Corona, V-Ray & Redshift Material Converter — Full Feature List
MAX2C4D converts your entire 3ds Max scene to Cinema 4D — not just geometry, but the full Corona, V-Ray and Redshift material graphs, lights, cameras, and render settings. Here's everything that transfers.
Reading the file
How the scene gets into Cinema 4D in the first place — and what the one route that needs 3ds Max still needs it for.
Native .max Reader
MAX2C4D decodes the .max format itself, inside Cinema 4D. Drag a file onto C4D, or use File > Open or File > Merge, and the scene rebuilds — no export step, nothing to prepare. The scene graph names its own classes, so a Corona or V-Ray scene opens on a machine where that engine was never installed. See exactly what transfers.
Reads the format itself
The scene graph names its own classes, so a Corona scene opens even if Corona was never installed — which also covers owning Max but not the engine the scene uses
Drag and drop, Open, Merge
.max is registered as a Cinema 4D file type, so all three entry points work; options follow whatever you last set in the MAX2C4D window
Archives and batches
.zip listed without extracting (.rar too, on Windows), several files at once, and a Corona/V-Ray pair in one archive pre-ticks only the variant matching your engine
Mac, natively
Apple Silicon. On macOS the native reader is the only route in
Validated against 3ds Max itself
The same scene is read both ways and diffed automatically: 80,207 identical values, 0 divergent, across 37 scenes
Old scenes too
Files saved by 3ds Max 2012 and earlier with V-Ray 3 or newer, and by Corona 5, 6 and 15, whose parameters live at different addresses in each
Quads stay quads
Faces are read straight from Editable Poly, with no OBJ round-trip to triangulate them or lose material IDs
Nothing dropped in silence
An import log is written to your export folder on this route too, naming anything a target engine cannot take, with its value
What needs the 3ds Max route instead
VRayClipper, ForestPack. Both are read when you route the import through 3ds Max, which stays available by design: it also covers ProBoolean and the few Edit Poly edits the native reader cannot replay yet. Separately, a file saved with “Compress on save” cannot be read natively at all (5 of 183 files in our test corpus); MAX2C4D names the option and the two ways round it.
Materials & shaders
The part every other converter flattens: 50+ material types, 200+ shader nodes and the texture paths underneath them, rebuilt as node graphs rather than approximations.
Corona Materials
Every Corona material type supported in 3ds Max is recreated as a native Corona material in Cinema 4D. Not a Standard material approximation — the actual Corona material with all properties intact. See the full Corona materials guide.
CoronaPhysicalMtl
Base color, roughness, metalness, IOR, anisotropy, SSS, clearcoat, thin film, volumetrics, emission — every parameter mapped
CoronaLegacyMtl
Diffuse, reflect, refract, opacity, bump, displacement — full legacy material support
CoronaLayeredMtl
Multiple material layers with blend modes, masks, and per-layer properties preserved
CoronaLightMtl
Self-illuminating materials with intensity, color, and emission properties
CoronaHairMtl
Hair-specific shading with melanin, roughness, and scatter parameters
CoronaSkinMtl
SSS skin shader with scatter radius, color, and absorption
CoronaVolumeMtl
Volumetric materials with absorption, scattering, and emission
3ds Max Standard / Physical
Native Max materials converted to the closest C4D equivalent
Multi/Sub-Object
Material ID assignments transferred via polygon Selection Tags — per-polygon accuracy
CoronaToonMtl
Toon shading with outline, refraction, and opacity textures
CoronaFabricMtl
Fabric shading with opacity, bump, and displacement values
CoronaRaySwitcherMtl
Per-ray-type material switching — camera, reflection, refraction, GI
CoronaSlicerMtl
Boolean slicing with cap material and pattern settings
CoronaSelectMtl
Object-based material selection with nested container support
CoronaDecalMtl
Projection-based decal material with position and blending
V-Ray Materials
Every V-Ray material type is mapped 1:1 to its V-Ray for Cinema 4D equivalent. Full shader trees, nested texmaps, and all per-material parameters are preserved — no baking, no approximation. Walk through how V-Ray materials transfer to Cinema 4D.
