alembic vray proxy features

[Hos]

In the latest nightly builds the feature to use an alembic file as a vray proxy was introduced.
We are figuring out a workflow to use this feature, because it can be a lot more efficient then our old workflow.
This way you only have to cache your scene once and you don't have to translate your geometry to vrayscene or proxy after you cached your scene to alembic.
Beside a few problems there are also a few features missing, which are needed for us to have a solid workflow.
For instance it is not possible to save the shader assignment in the alembic proxy as with a normal proxy. Right now we export the shader assignment to a separate textfile and assign the shaders to the correct object within the alembic proxy with a script. Only this way we can't assign shaders to faces.
Also the things like object id's and custom attributes are not supported right now.
Will these features eventually be supported? Wouldn't it be a needed to have a separate vray alembic exporter to be able to support these features?
Are there plans to have the vray proxy exporter to export to the alembic format?

greetings,
Arjan

[t.petrov]

For instance it is not possible to save the shader assignment in the alembic proxy as with a normal proxy. Right now we export the shader assignment to a separate textfile and assign the shaders to the correct object within the alembic proxy with a script. Only this way we can't assign shaders to faces.

I'll log an issue in our bug tracker and we will fix this.

Also the things like object id's and custom attributes are not supported right now.

We are working on the latter and I'll log an issue for the former, so both will be supported in the future.

Wouldn't it be a needed to have a separate vray alembic exporter to be able to support these features?

No

Are there plans to have the vray proxy exporter to export to the alembic format?

I don't think we have such plans.

btw: What version of V-Ray for Maya are you using?

[vlado]

Wouldn't it be a needed to have a separate vray alembic exporter to be able to support these features? Are there plans to have the vray proxy exporter to export to the alembic format?

Like Teodor noted, we have no intention to write an Alembic exporter. However, we will definitely work on improving support for rendering Alembic files.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Hos]

Thanks for your answer. We are using the nightly build version 22779.
I could be wrong but I think that the maya alembic exporter currently doesn't support exporting the shader assignment.
Will we need to write our own alembic exporter or use and external plugin with better features like the Exocortex alembic exporter or will it be possible with the maya alembic exporter to export the shader assignment?

[ultrasonic]

Hi Guys,

i also have some requests regarding alembic:

1. We would need a possiblitly to use at least 2 different alembic archives for data-efficient workflow. We need a slot that takes in the actual geometry and then we need a 2nd slot where we can plug another alembic which only holds the transforms of object....so our asset get's referenced from it's asset-folder and the animation comes from a specific shot.

2. in the "shaderNames" of the vrayMeshMaterial we would like to see the full DAG-Path of all alembic-nodes....we could work around that by assigning unique names to all objects (which we already do) but it would be nice to have

but anyway the current ABC support is already something to work with! Thumbs up guys!!!

cheers
Oliver

[vlado]

1. We would need a possiblitly to use at least 2 different alembic archives for data-efficient workflow. We need a slot that takes in the actual geometry and then we need a 2nd slot where we can plug another alembic which only holds the transforms of object....so our asset get's referenced from it's asset-folder and the animation comes from a specific shot.

We won't be doing that; it would be better to use tools like Exocortex Crate for this.

2. in the "shaderNames" of the vrayMeshMaterial we would like to see the full DAG-Path of all alembic-nodes....we could work around that by assigning unique names to all objects (which we already do) but it would be nice to have

We can do that, I'll make a note for it. (Sidenote: Alembic files do not feature a DAG - this is patented by Autodesk - they simply store a hierarchy).

Best regards,
Vlado

[ultrasonic]

2. in the "shaderNames" of the vrayMeshMaterial we would like to see the full DAG-Path of all alembic-nodes....we could work around that by assigning unique names to all objects (which we already do) but it would be nice to have

Hey Vlado,
any news on that? just checked the latest build 23507 and it seem, that it's not in there yet....can u maybe push that a bit on your priolist? I guess it's just a small change,right?

thx
Oli

[vlado]

It's in the 3.0 nightlies; I'm not sure that we can port the change to the 2.x branch - too many things are different. It is not a small change.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ultrasonic]

It's in the 3.0 nightlies; I'm not sure that we can port the change to the 2.x branch - too many things are different. It is not a small change.

No big deal vlado! We are good as long it's in 3.0! Didn't double check...sorry for that! In production we are still on 2.4 but we'll switch with our new project...

thx
Oli