Has anyone figured out how to export animated point data from Maya and import into Houdini?

I've tried this on a simple nurbs sphere and no luck!

…

Carlos
Has anyone figured out how to export animated point data from Maya and import into Houdini?
I've tried this on a simple nurbs sphere and no luck!
…

To export animated point data, you need to create a vertex cache in Maya. Roughly speaking, this is a set of files that defines positions for every vertex of the geometry at every frame over an animation interval.

To do this in Maya, select the object whose points you have animated, make sure the main menu type is set to “Animation”, and in the main menu, go to “Geometry Cache”->“Create New Cache”. Also, it is highly recommended that before you click it, click on the options box next to this menu item, and make sure that the “Store points as” option is set to “Double”.

Once you have your geometry cache, you can export to FBX again. When doing so, make sure that the “Export Quick Select Set as Geometry Cache File(s)” exporter option is checked, otherwise Maya will not output any vertex cache information at all.

Then, you can import the file into Houdini. Unfortunately, however, our FBX importer currently does not support importing native NURBS, and instead triangulates them. This triangulation results in a loss of any animated vertex cache data, so the object you will import will be static. Vertex caches are imported fully for polygonal objects, though. We're also working on supporting NURBS fully, and once that code is done, it will be added to 9.1, and NURBS vertex caches should work properly.

Hi Oleg,

Thanks, now it all makes sense

Any idea as to when nurbs will be fully implemented?

Also, is there or will there be a way to keep the cache live? It seems that once you read it into Houdini the connection to the cache is no longer needed. Though, what if we wanted to keep the connection to the cache active?

Thanks!

Hi Carlos,

Carlos
Thanks, now it all makes sense.

You're welcome.

Carlos
Any idea as to when nurbs will be fully implemented?

“Soon”.
I'm hoping to have NURBS support sometime next month, but that depends on how much I will be distracted by other things, as well as any unforeseen obstacles I may hit, since imported FBX NURBS (including trimmed NURBS) have to also play nicely with skinning, vertex caching, blending, etc.

Whoops - ended up editing my reply as you were replying …. Next month is around the corner so that sounds good

Or maybe to add to my last question - why the need to lock the file read in and the chop vertex cache read in?

–Carlos

Hi Carlos,

Carlos
Any idea as to when nurbs will be fully implemented?

You may be interested to know that support for NURBS will be there as of tomorrow's build, 9.1.229.

The FBX importer now supports polylines, Bezier and NURBS curves, patches, regular and trimmed NURBS surfaces. There's also support for skinning and vertex caching, as well as materials and textures, on NURBS, so you can finally import vertex-cached surfaces just as you originally wanted to do.

Hey Oleg,

Awesome, seen this a couple of days ago - been meaning to post about it.

Thanks!! I didn't expect the fix/additions THAT fast, you guys kick ass


–Carlos