Connect animated geo to HDA

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Hi I have run into an issue of which is baffling me and is making me question a couple of HDAs I created earlier.
Basically I have created a easy asset to convert an input animated shape into a volumetric cloud via vdb nodes and, cloud noise.
When the asset is open in Maya and I connect the animated geo to what is an Object Merge input (Into this object) I get my cloud as displayed as Maya fluid and moves as it should.
Now the issue is I have a cache node in order to save the VDBs but when cached and open the VDBs all I get is a fixed position shape with the animated noise of the ‘Cloud Noise’ that doesn't have the animated movement of the original geo, and when I open in Houdini via the Debug menu I only get the geo and not the animation.
I'm confused as when set up and the output shown via Maya fluids it all seems to be fine.
So I created an even more basic asset where the inputed geo is converted and then cached as BGEO with no volumetric conversions going on, and again the same thing the BGEOS are fixed, and when opened via debug menu the input geo has no translations.
One thing when saving the cache of the animated shape it saves the position of the shape according to where it is on a certain frame on the timeline when ‘Save’ is pressed.
Edited by marcelFX - Oct. 22, 2018 10:19:21

Attachments:
Test_geo_translate.hda (74.1 KB)

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The Maya plugin only has access to the state of the input geometry at the current Maya frame, so if you hit the save button and that steps time in houdiniEngine and caches, there is still no way to get access to the other frames. You'll still need to playback/step time in Maya, and then trigger the cache for each frame in order to capture the animated inputs.
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Ahh yes it makes sense now, would adding a ‘Cache’ node so Houdini can see all frames on the timeline work?. Thanks for the help.
Edited by marcelFX - Oct. 22, 2018 12:41:40
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As long as you did a input cache pass first it would probably work - you'd want to be careful not to end up cooking all the outputs on the input cache pass and then again when you you kicked off the real work
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