposure, proxies and tone mapping. Pick Redshift in the import dialog.
  • 3ds Max's own lights are now exported and imported. Spotlights, omni lights, directional lights and photometric lights were never carried over at all, on any target. A scene lit with them arrived in Cinema 4D with those lights simply missing, and nothing in the export log said so. They now come through with their colour, brightness, cone angles, decay and shadow settings, aimed the same way as in Max. Where they land depends on your target: V-Ray and Redshift both have matching spot, point and directional lights, and Corona gets a native Cinema 4D light, because Corona's own light object only comes in area shapes and has no spot or point at all. Photometric lights carry their intensity in candelas and their IES profile when they have one. Worth knowing: 3ds Max's inverse (1/d) decay has no exact equivalent in a native Cinema 4D light and is approximated by a linear falloff. You need to re-export a scene for this to take effect.
  • The full Cinema 4D import log is now saved to `log/import.log` inside the export folder (next to Max's `export.log`), so it can be reviewed or shared without copying the console.
Fixed11 changes
  • The direction of a V-Ray Sun with a target was computed from the world origin instead of its target: a sun that is high in 3ds Max could arrive below the horizon in Cinema 4D, turning the scene into night. Affected all three targets; scenes must be re-exported to benefit.
  • V-Ray physical sky: a scene with a physical sky came into V-Ray for Cinema 4D almost black — the importer skipped the sky and left the environment empty, leaving the room lit by the direct sun alone. The sky now arrives as a real V-Ray Environment with a V-Ray Sky linked to the render settings, and its settings (turbidity, ozone, ground albedo, sun size, filter colour) are exported at last. The sun-linked brightness and the ground albedo, which were read wrong, are fixed with it.
  • The film width of a Corona Camera was never applied on the Corona target, changing the framing for cameras with a non-standard sensor size.
  • Multi/Sub-Object material assignment could silently fall back to the first sub-material on every face (power sockets, switches, doors showing a single material) when the exported OBJ contained accented or non-ASCII object names. The OBJ material mapping is now read reliably, and if it ever fails again the import log states the exact reason.
  • Proxy objects had the wrong texture mapping at render time on Corona: their UV channels were shifted by one, and the vertical flip that proxies need was applied without its offset. V-Ray and Redshift are unaffected.
  • V-Ray Skin materials exported as a bag of default values, on every target: nearly all of the settings were read under names that do not exist on this material. They now transfer for real, second reflection lobe and displacement included.
  • Textures switched off in a 3ds Max Physical Material were imported anyway, on all three targets. The clearcoat, coating roughness and coating bump maps of a Physical Material were also never exported at all. Re-export needed.
  • Objects using a material ID higher than the number of slots in their Multi/Sub-Object material exported an empty material name. The export now wraps around to an existing slot, as 3ds Max does when rendering.
  • Camera sensor width was never applied on import. Only visible on scenes whose sensor differs from the 36 mm default.
  • "Keep original texture paths" still copied the whole texture library into the export folder, re-encoding your JPEG and TIFF files through Max on the way. Nothing is copied any more when the option is on, and the export is noticeably faster.
  • The export log no longer says "Textures copied" when the "Keep original texture paths" option is on and no copy takes place.

v1.2.5

2026-07-23
Fixed2 changes
  • Instances that use a different material than their original object now render with their own material in Cinema 4D. Previously the instance always rendered with the original object's material. Such instances are now imported as real meshes (V-Ray for C4D ignores a texture tag placed on an Instance object whenever the reference object has its own material); instances that share the original's material still import as Render Instances as before.
  • Objects using several UVW map channels now transfer correctly: textures mapped to channel 2 or higher (for example a mask on a second UV channel) arrive with the right mapping in Cinema 4D. The exporter now writes the extra UV channels alongside the scene and the importer adds the matching UVW tags (named UVChannel_1, UVChannel_2, ... as in Max) to each object. Previously only the first UV channel was transferred and these textures rendered wrong.

