Hi, I am currently trying to create fur for characters in our game. I have made several tests on different softwares, and so far houdini seems like the best option for what I am going for.

Here is the problem: I can't seem to figure out how to export it.

I have my hair generators, and want to try to export it for Unreal Engine 5. However, the rop alembic (and rop fbx, as well as any kind of export) doesn't seem to work, and exports empty objects.

In Unreal, the object can't be created (Output Log is empty, as well as the console), and in 3DS Max, there seems to be no file, as it imports an empty abc container.

Inside a geo node, I have an object merge plugged into a haircard generator (it works and generates the cards), and then I simply have my hair and hair cards plugged separately in their respective alembic exporters. The hair doesn't export at all, the haircards exports empty objects. I tried going for File->export->alembic, but i cannot access any of the OUT nodes from here.

Any ideas on what i should do?

I generally perform Alembic exports from the /out context. Try adding an AlembicROP. Generally speaking, you may want to add s@name or s@path to the primitives you're exporting and then choose build hierarchy from that attribute.

Enivob
I generally perform Alembic exports from the /out context. Try adding an AlembicROP. Generally speaking, you may want to add s@name or s@path to the primitives you're exporting and then choose build hierarchy from that attribute.

I know this is probably a pretty basic question, but how would you go about doing this? I tried exporting from the /out, but i don't know how to export the cards. When i export from there, i either get the entire project exported (except the cards and hair...) or it's empty as well... Also, what does building the hierarchy from a name do?

This is the first time something like this happens, and i have no idea why it does.

Can you post your HIP file?

Enivob
Can you post your HIP file?

Sorry about the delayed response. I have been trying out a few things before sending it, and while cleaning up the graph for you to read (Which proved useless since the file was too heavy for me to send over to the forum) i found out what the issue was.

In the object merge node, i selected the hairgen node, which didn't pose a problem for generating the haircards. However, (this is the part where i don't understand the technicalities behind it) the AlembicROP probably couldn't create a proper hierarchy from it because there was a path issue (this is just an uneducated guess however).

Redirecting each object path to the Hairs output from the hairgen corrected the issue.

Well, now onto understanding if i can still make the groom plugin consider these as haircards...