ORBX Export discrepancies

[HMXMedia]

Hi Juanjo,
I'm experiencing odd things when exporting ORBXs and checking them in the standalone:
-The geometry is empty for the whole exported sequence if the first frame is empty.
-Attributes aren't exported if they're inexistent on the first frame.


Please find the file attached.

Thanks,
F.

--
Windows 10
1080
Nvidia driver: 456.87
Standalone 2020.2
houdini 18.5.499
octane for Houdini 2020.2.1.2

[juanjgon]

This is a known limitation. The rendering in update mode (and the .orbx export feature, which works using the same plugin core) only can update things that are available in the first frame. The empty objects or the not used attributes are not added to the scene, so if they are not available in the first frame, they are not available later for updating. You are going to need to add some kind of dummy object for this first frame as a workaround.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[HMXMedia]

Hi,
I see thanks, I was trown out by the fact that merging in a single point didn't always fix the issue.
But merging a polygon of scale 0 with all necessary attributes seems to do the trick with more consistency!

Thanks,
F.

[fantome]

i find safer to export vdb and abc, from standard ROP and then build your own orbx in standalone for the moment.
i use the octane exporter only to get shaders in standalone.

juanjo, i think that otoy should hire someone to help you for building a bulletproof exporter/importer, cause this is a very big task for only one man.
i know you do all the best to give us a great plugin, but the only lacking area imo in the Houdini plugin, is orbx/liveDB IO.
and i don't think one man can solve this issue.

Cheers

[HMXMedia]

I'd like that, a robust ORBX export/import would be a really powerful tool.