v1.2.4

2026-07-20
Fixed3 changes
  • V-Ray lights, the V-Ray Sun and V-Ray proxies were never created in Cinema 4D when Corona was not installed, even with V-Ray for C4D present: the importer stopped with "Corona Light plugin not found - lights skipped" (and the equivalent messages for suns and proxies) before trying the native V-Ray conversion. Scenes now import these as native V-Ray C4D objects on V-Ray-only setups.
  • V-Ray lights that were switched off in 3ds Max arrived switched on in Cinema 4D when converted to native V-Ray lights. They are now created with their on/off state preserved.
  • Importing a .max file directly from Cinema 4D no longer hangs forever on "Loading .max scene..." when the scene triggers a renderer dialog on open (such as the V-Ray "automatic subdivs calculations" upgrade warning on older V-Ray scenes). These dialogs are now answered automatically in the background Max instance, keeping the scene's legacy render behaviour untouched.

v1.2.3

2026-07-17
Added2 changes
  • The 3ds Max scene hierarchy is now rebuilt in Cinema 4D on import: Max groups become Null objects and parent/child links are preserved, so the Object Manager matches your Max outliner. Objects keep their exact world position. A new "Rebuild object hierarchy" option in the import dialog (enabled by default) lets you switch back to the previous flat import.
  • Object exclude/include lists are now transferred for five more shaders and materials: Corona AO, Corona Round Edges, Corona Slicer, Corona Light Material and VRay Dirt (render and affect-result lists). Previously these lists always arrived empty in Cinema 4D and had to be rebuilt by hand.
Fixed4 changes
  • Cinema 4D 2026: the import no longer stops with an "Error: __setitem__ expected int or bool, not c4d.bitmaps.ColorProfile" message. This error interrupted the import right before materials were assigned, leaving objects in the Object Manager with question-mark texture tags even though the materials were correctly created in the Material Manager.
  • Corona Distance and VRay Distance shaders now keep their "Distance from" object list on the "(UV-flip)" material copies created for proxies. Previously only the original material was linked and the proxy copy arrived with an empty object list.
  • The 3ds Max export window now shows the actual installed version in its title bar (it was stuck at "v1.2.1").
  • Meshes now arrive in Cinema 4D with their original quad topology instead of being fully triangulated. Only faces with 5 or more vertices (n-gons), which the C4D OBJ importer cannot read, are still decomposed on export.

v1.2.2

2026-06-01
Fixed3 changes
  • The Cinema 4D importer could report "3ds Max not found" even when 3ds Max was installed correctly. This happened after upgrading to a newer 3ds Max release (such as 2027), and on network or repaired installs where the registry entry was incomplete. The importer now recognises 3ds Max 2020 through 2030 and falls back to scanning the default Autodesk install folder.
  • Cinema 4D 2026: importing large scenes no longer freezes or crashes at "Importing into Cinema 4D...". A material preview step that crashed inside Cinema 4D 2026 on big scenes has been removed. Imports are also faster on large scenes, with no visible change to the materials.
  • Corona Legacy materials using the "Fresnel IOR 999" trick with a light diffuse colour and a near-black reflection (for example a white plastic bottle) no longer come out black in C4D. They are now treated as a dielectric that keeps its diffuse colour, instead of being forced into a near-black metal.
Changed1 change
  • The import logs and the import interface are now in English.

v1.2.1

2026-05-24
Fixed1 change
  • Scenes with certain non-standard spline objects no longer break the export. Problematic splines are now skipped so the rest of the scene transfers normally.