VRayMtl
Diffuse, reflect, refract, SSS, coat, sheen, thin film — full 1:1 mapping to VRay C4D
VRayLightMtl
Self-illuminating with intensity, color, two-sided emission
VRayBlendMtl
Base + up to 10 blend layers with masks and weights
VRay2SidedMtl
Front/back materials with translucency
VRayFastSSS2
Subsurface scattering with scatter radius, color, profile
VRaySwitchMtl
Per-ray-type switching — camera, GI, reflection, refraction
VRayHairNextMtl
Hair with melanin, pheomelanin, glossiness, scatter
VRayCarPaintMtl
Automotive paint with flake, coat, and base layers
VRayFlakesMtl
Stochastic flakes for metallic/glitter finishes
VRayToonMtl
Toon/cel shading with outline and fill controls
VRayBumpMtl
Bump/normal map wrapper for any material
VRayOverrideMtl
Per-ray-type material overrides
VRaySkinMtl
Skin SSS with deep/medium/shallow scatter layers
Redshift Materials
Redshift is a third target engine alongside Corona and V-Ray. A Redshift scene rebuilds as a native Redshift node graph in Cinema 4D — 152 of the 152 in-scope Redshift classes transfer, 147 of them with no approximation at all. You can also send a V-Ray or Corona scene here instead, and get native Redshift out. Walk through how Redshift materials transfer to Cinema 4D.
RS Standard Material
The full ~35 channels — base, reflection, refraction, SSS, sheen, coat, thin film, anisotropy, emission, plus bump, coat bump and displacement
RS OpenPBR Material
Redshift 2026’s newer shading model, transferred like for like
RS Incandescent
Emissive with colour, alpha, intensity and temperature
RS SSS
Subsurface scattering with scatter radius scaled to scene units
RS Material Blender
Base plus layers with their masks and weights
RS Car Paint
Flake, coat and base layers
RS Skin
Shallow, mid and deep scatter with both reflection lobes
RS Toon Material
Base, roughness, IOR, opacity and tone ramps
RS Matte / Shadow Catcher
Matte and shadow-catch surfaces
RS Architectural
The legacy architectural shader, common in older archviz scenes
RS Material (legacy)
Older Redshift scenes still convert
RS Ray Switch
Per-ray-type material switching
RS Sprite
Opacity cut-outs for vegetation — file, repeats and sub-material
RS Volume / Standard Volume
Volumetric shading with ramp values (VDB grids are not transferred)
Shader Nodes — 200+ Types Recursively Mapped
The full node graph is preserved, not collapsed. Nested composites, Output curves, mapping channels — every connection is recreated in Cinema 4D's node editor exactly as it was in 3ds Max. The same recursive traversal runs on all three engines: Corona and V-Ray texmaps, plus the complete 123-node Redshift texmap set.
Corona nodes
26- CoronaBitmap
- CoronaNormal
- CoronaColorCorrect
- CoronaMixMtl
- CoronaTriplanar
- CoronaAO
- CoronaMultiShader
- CoronaMappingRandomizer
- CoronaColor
- CoronaFresnel
- CoronaWire
- CoronaDistance
- CoronaLayeredMtl
- CoronaRoundEdges
- CoronaCurvature
- CoronaUvwRandomizer
- CoronaSelect
- CoronaData
- CoronaFrontBack
- Output (Curves)
- Color Correction
- Composite
- Mix
- Falloff
- Gradient
- Noise
V-Ray nodes
15- VRayBitmap
- VRayNormalMap
- VRayDirt
- VRayTriplanar
- VRayMultiSubTex
- VRayEdges
- VRayCurvature
- VRayUVWRandomizer
- VRayCompTex
- VRaySoftbox
- VRaySky
- VRayUserColor
- VRayOCIO
- VRayFalloff
- VRayColor
Redshift nodes — 123 texmaps
- RS Texture
- RS Bitmap
- RS Normal Map
- RS Bump Map
- RS Bump Blender
- RS Displacement
- RS TriPlanar
- RS UV Projection
- RS Round Corners
- RS MatCap
- RS State
- RS Surface Tangent
- RS Unit Conversion
- RS IOR to Metal Tints
- RS Ray Switch
- RS AO
- RS Fresnel
- RS Curvature
- RS Maxon Noise
- RS Distance
- RS Wireframe
- RS Flakes
- RS Brick / Tiles / Scratches
- RS Physical Sky
- RS Color Correct
- RS Color Mix / HSV / Gain
- RS User Data
Plus 15 colour nodes (mix, invert, splitter, maker, HSV, gain, bias), 32 scalar maths nodes and 29 vector maths nodes — the whole Redshift maths library, so any expression chain sitting between your bitmap and your material arrives with its connections intact.
