Loading...
> >

Alembic not exporting normals?

hookflashhookflash Posts: 169
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Does anyone have any idea how to get the Daz alembic exporter to export smooth normals? Here's an example of the problem (using Marmoset):

Alembic-Faceted

As you can see from the faceting, normal info seems to have been lost during export. I was going to bring it into Blender, smooth the normals, then re-export from Blender, but, unfortunately, the alembic version that Daz exports is deprecated and can't be imported into Blender 2.8...

Comments

  • lilweeplilweep Posts: 2,487

    dont know anything about the normal issue you have in marmoset, but i know this exporter can export a blender friendly version of alembic:

    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rd5wjf58A9E5pQfV2Kp2E7jA6FjcDZGD?usp=sharing

  • hookflashhookflash Posts: 169
    lilweep said:

    dont know anything about the normal issue you have in marmoset, but i know this exporter can export a blender friendly version of alembic:

    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rd5wjf58A9E5pQfV2Kp2E7jA6FjcDZGD?usp=sharing

    Cool, thanks, that might be just the ticket. Before I install it, though, I should probably ask where it came from and who made itsmiley

  • TheKDTheKD Posts: 2,691

    doesn't seem to work. I have it enabled in plugins, but no abc export option.

  • TheMysteryIsThePointTheMysteryIsThePoint Posts: 2,946
    edited July 2020
    TheKD said:

    doesn't seem to work. I have it enabled in plugins, but no abc export option.

    I wrote this one, there's no serial number, that's the official Daz one you'e seeing. It's under the menu Edit/Alembic exporter. Why there? Because that's where the plugin sample code I used put the option :)

    But what you are seeing with the normals is something that I thought was a bug in my code or a bug in Blender, the only app I've tested it in. Whenever the Mesh Cash Modifier is present, i.e. when exporting 2 or more frames, the normals are like that... apply the modifier, and the normals look correct. Deselect "Faces" on the modifier, and the normals look correct, but there are shading artifacts. I haven't been able to figure this one out, yet, and now I'm thinking it's a Daz bug if the other Alembic Exporter exhibits this behavior, too.

     

    bad_normals.png
    2113 x 1215 - 1M
    Post edited by TheMysteryIsThePoint on
  • TheKDTheKD Posts: 2,691
    edited July 2020

    Ah found it, I probably would have never noticed it there lol. This exporter is probably going to be usefull for my MD work I think. Thanks for writing it.

    Post edited by TheKD on
  • TheMysteryIsThePointTheMysteryIsThePoint Posts: 2,946
    edited July 2020
    TheKD said:

    Ah found it, I probably would have never noticed it there lol. This exporter is probably going to be usefull for my MD work I think. Thanks for writing it.

    You're welcome. I hope you find it useful.

    I've used it a lot with MD9. If you are animating, be sure to use the MD SubD Cage option, and remove unnecessary things like hair because MD is not very smart and tries to load the entire Alembic file instead of just what it needs. Blender and Houdini handle Alembic files of 70+ gigabytes without breaking a sweat, but MD crashes. But I have to admit, it is light years ahead of Blender... what would take a whole day of fiddling with Blender sim parameters works with one click in MD, and on the GPU no less.

    Post edited by TheMysteryIsThePoint on
  • TheMysteryIsThePointTheMysteryIsThePoint Posts: 2,946

    OK, I knew I was not going crazy. I had Blender 2.80 installed on another computer, and the same Alembic file does not exhibit those artifacts, even with "Faces" enabled in the Mesh Cache modifier. But turning on Vertex smoothing did crash Blender 2.80 for some reason.

    I'd say this is definitely a Blender bug if @hookflash hadn't seen the behavior in another app as well.

Sign In or Register to comment.