v1.2.0

2026-05-23
Known limitations1 change
  • 3ds Max Color Correction (native) in Advanced Lift/Gamma/Gain mode: the `Pivot` and `Lift/Offset` values are not yet converted to C4D. The exact Max formula for these two parameters is undocumented and would need empirical reverse-engineering before we can reproduce it precisely. On materials that use non-default values for Pivot or Lift/Offset (uncommon), this may produce a slight tint shift in C4D compared to the Max render.
Fixed5 changes
  • 3ds Max Color Correction in Advanced (Lift/Gamma/Gain) mode now transfers the per-channel gamma values to C4D. Previously only the master RGB gamma was applied, so colour-graded textures relying on per-channel gamma to add a warm/cool tint came out grey or off-tint in C4D.
  • 3ds Max Gradient Ramp shaders now transfer their colour stops correctly to C4D. Previously the stops were always lost on export, so any material relying on a Gradient Ramp (directly or nested through Color Correction / Falloff) came out plain black in C4D.
  • Corona Legacy metals (the "Fresnel IOR 999" pattern with black diffuse and a Falloff on Reflection) no longer come out fully black in C4D. The material now converts to a proper Corona Physical metal with the Falloff driving the front/side colour variation, matching the Max render.
  • Materials with a self-illumination texture but the Multiplier left at 0 no longer come out glowing in C4D. Previously a Falloff (or any texmap) connected to Self-Illumination would be applied at full strength even when the artist had set the Multiplier to 0 to neutralize it — most visibly turning clear glass into lit/glowing glass. The Multiplier value is also now correctly transferred to C4D for Corona Legacy materials (previously it stayed at 0).
  • Corona Legacy materials now convert with subsurface scattering, volumetric absorption and scattering, anisotropy (amount + rotation), dispersion, caustics, thin shell, single-bounce, volumetric caustics and binary opacity (cutout). These were previously silently dropped on export — tinted glass came out clear, waxy candles looked plastic, brushed chrome lost its anisotropic streaks. Conversion is now at parity with Corona Physical for every feature the legacy material actually supports.

v1.1.9

2026-05-09
Fixed3 changes
  • License error messages are now context-aware — Deactivate no longer shows "Activation limit reached" when the real issue is something else, and the error surfaced reflects what actually happened on the server.
  • License activation from Cinema 4D no longer fails with "Activation limit reached" on machines that have free slots — the plugin's HTTP client was being blocked by Cloudflare in front of the license server.
  • License activation no longer consumes a new slot when the license is already active on the same machine (e.g. when activating in C4D after 3ds Max). Both plugins now share the existing activation transparently.

v1.1.8

2026-05-08
Added3 changes
  • Open `.zip` and `.rar` archives directly from the `IMPORT .MAX FILE` button — they're extracted automatically next to the archive on the way in, no need to unpack manually.
  • Multi-file batch import — Ctrl-click several `.max` files and/or archives in one go and they'll be queued and imported one after the other. With **Keep Max alive** on, the queue reuses the same 3ds Max instance between imports.
  • New picker shown when an archive contains several `.max` variants (e.g. `scene_corona.max` + `scene_vray.max`) — pick what to import via checkboxes; the variant matching the chosen renderer is pre-selected.
Fixed2 changes
  • Composite map base layer no longer darkens the imported material — the bottom layer's blend mode (Multiply, Screen, etc.) is now correctly treated as inoperative as it is in Max, and the layer reads as Normal.
  • Composite map layers using `Average` blend mode now produce the correct averaged result in C4D (previously imported as plain `Normal` and ignored the Average math).

v1.1.7

2026-05-02
Fixed3 changes
  • Camera White Balance now imports correctly from the Corona VFB pipeline (was previously stuck at 6500 K).
  • Falloff Front/Side amounts now keep their original values on import (could previously balloon to thousands of percent).
  • Colors now stay accurate when 3ds Max uses ACEScg color management (OCIO) — materials, lights, white balance, environments and atmospherics are converted to linear sRGB so picks match between Max and C4D. Scenes without OCIO are unaffected.
Added1 change
  • 3ds Max Color Map shader (Color / Gamma / Gain) is now supported, including nested usage inside Falloff and other color slots.

v1.1.6

2026-05-01
Fixed1 change
  • Additional fix for the `IMPORT .MAX FILE` button on installs where v1.1.5 wasn't enough (notably some 3ds Max 2026 setups).

v1.1.5

2026-05-01
Fixed3 changes
  • `IMPORT .MAX FILE` button failing on some installs — the headless 3ds Max launch is now stable.
  • Export errors now show a popup with the full message and a one-click button to open the log folder, making it easier to report issues.
  • The error log file is kept on disk after a failed export so it can be attached to bug reports.