Plus additional procedural maps, utility nodes, and Max Standard nodes. Every node is recursively traversed — if a CoronaBitmap feeds into a CoronaColorCorrect that feeds into a CoronaPhysicalMtl's roughness slot, that entire chain is rebuilt. Same on the Redshift side: an RS Texture into an RS Color Correct into an RS Standard Material's roughness input comes across whole.
CoronaBitmap — Every Property Preserved
CoronaBitmap is the most-used node in any Corona scene. MAX2C4D transfers every property, not just the file path.
- File path with automatic texture collection and path resolution
- UVW tiling (repeat U/V), offset, rotation
- Real-world scale mapping with physical dimensions
- Filtering mode (SAT, None, Summed Area)
- Gamma / color space settings
- Output curve adjustments (RGB, R, G, B individually)
- Blur, crop, and placement settings
- Mapping channel assignment
Their equivalents on the other two engines get the same treatment: VRayBitmap on the V-Ray target, and RS Texture on the Redshift one — tiling, offset, rotation, colour space and wrap/mirror mode all carried over, with the texture file collected and relinked.
Texture Path Resolution
Broken texture paths are the #1 headache when moving scenes between software. MAX2C4D resolves every path type and collects textures into a clean local folder — zero missing bitmaps.
UNC paths
\\server\share\textures — network paths fully resolved
Mapped drives
Z:\Projects\Textures — drive letter paths resolved to real locations
Synology NAS
Synology Drive placeholders and cloud-synced files resolved
OneDrive / cloud files
Cloud placeholder files detected and resolved to local copies
Relative paths
Scene-relative texture references resolved correctly
Per-scene isolation
Each imported scene gets its own texture subfolder — no filename collisions between projects
Local collection
All textures copied to a clean /tex folder alongside the exported scene
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The scene
Everything around the materials — lights, cameras, scattered vegetation, proxies and splines — arriving with the same parameter-level fidelity.
Lights
All Corona, V-Ray and Redshift light types are recreated in Cinema 4D with matching intensity, color temperature, shape, and directionality. 3ds Max's own lights — spot, omni, directional and photometric — now transfer too, on every target.
Corona lights
4CoronaLight
Rectangle, Disc, Sphere, and Cylinder shapes with intensity, color, directionality, IES profiles, and exclude/include lists
CoronaSun
Sun position, intensity multiplier, size, and color shift
CoronaMoon
Moonlight with phase, intensity, and atmospheric settings
Light properties
Position, rotation, scale, target objects, visibility to camera, and shadow settings
V-Ray lights
4VRayLight
Rectangle, Sphere, Disc, Cylinder, Mesh, IES with intensity, color, directionality
VRaySun
Sun position, intensity, size, turbidity, ozone, atmosphere
VRay Dome Light
HDRI environment with mapping, intensity, UV offset
VRay IES Light
Photometric profiles with filter color and intensity
Redshift lights
6RS Physical Light
Area, Point, Spot and Infinite with colour mode, temperature, exposure, decay, area shape and spread
RS Dome Light
HDRI environment with multiplier and rotation
RS IES Light
.ies profiles collected and relinked with their full parameter block
RS Portal Light
Height, multiplier, tint, transparency and environment map
RS Sun & Sky
Sun, sky, moon and stars transferred 1:1 — an existing Sun & Sky is completed rather than duplicated
3ds Max native lights
Omni → Point, spot → Spot, directional → Infinite, photometric → IES or Area with intensity in candelas
Cameras
Physical and Standard cameras with all exposure, DOF, and post-processing settings transferred to Cinema 4D.
