Rendering Alembic Curves within Modo

Foundry Modo (Developed by stenson, Integrated Plugin developed by Paul Kinnane)

Moderator: face_off

TheImageFaculty
Licensed Customer
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:49 am
Contact:

Hi Paul,

I have an imported alembic cache, that consists of alembic curves only. This renders directly in modo's renderer but I do not see anything when using octane.

After a quick search on the forums, I believe it's possible I'm just not sure where to start.

Thanks,
Darren

Modo 902 Svs Pk 3
Octane 3.4.4.114.901
The Image Faculty ApS
https://theimagefaculty.com
TheImageFaculty
Licensed Customer
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:49 am
Contact:

OK just an update.

I have this working in standalone via importing the alembic and modo camera into a scene.

In modo the curve width is exposed in the item list, in standalone you can click on the tool button (looks like a spanner) in the
node inspector of the alembic. This gives you a number of options for the geometry import.

I will try to see if I can get the node graph into modo, this way I may be able to avoid standalone if I wish.

Thanks,
Darren
The Image Faculty ApS
https://theimagefaculty.com
User avatar
face_off
Octane Plugin Developer
Posts: 15716
Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia

Sorry for not responding earlier.

Render via the Octane stand hair feature https://docs.otoy.com/manuals/products/ ... -features/.

Or turn ON the Preferences->Use Modo Render Cache (see https://docs.otoy.com/manuals/products/ ... specifics/).

Paul
Win7/Win10/Mavericks/Mint 17 - GTX550Ti/GT640M
Octane Plugin Support : Poser, ArchiCAD, Revit, Inventor, AutoCAD, Rhino, Modo, Nuke
Pls read before submitting a support question
TheImageFaculty
Licensed Customer
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:49 am
Contact:

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the response. I am still unable to render this via modo using the methods detailed.

I am now trying to get it into stand-alone.

I would like to upload a scene for you to take a look at, it's around 5GB of alembic curves however. I'd appreciate of you took a look, what would be the best way of getting that to you?


Thanks,
Darren
The Image Faculty ApS
https://theimagefaculty.com
User avatar
face_off
Octane Plugin Developer
Posts: 15716
Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia

Hi Darren - send me a Dropbox (or any other cloud based storage) link, and I will take a look. Can you cut the scene down to something small which still exhibits the problem?

Paul
Win7/Win10/Mavericks/Mint 17 - GTX550Ti/GT640M
Octane Plugin Support : Poser, ArchiCAD, Revit, Inventor, AutoCAD, Rhino, Modo, Nuke
Pls read before submitting a support question
TheImageFaculty
Licensed Customer
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:49 am
Contact:

Hi Paul,

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Here is a test file, it's just under a 1 GB. It's an alembic, so just import it directly into modo.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/475 ... t/tip2.abc

As mentioned I had to render this through standalone as there is no obvious way to get this to render directly in Modo. I tried your suggestions but I never saw any results via the plugin.
I hope your able to take a look at this and see if there is something I did wrong or if standalone is the only route.

Thanks,
Darren
The Image Faculty ApS
https://theimagefaculty.com
User avatar
face_off
Octane Plugin Developer
Posts: 15716
Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia

It renders if you load the ABC file into Modo, and then enable Render Curves on the Mesh item, as per https://docs.otoy.com/manuals/products/ ... -features/.

Paul
Win7/Win10/Mavericks/Mint 17 - GTX550Ti/GT640M
Octane Plugin Support : Poser, ArchiCAD, Revit, Inventor, AutoCAD, Rhino, Modo, Nuke
Pls read before submitting a support question
TheImageFaculty
Licensed Customer
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:49 am
Contact:

Hi Paul,

I must be missing something here. See the attached image of the item list, the last two entry's in the list are for the alembic, there is no mesh layer.

Darren
Attachments
alembicCurveImport2.jpg
The Image Faculty ApS
https://theimagefaculty.com
User avatar
face_off
Octane Plugin Developer
Posts: 15716
Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia

I must be missing something here. See the attached image of the item list, the last two entry's in the list are for the alembic, there is no mesh layer.
File->Open->tip2.abc. This results in a mesh item where you can tick the Render Curves checkbox.

Paul
Attachments
render curves.png
Win7/Win10/Mavericks/Mint 17 - GTX550Ti/GT640M
Octane Plugin Support : Poser, ArchiCAD, Revit, Inventor, AutoCAD, Rhino, Modo, Nuke
Pls read before submitting a support question
TheImageFaculty
Licensed Customer
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:49 am
Contact:

Hi Paul,

OK, tried via Open / File and it brings up the same options as Import which I was using. I can indeed bring in a single frame of the alembic animation this way, as you say it gets imported as a mesh layer with the render curves option.

However I need to bring it in as an animated sequence, so when I Open/Import it and select Import All Frames in the Alembic Load Options, it comes in as a non mesh layer, as in the previous screen grab I posted.

So as far as I can tell the problem remains, there is no way to load in an animated alembic sequence and have it render via the plugin? As mentioned the behaviour in stand-alone is as expected, it brings in the alembic per-frame with no bother.

Does that make sense?

Thanks,
Darren
The Image Faculty ApS
https://theimagefaculty.com
Post Reply

Return to “Foundry Modo”