Hello everybody,
As far as we can tell Houdini 16.5 comes with alembic 1.6.1. The new alembic layering functionality was introduced in alembic 1.7.0. Is there a way to use the alembic layering functionality from within Houdini? Is the only way to fix it compiling the alembic integration repository: https://github.com/sideeffects/HoudiniAlembic [github.com] to replace the one that comes with Houdini? Has anyone done so successfully?
It looks like it receives all the updates, but the disclaimer in the README.txt “This directory contains unpolished files which show how it's possible to use a custom Alembic library with Houdini” is a little bit scary.

Thanks a lot for the information,
Diego

Houdini 16.5 uses Alembic 1.6.1. Houdini 16.5 does not officially support Alembic 1.7 but some experimental work is available in a feature branch of the HoudiniAlembic repository. It should be possible to merge this branch with the main Houdini16.5 branch and build a new plug-in but keep in mind Alembic 1.7 support is still at an experimental stage so expectations around stability, compatibility, and support (or lack of it) should be set appropriately. The goal in releasing an experimental feature branch is to let anyone interested in future Alembic 1.7 support (and are comfortable trying experimental code) have an opportunity to provide feedback and improvements.