I am currently trying to export a 240 frame FBX animation.

When exported and imported into maya, if I limit the FBX to the first 10 frames, I get perfect quads and all my animation data. Anything beyond frame 30 and the file corrupts. I get the animation data but the mesh only displays half the primitives in that I get nothing but tris.

During the animation the geometry is deformed but the point and primitive numbers do not change.

Any ideas on whats happening?

Thanks,
John

Have you tried importing back into Houdini? What happens if you start exporting from, say, frame 32?

Also, can you attach a .hip file you're exporting from?

I am unfamiliar with importing FBX's into Houdini. I have tried but nothing shows up in the view port. I do get a subnet, inside of which are caution barred SOPs with invalid input paths, for the imported file.

If the same file is imported into Maya I see the triangulation errors. (There seems to be holes in the geometry but I think that has to do with mantras clay shader not importing correctly. applying a default lambert fixes that issue)

I have included the HIP file but it is sourcing an OBJ. If you don't mind I could email you the OBJ.

Jokent20
I have included the HIP file but it is sourcing an OBJ. If you don't mind I could email you the OBJ.

Please do. I need the actual geometry that's causing problems to test FBX export - you can either send it via private message here or email me at my user name @sidefx.com. I'll try to take a look and see what could be causing it. One thing I do know is that Maya does mesh processing after import, and I've seen cases where that caused problems.

For importing back into Houdini, middle-mouse on the SOPs with red bars, and it will tell you exactly what the error is. Also, you may want to try importing with “Unlock Geometry File SOPs” and “Unlock Deformation File CHOPs” unchecked (int the FBX Import Options dialog) - that way, no external files should be referenced on disk, and everything should be contained in the hip file.

I have fixed the current problem with getting the entire mesh over the desired frame range(One extrude node had gotten altered on accident changing my polycount over time) but have run into another issue.

Oleg,

I saw your reply to the post about static vs animated UV's. It was said that someone found a way actually do it but with several limitations. Though this post was in 2008. Has the FBX team taken a stab at animated UV's within the FBX format or am I still stuck with using a .bgeo sequence?

Has the FBX team taken a stab at animated UV's within the FBX format or am I still stuck with using a .bgeo sequence?

For now, nothing has unfortunately changed on the FBX end, as far as I know. Even the new 2011 SDK doesn't seem to support variable-point count geometry. I think this is partially because the two geometry cache formats that FBX uses for animated meshes are in reality Maya and Max's native formats, and changing them to support variable point-count objects would probably include changing those, as well.

So yes, if the way our FBX exporter converts these meshes doesn't work for you (through triangulation and point separation), then it is probably better to use bgeo sequences.