1. Transferring a Drawing from CET to Twinmotion
2. Updating a Drawing
3. About Materials and Lights
4. Saving Changes in Twinmotion
5. Exporting a Drawing for an External Application

Refer to this article to Download and Install Twinmotion: Getting Started with Twinmotion

Transferring a Drawing from CET to Twinmotion

After finishing your layout in CET, it can be easily transferred to Twinmotion via a Direct Link.

To transfer your drawing to Twinmotion, follow these steps:

1. Start the Twinmotion software on your computer.
   
   
2. On the Twinmotion for CET component tab, click the Start button:
   
   
   
   
3. In Twinmotion, click the Import icon:
   
   
   
   
4. In the dialog that pops up, go to Direct Link and verify that the Direct Link settings source points to the drawing that you have open in CET.
   
   Also, expand Options and pick Keep hierarchy as your Collapse option:
   
   
   
   
5. Click Import. The Direct Link starts.
   
   
6. When the import is complete, a CET thumbnail is displayed at the bottom of the Twinmotion window, and you can start to interact with the drawing:
   
   
   
   
   There is an option in the Twinmotion Settings that will make navigation similar to that of CET:
   
7. To close the Direct Link with Twinmotion, click the Stop button in CET.

Can't see your drawing in Twinmotion? Try to expand the menu on the right-hand side:

Then, right-click on the drawing name and click Zoom to selection:

For further assistance on how to navigate Twinmotion, do refer to Twinmotion's documentation.

Updating a drawing

If you have made changes to your drawing, CET will inform you that there are changes pending:

The fastest and easiest way to proceed is to click Update changes. Doing so will perform an incremental update, i.e. only transfer information on changes made to the drawing in CET.

About Materials and Lights

Currently, all objects, blocks and materials are transferred, whereas CET lights are not as Twinmotion does not support them at this point.

Should you want to edit your materials after transferring your drawing to Twinmotion, we recommend that you apply and use Twinmotion's own materials, as CET materials are not fully supported.

If you have changed materials in Twinmotion and then Update changes from CET, the materials you applied in Twinmotion are retained. Materials applied in Twinmotion will never transfer to CET. (Read the section below on Saving)

Saving Changes in Twinmotion

As mentioned previously, any changes done within Twinmotion, such as adding Objects or Materials from their Library, will not be reflected in the CET drawing. This is due to the Direct Link being a 1-to-1 connection with CET.

Therefore, to save your changes in Twinmotion, you will have to use the Resource Collector tool.

1. Go to the toolbar n the top-left of the Twinmotion window and click Edit.
   
   
2. In the dropdown menu, select Resource Collector.
   
   
   
   
3. The Resource Collector dialog should pop up as below.
   
   
   
   
4. Choose your Save Destination Patch by clicking Open.
   
   
5. Under the Collect section, tick the checkbox ".tm file."
   
   
6. Finally, click Collect.

Twinmotion will have saved two items in the Destination folder, 1 is a .tm file in which you use to open with Twinmotion, and the other is a folder titled "maps" where all the resources used are saved.

For more information on the Resource Collector, refer to their Support website: How to share files, including textures, using the Resource collector? (epicgames.com)

Exporting a Drawing for an External Application

Besides CAD, you could also export your CET drawing as a datasmith (.udatasmith) file format. Simply...

1. Go to File in the top-left of the CET toolbar.
   
   
2. Click Import & Export.
   
   
3. Select Export Drawing.
   
   
4. Under the file type section, choose "datasmith."
   
   This export file type is only available when the Twinmotion for CET extension is installed and enabled.