Switching to Redshift — one migration instead of two
Redshift has shipped with every Cinema 4D licence since 2023. If you are moving off 3ds Max anyway, you can land on the renderer you already own — and MAX2C4D converts V-Ray, Corona and Redshift scenes straight to it.
Why studios land on Redshift after leaving 3ds Max
It is already paid for
Redshift is included in every Cinema 4D licence since 2023. No extra seats, no separate renewal cycle, nothing to negotiate at renewal time.
GPU rendering by default
Redshift is a GPU renderer built for production throughput. For studios sizing new hardware anyway, that changes what a workstation needs to be.
Runs on Apple Silicon
Cinema 4D and Redshift both run natively on macOS including Apple Silicon. 3ds Max never did — for a Mac-based team this is the whole point of the move.
Maxon ships no converter
Maxon does not provide a V-Ray or Corona to Redshift conversion path of its own, and neither does any other Max-to-C4D plugin. This is the gap MAX2C4D fills.
The two-migration trap
Here is the pattern that costs studios the most time. You leave 3ds Max, convert the archive to Corona or V-Ray for Cinema 4D because that is what the scenes were built in, and buy the matching C4D renderer seats to open them. A year later you decide to standardise on Redshift because it came free with the licence — and now every one of those scenes needs converting a second time, by hand.
Setting the target to Redshift on the first pass avoids that entirely. A VRayMtl or CoronaPhysicalMtl graph is rebuilt with real Redshift nodes — RS Standard Material, RS Texture, RS Color Correct, RS AO — rather than flattened. Lights become RS Lights, suns become RS Sun & Sky, HDRIs become an RS Dome Light, and proxies are baked into real geometry.
It is not lossless — converting between two different renderers never is — but every gap is written to the log by name rather than discovered at render time. The cross-renderer guide lists exactly what maps and what does not.
How to run the switch
Check your Cinema 4D version
The Redshift target needs Cinema 4D 2024.4 or newer. Below that, the Redshift entry does not appear in the import dialog and scenes convert through Corona, V-Ray or Standard instead.
Pick Redshift in the import dialog
Export from 3ds Max as usual, then set the Renderer dropdown to Redshift. A Redshift, V-Ray or Corona scene all rebuild as native Redshift node graphs. The choice is remembered between sessions.
Convert one known scene first
Start with a project your team knows by eye. Read the conversion log — every approximation and every unsupported feature is named there, so you learn what to check before you commit a library.
Batch the rest
Queue the archive in the Batch Exporter and run it overnight. If your scenes use V-Ray or Corona proxies, run the batch on a machine that still has that renderer installed — reading .vrmesh and .cgeo requires it.
Already using Redshift in 3ds Max?
Then this is not a renderer switch at all — just a host change, and it is the highest-fidelity path of the three. 152 of the 152 in-scope Redshift classes transfer, 147 of them with no approximation: 24 material types, 123 texmaps, all six light types, render settings on their own VideoPost with the engine pre-selected, and per-camera post effects block by block.
Read the Redshift to Redshift guide →Your asset library, on one engine
Most archviz assets — 3dsky, Evermotion, CGTrader, Dimensiva — ship as .max files with Corona or V-Ray materials, and almost none ship a Redshift version. Converting to the Redshift target turns that library into a Redshift library: batch the folder, and every model arrives with a real RS node graph and its texture paths resolved. It is the practical way to standardise a mixed-renderer archive on the engine that came with your licence.
Convert once. Land on the renderer you already own.
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