the test.rar has a new scene that should suffice. it's not the exact same placement, shapes.... but its made the same way for the same purpose today to test hiding objects.
saved from maya 2016
in the future, i'll save any test scenes and provide them.
alembic hidden objects
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lol sorry, didn't know how to put it to words....
here is a new set of test derived from that maya file
but when you look at the maya exports, you can clearly see, it is a feature that can work, it just needs to be implemented. on the other side of things, maya's would almost work fine....except octane doesn't recognize it's materials. seems to be no real standard in place for this format.
also, the solution (at least with maya's alembic exporter) for camera nodes not showing.... they simply need to be visible. cant believe i never saw this before. by default, top, side, persp cameras are hidden.
here is a new set of test derived from that maya file
but when you look at the maya exports, you can clearly see, it is a feature that can work, it just needs to be implemented. on the other side of things, maya's would almost work fine....except octane doesn't recognize it's materials. seems to be no real standard in place for this format.
also, the solution (at least with maya's alembic exporter) for camera nodes not showing.... they simply need to be visible. cant believe i never saw this before. by default, top, side, persp cameras are hidden.
Windows 8.1 | i7 950 | GTX 780ti | 24gb ddr3
An update:
I found a solution that requires a little more work on the front end, but allows for a clean export. While maya's exporter doesn't handle materials well, octanes doesn't support hiding objects in animation. So I am looking more at maya's and have found a work around for the materials.
When doing test with applying materials to part of an objects faces, I see the pins show up in maya, whereas all other objects have the same material pin. for those objects, I was selecting the object then either applying an octane material or shift+t then blinn to make placeholders for working in octane to assign materials. So when trying to figure out why those pins show up, I tested by applying materials while selecting all of the faces of an object, now it's working!
in short:
change to face mode, select all of the object or the parts you want to add material to and apply material.
don't just select object then apply material in that mode.
it's a work around, but i hope integration of hiding objects will be made in updates to the alembic exporter. for now the maya exporter is 95% usable (100% when taking into account a workaround that adds more steps to your process)
Also, this doesn't work in 2014. I am using 2016 and do not have 2015 to test this.
I found a solution that requires a little more work on the front end, but allows for a clean export. While maya's exporter doesn't handle materials well, octanes doesn't support hiding objects in animation. So I am looking more at maya's and have found a work around for the materials.
When doing test with applying materials to part of an objects faces, I see the pins show up in maya, whereas all other objects have the same material pin. for those objects, I was selecting the object then either applying an octane material or shift+t then blinn to make placeholders for working in octane to assign materials. So when trying to figure out why those pins show up, I tested by applying materials while selecting all of the faces of an object, now it's working!
in short:
change to face mode, select all of the object or the parts you want to add material to and apply material.
don't just select object then apply material in that mode.
it's a work around, but i hope integration of hiding objects will be made in updates to the alembic exporter. for now the maya exporter is 95% usable (100% when taking into account a workaround that adds more steps to your process)
Also, this doesn't work in 2014. I am using 2016 and do not have 2015 to test this.
Windows 8.1 | i7 950 | GTX 780ti | 24gb ddr3
I also would prefer to use Maya Alembic export as it is way more powerful, for example Octane standalone can see maya subdiv crease exported with maya alembic and it's not even supported inside maya 
...
But it's to much work to try to make it work as the "Octanerender animated scene" option because Otoy never wanted to tell a word about the customs attribute specifications they are using in their custom Alembic...
However "Octanerender animated scene" option is so much better since the 7.19 plugin, but as you found, there is a problem with animated visibility. I tried hard to make it work the octane way (using "octane general visibility") attribute, but I think it's not even possible. Standalone don't even apply its Alembic import preference to the embedded alembic ...
Well I think, as you said, the way to go know, is to improve the Octane for maya alembic exporter, adding the missing pieces of the Alembic specifications (including visibility, subdiv crease, ect...) but I'm not optimistic it will be done soon...
...But it's to much work to try to make it work as the "Octanerender animated scene" option because Otoy never wanted to tell a word about the customs attribute specifications they are using in their custom Alembic...
However "Octanerender animated scene" option is so much better since the 7.19 plugin, but as you found, there is a problem with animated visibility. I tried hard to make it work the octane way (using "octane general visibility") attribute, but I think it's not even possible. Standalone don't even apply its Alembic import preference to the embedded alembic ...
Well I think, as you said, the way to go know, is to improve the Octane for maya alembic exporter, adding the missing pieces of the Alembic specifications (including visibility, subdiv crease, ect...) but I'm not optimistic it will be done soon...
Pascal ANDRE
Thanks for trying to help!
this experience at least helps with wording the issue for the dev of the plugin to hopefully improve it. I think Octane is groundbreaking and going the right direction. However, these past two days after reading that 3 is in alpha (yes, i live under a rock) I was excited to see that we can animate the environment which is crucial for what I do which isn't normal animation. I treat each frame more like plates for each still frame.
It's been frustrating seeing where i need to be on the other side of this river, but nearly every road ends at the river with no bridge. It's always 1 feature away from being functional. However, The method i posted above is working well so far...
however, I am ironing out some issues with the camera that is exported, but think its solved too... I created an octane camera, then changed it from camera and aim to regular camera... now its working. My other camera from the original scene didn't seem to want to frame up the same way for some reason. essentially, they should be the same... but oh well.
also. For anyone trying the method above, I had to click, "create camera inputs" so i could adjust the aperture.
all in all, this seems like an okay workaround and trade off. hopefully they will make their exporter fully functional.
Thanks again!
this experience at least helps with wording the issue for the dev of the plugin to hopefully improve it. I think Octane is groundbreaking and going the right direction. However, these past two days after reading that 3 is in alpha (yes, i live under a rock) I was excited to see that we can animate the environment which is crucial for what I do which isn't normal animation. I treat each frame more like plates for each still frame.
It's been frustrating seeing where i need to be on the other side of this river, but nearly every road ends at the river with no bridge. It's always 1 feature away from being functional. However, The method i posted above is working well so far...
however, I am ironing out some issues with the camera that is exported, but think its solved too... I created an octane camera, then changed it from camera and aim to regular camera... now its working. My other camera from the original scene didn't seem to want to frame up the same way for some reason. essentially, they should be the same... but oh well.
also. For anyone trying the method above, I had to click, "create camera inputs" so i could adjust the aperture.
all in all, this seems like an okay workaround and trade off. hopefully they will make their exporter fully functional.
Thanks again!
Windows 8.1 | i7 950 | GTX 780ti | 24gb ddr3
One question/solution I am trying to solve is ways of applying materials... the way I have done it for years in maya is; select object, apply material. however, as stated above, by applying it while selecting faces, it shows up in octane via maya alembic exports. I am going to be in search of a different way to achieve the same result while not requiring selecting parts as faces or, something faster... (with rendering computer/cellphones/and other electronics internals, this will have to be done hundreds of times which will get time consuming.
Windows 8.1 | i7 950 | GTX 780ti | 24gb ddr3
just figured out how to make one already
SelectAll;
octaneShaderToSelection -d;
after this, i just use "G" to repeat it while using face mode "f11" to select each object. it's relatively close to the same workflow
Thanks again!!
SelectAll;
octaneShaderToSelection -d;
after this, i just use "G" to repeat it while using face mode "f11" to select each object. it's relatively close to the same workflow
Thanks again!!
Windows 8.1 | i7 950 | GTX 780ti | 24gb ddr3
