I'm trying to do an effect right now in Maya using the Binary Alchemy shader which requires a maya particle cache (.pdc), and am curious if anyone has any methods for bringing Houdini particles into Maya with radiusPP.

Allegro
I'm trying to do an effect right now in Maya using the Binary Alchemy shader which requires a maya particle cache (.pdc), and am curious if anyone has any methods for bringing Houdini particles into Maya with radiusPP.

I don't have time at the moment to compile for H10, but here's the PDC importer/exporter I wrote:

http://digitalcinemaarts.com/dev/SOP_PDC/ [digitalcinemaarts.com]


Mark

Time for a port to Python, Stephen? Or a standalone GEOio thing?

Yea, a GEOio stand alone would be good. Now that the GDP lib is public, should be license free too, no?

Let me get to looking at it, shouldn't be too much trouble to wrap it up in a main().


Mark

jason_iversen
Time for a port to Python, Stephen? Or a standalone GEOio thing?

I still need to learn python ops:

Seems like the archive only contains linux x64 and linux x86?

Allegro
Seems like the archive only contains linux x64 and linux x86?

Sorry, was in a hurry, the source code is up there now. Refresh your brower, same link as above. I'll look into making this a stand alone later this week if no one wants to write a Python version. Big PDC files would suffer a bit from a non machine code procedure.

Allegro
Seems like the archive only contains linux x64 and linux x86?

Oh, are you looking for a WIN DLL ???

Can't help ya there, except for H9.5, vc7. I've attached them.

Great, thanks Mark.

I'm certainly content to wait for you to work your magic, but is there some documentation somewhere that would tell me how I could compile this for windows? What did you use to do this? HDK? I'd like to learn how to handle this sort of thing, but I don't even know where to start.

Yes, it's all HDK code.

SESI HDK docs:
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk10.0/ [sidefx.com]

odforce HDK forum:
http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?/forum/23-hdk-houdini-development-kit/ [forums.odforce.net]

A thread about the current WIN compiler situation (and why some of us avoid WINdOzE):
http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?/topic/9790-visual-c-2005/ [forums.odforce.net]

A little HDK wiki goodness:
http://odforce.net/wiki/index.php/HoudiniDevelopmentKit [odforce.net]

great

yet another thing to try and shuffle into my spare time 8)

That ps3 just *doesn't* get enough use…

I can run a compile for Houdini10 10.0.374 win64 tonight when I get home.

Ratmann
I can run a compile for Houdini10 10.0.374 win64 tonight when I get home.

Friends in need are friends indeed! :-)

Thanks!

Alright gang, it seems to be working for me, at least in Houdini export/import.

So this is compiled in Windows7 in Houdini 10.0.374, which is the latest production build, all you gotta do is unzip this file in your:

$HOME/dso

Generally $HOME is your “houdini10.0” folder in “My Documents” or “Documents and Settings”, unless you're in Vista (I think) or Win7, which would be as:

“C:\Users\USER\Documents\houdini10.0\dso

It seems you're gonna get an ”error" when you load the Maya PDC Importer in Houdini, but from what I saw is that it's just telling you that you're missing a PDC file, so you gotta import something and you'll be fine, also make sure you turn on your point display or check your details view, or else you'll be trying to figure out what's broken(like I did for 10 minutes B-D ).

Let me know if something doesn't work for someone!

Cheers!
-Rick

Coolness!

Thanks!

I'll be working on the stand alone version. I will need to rely on someone else for proper testing as I don't work with Maya anymore.


Mark

I've got access to Maya, so I'll be sure to test :-)

Thanks Rick and Mark

edit: Except I'm on the 10.0.295 still :*(

Allegro
I've got access to Maya, so I'll be sure to test :-)

Thanks Rick and Mark

edit: Except I'm on the 10.0.295 still :*(

Well you're in luck, cuz I just downloaded the silly thing and compiled it for you :-P

Let me know if this works for you, I won't have access to my machine all day since I'll be at work , so if something doesn't work I won't be able to update until tonight.

Seems to sort of work… but it appears to only bring in position values. Is there a specific version of Maya that these .pdcs should be working with? I'm using 2008.

- I first tried exporting the particles from houdini, and then in maya created a particle and told it to read the cache from houdini. In the component editor there were no attributes present except position

- I then tried caching out the particles from maya first, and then writing the particles from houdini to overwrite the particles from maya. This results in the first few particles having vel, mass, lifespan, and radius that matched the settings in maya on the last frame of the cache, and the remaining particles that did not exist in Maya having no values for these attributes.

- I've tried both using pscale, and radiusPP, and trying both as point and then vertex attributes. All to no avail.

Houdini seems to import the variables fine. But there's something missing in the export.

I imported .pdc files from Maya, edited the radiusPP, exported back to Maya, and it seems that none of the attributes except position are taking in Maya.

Allegro
Houdini seems to import the variables fine. But there's something missing in the export.

I imported .pdc files from Maya, edited the radiusPP, exported back to Maya, and it seems that none of the attributes except position are taking in Maya.

OK cool, I'll look into it.

Do you happen to know if the “PLE” version of Maya can imprt/export PDC files? I thought that was the issue when I was asked to write these last year. If so, I'll grab a copy of Maya and test myself.

Basically, I built this from the file spec alone, had other users test it, so I'm not surprised there may be some more work to do; it's clearly alpha/beta/WIP code. More surprising is why isn't PDC files already supported in Houdini. patents maybe? Oversight? The usual 3D file exchange confusion?


Mark