Is there a way to export animated cameras and geometry out of Solaris in any format other than USD? I'm trying to give a compositor something as simple as a camera and geo so that he can match-move some FX, but I'm having many issues with exported USD files not exporting all the info. For example, the cameras export but without animation. I've double checked that all my USD ROP settings are correct (flatten stage, etc).

Any solutions or workarounds with other formats would be very much appreciated.

-Mackenzie

I think you can laydown a file cache node, and set to implicitly. Just save the file as an *.abc. I test with a camera and a grid geo. The geo export did give me a warning, but it still output properly. See attached hip.

That worked for the cameras! Thank you so much. I had to adjust the scale in C4D to 1 meter, but then it worked. I couldn't get any geo to export that way.
-Mackenzie

TheNotepadShow
I think you can laydown a file cache node, and set to implicitly. Just save the file as an *.abc. I test with a camera and a grid geo. The geo export did give me a warning, but it still output properly. See attached hip.

wtf, that shouldn't work at all

btw, it worked for me with some simple geo, although it did generate errors. This hardly seems like an intended IO method. The usd rop has usd in the name, not solaris rop. (file cache is just a wrapped usd rop, so you can just skip the middleman and use a usd rop)

jsmack
wtf, that shouldn't work at all ... This hardly seems like an intended IO method

USD File Format plugins provide API opportunities for both reading *and* writing. In Solaris we don't go out of our way to try and prevent anyone from leveraging this.

To that end, however, it's very much worth noting that if you try to write out an Alembic file via USD APIs (e.g., in Solaris), you'll be using the Pixar-provided Alembic plugin, not Houdini's Alembic code. You should not expect the result to be the same as exporting an Alembic file from elsewhere in Houdini. It might give you everything you need ... it might not.

robp_sidefx

jsmack
wtf, that shouldn't work at all ... This hardly seems like an intended IO method

USD File Format plugins provide API opportunities for both reading *and* writing. In Solaris we don't go out of our way to try and prevent anyone from leveraging this.

To that end, however, it's very much worth noting that if you try to write out an Alembic file via USD APIs (e.g., in Solaris), you'll be using the Pixar-provided Alembic plugin, not Houdini's Alembic code. You should not expect the result to be the same as exporting an Alembic file from elsewhere in Houdini. It might give you everything you need ... it might not.

Could we see other formats with support added this way? GLTF hint hint

Adobe heard you: https://github.com/adobe/USD-Fileformat-plugins/tree/main/gltf [github.com]

mtucker
Adobe heard you: https://github.com/adobe/USD-Fileformat-plugins/tree/main/gltf [github.com]

@mtucker, that's really cool, I didn't know there was already a plugin out there. It looks like some of the formats implement file format args. Is there a way to pass these to the USD rop, maybe a syntax on the asset path/uri that is parsed?

> It looks like some of the formats implement file format args. Is there a way to pass these to the USD rop, maybe a syntax on the asset path/uri that is parsed?

I believe there is - it's something with :SDF_FORMAT_ARGS:

See:
- https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/86932/?page=1#post-375444 [www.sidefx.com]
- https://openusd.org/dev/api/usdabc_page_front.html [openusd.org]