- Physical camera: focal length, sensor size, f-stop, shutter speed, ISO
- DOF: focus distance, bokeh shape, blade count
- Bloom & glare, sharpening, vignetting
- Per-camera overrides (tone mapping, white balance, exposure)
- Camera position, rotation, and target
- Standard cameras with FOV and clipping planes
- VRay Camera Tag with VRay-specific exposure and lens settings
Redshift camera tag
- Camera type, including fisheye, cylindrical and stereo settings
- The full post-effects stack, block by block — bloom, flare, streak, LUT, colour controls, optical settings and backplate
- Each block keeps its own override and enabled state — a camera with bloom switched off in Max arrives with bloom switched off in C4D
Redshift post effects are read per camera. Global post effects are not reachable from MaxScript, so they are logged rather than guessed.
Chaos Scatter
Chaos Scatter instances and their texture-driven distribution are transferred to Cinema 4D. Vegetation, furniture scatters, and other distributed objects work out of the box.
- Density texture maps
- Scale texture maps
- Rotation texture maps
- Translation texture maps
- Scatter object references and material assignments
ForestPack to Chaos Scatter
ForestPack objects (Forest Lite and Forest Pro) are automatically detected during export and converted to Chaos Scatter in Cinema 4D. Vegetation, grass, forests, and other distributed objects transfer with their full scatter configuration.
Distribution modes
Surface/2D, spline-based (1D), and volume (3D) distribution modes converted to Chaos Scatter equivalents
Density & count
Per-square density conversion from ForestPack grid spacing to Chaos Scatter density, with instance count limits preserved
Instances & frequency
Scattered model objects with per-model frequency and probability weights transferred
Transform controls
Translation, rotation (with normal alignment), and scale ranges converted from percentage-based to absolute values
Include / exclude zones
Spline include areas, spline and geometry exclude zones with per-zone falloff — geometry excludes auto-converted to outline splines
Collision avoidance
Inter-object collision detection with strictness control
Slope & altitude limiting
Angle range and height range constraints for terrain-aware scattering
Camera clipping
Near and far clipping distances for render-time optimization
Texture maps
Density, scale, rotation, and translation distribution maps for texture-driven scatter variation
Clustering
Cluster size, roughness, edge blend, diversity, spacing, and rotation for natural-looking grouping
V-Ray Scene Objects
V-Ray-specific scene objects — proxies, clippers, fur, decals, and atmospheric effects — are transferred with full parameter fidelity to their V-Ray for Cinema 4D equivalents.
VRay Proxy (.vrmesh)
File path, preview, scale, flip axis, animation, material assignments
VRay Clipper
Boolean section plane with intersection/subtraction mode, cap material
VRay Fur
Parametric hair/fur with length, thickness, gravity, density, curl
VRay Decal
Projection-based decal with dimensions, angle, mask, material
VRay Environment Fog
Volumetric fog with color, distance, height, scatter, emission
VRay Aerial Perspective
Atmospheric haze with visibility range, height, filters
Proxies & Splines
Corona Proxy objects (.cgeo), V-Ray Proxy objects (.vrmesh), and 3ds Max splines are transferred to Cinema 4D with correct transforms, material assignments, and shape data.
Corona Proxy (.cgeo)
Proxy file path, position, rotation, scale, and per-slot material assignments preserved
VRay Proxy (.vrmesh)
Proxy file path, preview, scale, flip axis, animation offset, and material assignments preserved
Proxy UV handling
Automatic V-flip for .cgeo UVs — cloned materials with corrected tiling so textures render correctly
Spline export
Open, closed, and multi-segment splines with knot points and segment types
Spline modifiers
Edit Spline and other modifiers collapsed before export — final shape transferred accurately
On the Redshift target, proxies work differently: Redshift cannot read .vrmesh or .cgeo, so V-Ray and Corona proxies are baked into real geometry instead. Redshift's own .rs proxy files are not exported either — the mesh path is preserved and written to the conversion log.
