Any plans for alembic file format support? VRay, Maxwell, and other mainstream render packages are starting to use it. A huge productivity enhancement.
+1 to add this to the list if it’s not already on there.
We don’t have may requests for Alembic file support. So no, no specific plans. But we keep our ears open, who knows…
I would like to know more about Alembic and what it is/does.
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If you google the format you will find a good in depth explanation of all
of its abilities and uses. From my point of view It is a format that saves
out animation information in the file. This is incredibly significant
because it means an end to saving out 100’s to thousands of animation scene
files that repeat the same CAD data over and over. This translates into
huge time, productivity, and disk space savings. An Alembic file will just
save out the information about the animated model including material,
animation info, etc. and will just reference the CAD data it is
describing / manipulating. Again, huge efficiency gains. The format is
about 5 year old I think. Pretty new. But rendering packages seem to
picking it up as a key option for performance gains.
Note that this will be useful only when you are absolutely certain your baked scene won’t change anymore.
/Nathan
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True.Good point. But that really is only an issue if you have other
people / departments working in parallel on the same footage. It even helps
you speed up production of drafts. And if you are using Bongo or other
animation package, you have editable scene data saved in that native file
format.
Another use for the Alembic file format is to import animated data and models from other packages for use within Bongo within a scene. A great example of this is Speed Tree for Architectural animations. Speed Tree will create very realistic animations of vegetation blowing in the wind, growing, etc. and can be exported via Alembic to programs like Maya, 3DMax, etc to be used within the main CAD package when rendering out an animation. See link below, click on Alembic and check out the videos . . . pretty cool!
http://www.speedtree.com/whats-new-v7.php
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That is awesome. And another great use case. Also makes the good point that
various people or teams can work on animation components in different
packages that can be pulled together for final compositing / rendering. So
liberating and useful.
Hi,
Can’t one use the FBX format with Bongo? I’ve used it for importing textured models I thought fbx supports animation data as well?
RM
I’m not sure if FBX does or not, it may. I do know, however, that the Alembic file format is being adopted by more and more programs, so I’m guessing there’s good reason.
FBX does save animation info. And was meant as an Alembic-like file format. But it apparently has problems and I have not encountered a lot of support for it. But am looking.
+1 for alembic support! would be useful for animated 3D content.
example:
http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3ds-max-alembic-water-surface-ocean/971976
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