v1.1.4

2026-05-01
Fixed3 changes
  • Corona and V-Ray proxies with offset pivots (curtains, vegetation, Archicad assets, etc.) now land at the correct position.
  • Corona lights now respect the Max settings for **Occlude other lights** and **Generate caustics** at import.
  • Scenes with multiple objects sharing the same name (typical of Archicad exports) now get the correct materials on each object — fixes issues like missing glass on windows using a Multi/Sub material.
Added4 changes
  • Scenes now arrive at the correct real-world scale regardless of the 3ds Max System Unit Scale (mm, cm, m, inches, feet).
  • OBJ import settings are now forced to the correct configuration before each import, so your personal C4D OBJ preferences can't break the importer.
  • Failed exports now write a diagnostic log file in the export folder to make issues easier to report.
  • Main Export button no longer freezes the dialog if the export fails — error is shown and the button is re-enabled.

v1.1.3

2026-04-12
Fixed3 changes
  • Batch import no longer crashes c4dpy in headless mode (skip shader InitRender preview)
  • C4D file save on network paths no longer fails silently (saves to local temp first, then copies)
  • UNC paths now always use extended prefix (avoids failures when filename pushes total past 260 chars)
Changed1 change
  • New plugin icons and banners (v2 design)

v1.1.2

2026-04-04
Added1 change
  • **Batch Exporter** — Standalone app to convert entire folders of `.max` files to `.c4d` in one click. Recursive folder scanning, filename filters, parallel C4D imports, skip existing files, chunked 3ds Max sessions to avoid memory issues, and real-time progress log.
Fixed2 changes
  • Batch import no longer fails on long network paths (>260 characters) — common with deep folder structures on NAS servers
  • Auto-detect mode no longer creates VRay elements (Dome Light, split splines) in Corona scenes when VRay C4D is installed

v1.1.1

2026-03-29
Added1 change
  • License expiration support for time-limited licenses. **Existing lifetime licenses are not affected.**

v1.1.0

2026-03-29
Added3 changes
  • **V-Ray scene support** — Full V-Ray 3ds Max to Cinema 4D conversion with two pipelines: **V-Ray → V-Ray C4D** (native 1:1 transfer) or **V-Ray → Corona** (automatic fallback when V-Ray C4D is not installed). 30+ material types, 25+ texture types, lights, sun, proxies, fur, clippers, decals, environment fog, aerial perspective, render settings (~130 params), VFB2 post-processing, and physical cameras.
  • Renderer selection dropdown in import dialog (Auto / Corona / V-Ray) to choose the target pipeline
  • Corona Decal mask texture and include/exclude list support
Fixed9 changes
  • Camera clipping planes ("Clip Manually") not applied for standard Max cameras
  • OBJ import crash ("Invalid file operation") on scenes with n-gon faces
  • OBJ import material assignment finding 0 objects in large scenes
  • Corona MultiMap rendering gray with empty layers
  • Chaos Scatter compound include splines ignored at render
  • Chaos Scatter "Distribute On" list missing instances
  • Chaos Scatter area splines not exported
  • Physical Camera shutter speed and focus distance export
  • Color Correction brightness too dark in Advanced lightness mode

v1.0.8

2026-03-10
Added5 changes
  • Cellular texturemap support
  • Forest Color (iToo) texturemap support
  • **ForestPack to Chaos Scatter conversion** — automatic conversion with density, transforms, areas, clusters, camera clipping, and more
  • "Keep original texture paths" option in export dialog
  • Vertex Color map support
Fixed2 changes
  • ForestPack distribution map scale not applied
  • Standard Gradient map not exported

v1.0.7

2026-03-10
Fixed4 changes
  • License now shared between 3ds Max and Cinema 4D (single activation per machine)
  • Added deactivate button to 3ds Max license dialog
  • Harmonized offline grace period to 7 days on both sides
  • User-friendly license error messages

v1.0.6

2026-03-08
Fixed2 changes
  • Corona Bitmap cropping/placement parameters not transferred
  • Chaos Scatter scale randomization Y/Z axes swapped

v1.0.5

2026-03-04
Added3 changes
  • "Keep Max alive" option (reuse 3ds Max instance for faster subsequent imports)
  • "Override render settings" checkbox in import dialog
  • MultiTexture (CG-Source) plugin → Corona MultiMap conversion
Fixed25 changes