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Rendering
Your render configuration lands with the scene, and you choose which engine it lands in — including engines the scene was never authored for.
Render Settings
Your render configuration is transferred so the C4D output matches what you had in 3ds Max — no manual copying of GI settings, denoiser config, or tone mapping values.
Corona render settings
- GI solver configuration (UHD Cache, path tracing, progressive rendering)
- Denoiser settings (mode, strength, radius)
- Tone mapping (filmic, reinhard, linear) with highlight compression
- LUT file reference
- Caustics settings
- Environment overrides (direct visibility, reflection, refraction)
- Resolution, aspect ratio, region rendering
V-Ray render settings
- V-Ray render settings — ~130 parameters via VideoPost
- VRay VFB2 Layers — full post-processing stack
- VRay image sampler, DMC, color mapping
- VRay caustics, displacement, environment overrides
Redshift render settings
- Unified sampling, sample overrides and noise threshold
- GI, irradiance cache, irradiance point cloud and caustics
- Trace depth read from your scene’s real materials — no more black glass at the 6-bounce cap
- Motion blur and denoising (OIDN / Altus)
- Global displacement and per-object tessellation via the RS Object tag
- Per-camera post effects — bloom, flare, streak, LUT, colour and optical controls
- The Redshift VideoPost is created and the engine pre-selected, so F9 renders immediately
Renderer Selection
MAX2C4D detects your scene's renderer automatically, or you can force a specific pipeline. A dropdown in the importer dialog gives you full control over how materials are processed.
Auto mode
Detects whether the scene uses Corona, V-Ray or Redshift automatically, based on the materials and render settings found in the exported data
Corona mode
Force the Corona pipeline — all materials processed as Corona types regardless of auto-detection result
V-Ray mode
Force the V-Ray pipeline — all materials processed as V-Ray types regardless of auto-detection result
Redshift mode
Force the Redshift pipeline — a Redshift, V-Ray or Corona scene all rebuild as native Redshift node graphs. Requires Cinema 4D 2024.4 or newer
V-Ray to Corona fallback
V-Ray scenes convert to Corona materials when V-Ray for Cinema 4D is not installed — a best-effort cross-renderer conversion
Redshift as a safety net
A Corona scene with no Corona for C4D, or a V-Ray scene with neither V-Ray nor Corona installed, falls back to native Redshift instead of plain Standard materials — Redshift ships with Cinema 4D, so it is always there
Convert a Scene Already in Cinema 4D
The Convert tab needs no .max at all: it rebuilds the document you already have open onto another engine, in place. Corona and V-Ray scenes convert to Corona, V-Ray or Redshift — 4 routes, since a scene never converts to the engine it already uses. Starting from a Redshift scene is not supported yet.
Materials
Rebuilt on the target engine, values and whole texture trees. The material is swapped by pointer, so your texture tags — polygon selection, projection, offset, tiling — are left exactly as you set them by hand
Lights
Area lights and the sun, with their shape, size, colour, intensity in the target engine’s own unit, IES profile and sun angle. They stay in the group and at the spot where you put them
Cameras
ISO, shutter, f-stop, depth of field and its aperture shape, per-camera bloom and sharpening. The camera object is never replaced, only its engine tag, so name, position and animation tracks survive
Render settings
Exposure, tone mapping, bloom and sharpening. On Redshift the tone mapping lives on the camera rather than in the render settings, and it is carried there for you
Environment
A physical sky or an HDRI environment is rebuilt as a V-Ray Environment, a Dome Light or a Redshift Sun and Sky, so a converted exterior keeps the light that comes from everywhere
Proxies
Baked into real geometry, in place, with their sub-materials and their name. No target engine can read a .cgeo or a .vrmesh, so the cache has to become mesh on the way across
Scatters
Chaos Scatter is a Chaos product rather than an engine object, so it is kept as it is — and its distribution surfaces are re-pointed at the baked geometry, so nothing ends up scattering on an object that no longer exists
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entire scene by hand.
Every hour you spend rebuilding materials, relinking textures, and reconfiguring lights and render settings is an hour you're not rendering, not iterating, not billing. MAX2C4D pays for itself on the first scene.
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