Hi,
I'm very new to APEX and I'm not even a rigger. I'm the pipeline guy trying to figure out how we are going to export the animation bakes properly for our USD pipe.

I'm trying to setup a character that has two resolutions. A hiand a lo. The idea here is to have a more complex deformation on the hishape like wrinkles etc. And we want to export both resolutions when we are done with the animation so lighters can view the loin the viewport and the hiin the render. Instead of packing a folder with the basic `Base.shp`, I did it this way.


Then I added a simple_fk auto rig component, and then a bonedeform for each shape, like this.


I also added this character twice in a scene so I can test with multiple characters. I can see both characters in the Scene Animate node, but I only see the lomeshes.

Then I added a Scene Invoke node like this.


And finally I added two Unpack Folder nodes to extract the loand hiof one character. I want to export them as separate usdc files. The problem is that both nodes export the same data: the loonly.


So the question is: how to setup a character with multiple mesh resolutions, how to choose which one to see in the Scene Animate node, and how to extract them separately for export?

Thanks!

Attachments:
20240816-111832.png (8.8 KB)
20240816-112616.png (66.6 KB)
20240816-113343.png (46.1 KB)
20240816-113835.png (10.2 KB)

Attachments:
proxy_switch.gif (352.4 KB)
proxy_switch.hip (293.5 KB)

I successfully solved part of my problem by adding a prefix to the bonedeformcomponents. This way, the two nodes are independant in the APEX graph. I had to move the wrinkle component after the first bonedeform for everything to work properly.

The only thing that is missing now would be for the Scene Animate node to allow hiding shapes we don't want to see/evaluate.
I can export the hi and the lo of each character independently, but looking at the time it takes to export both, it looks like Houdini is evaluating the whole graph. I was expecting it to be much quicker when exporting the lo since it doens, have the wrinkle node. Of course, the Scene Animate node is slow to interact with for the same reasons. I hope we can hide some shapes directly from within the Scene animate node in the future so animators can choose what to see while working without having to leave the node. But Houdini will have to be smarter and evaluate juste the parts of the graph that are needed then.

I tested the proxy switch solution and figured that I could change the bool parm for an int. This way I can use more than just two resolutions. This could be useful for muscles and such. I don't quite like the fact that I need to go back up the grah and change the switch after each export but it is a workaround I can live with. I will explore solutions around it in more detail.

Thanks!

F

Attachments:
20240819-143034.png (160.9 KB)

Hi flord,

Here is my attempt at having an apex rig offering multiple geometry LODs selectable at animation time while still having them all invokable at anim_publish time. The stratagy is basically to have an "animation rig" outputing only one shp driven by a switch node to select the LOD that will be visible in the viewport and an "anim_publishing rig" that outputs all the LOD shp.

See the attached files for an explanation video and a hipnc file.

Please let me know if I understood the initial problem correctly and if that strategy could work in your use case

Attachments:
lod_switch_rig_001.hipnc (1.2 MB)
apex_LOD_char_001_2x.mp4 (13.2 MB)