Materials

  • Corona Ray Switcher and Slicer materials arrived empty
  • Corona Legacy Material translucency not transferred
  • Corona Legacy metallic materials imported with black base color
  • Corona Physical Material advanced options not transferred (IOR mode, complex IOR)
  • Corona Skin, Toon, Fabric, Hair Material missing textures
  • Corona Select Material sub-materials missing
  • Corona MultiMap per-layer colors and frequency weights not exported
  • Texture map amounts (mix strength) not exported for all material channels
  • Glossiness slider acting as unintended multiplier with texture map
  • Thin Shell handling fixed for glass/opalescent materials
  • Merge import no longer destroys pre-existing scene materials

Textures & Shaders

  • Texture name collision between scenes now resolved with per-scene subfolders
  • Stale texture on re-export now correctly overwritten
  • Corona Bitmap gamma override now respected
  • Double tiling on import (tiling applied twice)
  • Normal maps in Triplanar shader now use linear color profile
  • Bitmap invert now uses Corona Color Correct

Falloff

  • Perpendicular/Parallel mode now uses accurate Dot product method
  • Fresnel type now uses Physical Fresnel with correct IOR
  • map1On/map2On and map1Amount/map2Amount now respected

Cameras

  • Focus/target distance now imported
  • White Balance now applied to Corona Camera tag

Scatter

  • Chaos Scatter texture maps (density, scale, rotation) now functional

Performance

  • JSON export 1100x faster on large scenes
  • SSL/TLS errors on restricted networks handled gracefully

v1.0.4

2026-03-02
Fixed6 changes
  • Objects with special characters now import with correct materials
  • Corona Layered Material inside Multi/Sub no longer dropped
  • Corona Legacy chrome/mirror materials no longer black
  • Falloff in opacity slot no longer enables clip mode
  • Script Manager dev mode import errors fixed
  • Export path in Max no longer resets on launch

v1.0.3

2026-02-28
Added1 change
  • Automatic update check on dialog open (Max + C4D)
Fixed3 changes
  • Fixed syntax error on Max export dialog open
  • JSON parser handles compact format from update API
  • Normal maps in bump slot auto-detected and wrapped with linear color profile

v1.0.2

2026-02-26
Added5 changes
  • macOS support for C4D importer
  • Direct .max file import from C4D (3ds Max launches in background)
  • Progress monitoring with elapsed time and cancel button
  • "Skip hidden objects" option
  • Shared export path between Max and C4D
Changed1 change
  • Max exporter button renamed "EXPORT" → "EXPORT SCENE"
Fixed5 changes
  • EXR/HDR textures now use linear color profile
  • Normal maps in Corona Bitmap forced to linear
  • Dielectric mode correctly applied for refraction materials
  • Consecutive .max imports no longer reuse stale data
  • Fixed path corruption in shared preferences

v1.0.1

2026-02-24
Fixed2 changes
  • Corona Mix blend modes correctly transferred
  • Corona Mix per-slot multipliers imported

v1.0.0

2026-02
General12 changes
  • Initial release
  • OBJ-based geometry export
  • Corona Physical & Legacy Material support
  • Multi/Sub-Object materials with selection tags
  • Corona shaders (Bitmap, Normal, Color Correct, Mix, Triplanar, AO, MultiMap, Falloff, Composite)
  • Corona Lights, Sun, Moon, Sky
  • HDRI environment with overrides
  • Camera export (physical, target, free)
  • Proxy (.cgeo) support
  • Spline, Decal, Layered Material support
  • Tone mapping and per-camera render settings
  • Inno Setup installer