The Arnold > Utilities > Materials > Convert menu contains commands to convert between the supported material types.
Legacy Arnold Material to Node Material
Convert all legacy materials to Node Materials
All legacy Arnold Materials in the current scene are replaced with Arnold Node Materials.
Convert selected legacy materials to Node Materials
The selected legacy Arnold Materials in the current scene are replaced with Arnold Node Materials.
Default shortcut is Alt+W~D in the Material Browser.
Copy & convert selected legacy materials to Node Materials
The selected legacy Arnold Materials are converted to Arnold Node Materials, the legacy materials are kept in the scene.
Default shortcut is Alt+W~C in the Material Browser.
Cinema 4D Standard Material to Arnold Material
Convert all C4D Materials to Arnold Materials
All Cinema 4D Standard Materials in the current scene are replaced with Arnold Materials.
Convert selected C4D Materials to Arnold Materials
The selected Cinema 4D Standard Materials in the current scene are replaced with Arnold Materials.
Default shortcut is Alt+W~D in the Material Browser.
Copy & convert selected C4D Materials to Arnold Materials
The selected Cinema 4D Standard Materials are converted to Arnold Materials, the Cinema 4D Standard Materials are kept in the scene.
Default shortcut is Alt+W~C in the Material Browser.
The type of the Arnold Material (Node Material vs legacy material) depends on the default material system set in the Preferences.
Note that the resulting Arnold Material won't be a perfect match to the C4D Material since Arnold has different shaders and concepts. See the Cinema 4D Material page for the supported features and limitations.
Substance Asset to Arnold Material
Convert selected Substance Assets to Arnold Materials
Converts all selected Substance Assets to an Arnold Material. A Substance Shader is created for each texture of the asset and connected to the appropriate parameter of a root standard surface shader.
| Substance texture | Color space | Arnold shader network |
|---|---|---|
| Base color | sRGB | Connected to Base color. |
| Diffuse | sRGB | Connected to Base color if no Base color texture exists. |
| Specular | sRGB | Connected to Specular color. Specular weight is set to 1.0. |
| Roughness | raw | Connected to Specular roughness. |
| f0 | raw | Connected to Specular IOR. |
| Refraction | sRGB | Connected to Transmission color. Transmission weight is set to 1.0. |
| Emission | sRGB | Connected to Emission color. Emission weight is set to 1.0. |
| Opacity | sRGB | Connected to Cutout Opacity. |
| Metallic | raw | Connected to Metalness. |
| Normal | raw | A normal map shader is created and the texture is connected to its Normal map parameter. |
| Bump | raw | A bump2d shader is created and the texture is connected to its Bump map parameter. |
| Displacement | raw | A normal displacement shader is created and the texture is connected to its Displacement parameter. |
Default shortcut is Alt+W~C in the Substance Asset Manager.
Deprecated Shaders
Replace deprecated shaders in legacy Arnold Material
The hair, standard, and volume_collector shaders are deprecated in Arnold 5, they will be removed in a future release. Use this command to convert these shaders to their replacements (standard_hair, standard_surface, and standard_volume). The shaders can be converted individually as well.