What is rhino.io:
it is an import Plugin for Rhino and CINEMA 4D. Its target is to provide an as easy as possible and smooth work flow between these 2 applications ( it is recommended you have both apps for best workflow, to have c4d is mandatory). As there are no real NURBS objects or tools available within Cinema4d, with this connection Rhino can act as high end “NURBS modeling plugin” for the CINEMA 4D platform. Any Rhino geometry can be directly opened in CINEMA 4D. They get translated into native, perfectly smooth CINEMA 4D Polygon Objects, which render exactly as they would direct in Rhino.
Detailed feature list of rhino.io:
Rhino NURBS Objects are automatically translated into native, ready to render CINEMA 4D Polygon objects. They use the internal Rhino so called render meshes, which Rhino uses for rendering and stores in each file ones it got shown with OpenGL in view port or rendered. As normal tags store the original NURBS curvature data, they render perfectly smooth in CINEMA 4D. Rhino7 also supports the new rhino subdivision surfaces to be translated into native C4D subdivision surfaces!
Meshes from Rhino, generated from custom tessellation, native mesh objects, grasshopper, panneling tools or imported from any other 3rdparty application are being transported into native, ready to render CINEMA 4D Polygon objects.
any lights set in Rhino will be translated into equivalent CINEMA 4D lights. they can be used further on for visualization with any engine in C4D.
Rhino.io imports and translates also poly lines and even NURBS splines. the NURBS splines get auto tessellated on import, as CINEMA 4D has no real NURBS splines. they can be used for further modelling, or as construction help lines.
Rhino “saved views” / Cameras are also imported. you get the exact same views in CINEMA 4D. not only the active Camera is imported but also all saved views stored in the rhino .3dm file. They come in as native CINEMA 4D Camera Objects
If you use Rhino Blocks, or if you import an .dwg file via Rhino, rhino.io will also import the blocks correctly, automatically translating them into native CINEMA 4D Instances. this enables new work flow possibilities in combination of Rhino and C4D, the use of blocks becomes a very useful work flow through that feature.
Rhino Materials on Rhino objects, including UV mapping data can be imported into CINEMA 4D, basic attributes like, color, transparency specular etc is translated into an CINEMA 4D material. (new version 1.2+ can also import basic texture attributes/bitmap references)
Rhino Layer colors are also imported. this can be specially very useful if you import the Rhino layers as Groups. The layer color will be a material tag added to the corresponding layer group. this can be a very fast and efficient work flow for visualization
in Rhino you have the possibility to set a custom per object render mesh attribute. rhino.io is able to read this special Object properly and use it for the CINEMA 4D import. int hat way you can easily apply custom tessellation settings to a rhino object without the need to actually tessellate it into a mesh before export. rhino.io will do for you.
Architectural visualization example:
a detailed 300mb Rhino .3dm file of an architectural project from a client, Rhino screen-shot:
opened in CINEMA 4D, despite the huge size it opens in seconds (!), full layer structure, cameras, block definitions, groups and rhino material colors are imported:
one of the Rhino cameras of the model rendered in CINEMA 4D with a 3rd party render engine:
Example Rhino CAD file (you get this mode for FREE with each Rhino.io purchase):
a nice Rhino Audi A6 NURBS model (screen-shot original rhino model):
opened via rhino.io and rendered in CINEMA 4D with VRAYforC4D (.C4d-VRAY scene free included with rhino.io):
compare the Rhino layers and the clean c4d object manager structure of the imported file:
