Blender doesn't automatically add a MeshSequenceCache modifier to the alembic you import if its points aren't transformed in space, even if there's animation of other properties. You will have to add that modifier yourself, manually. And don't forget to set the object path. Also check the data to read (vertex, faces, UV and Color). This way you don't have to animate another geometry in Houdini and import it along your main geometry in Blender. I hope to have been of help!
@@edh615 I don't believe that the "Sequence" check is intended for alembic caches. The MeshSequenceCache is a more generalized tool. While checking it automatically adds a MeshSequenceCache modifier to the stack, Blender returns an error "Could not create Alembic reader for file ...". I had to disable it in the modifier stack, so it would work properly.
@@xanzuls read what I said again, very carefully. The hydra delegate of cycles developed by Tangent Studios does not support GPU rendering for the time being. Never said anything about standalone Blender.
Recently an add attributes panel has been added to the 2.91 master branch, like a basic attribute spreadsheet. It will be used for point clouds and hair initially , but there are plans to get it working everywhere in blender as part of "everything nodes" . Similar plans exist to support attributes being imported/exported via alembic/usd so there should be some nice interoperability between Houdini and Blender over the next year. Along with the HDCycles project, Blender and Houdini will be a powerful combo for studios and Indies in the near future :)
@Entagma, its not a problem with houdini its a problem with how blender handle abc info, if you have time try to load the same abc into maya and you will see that animated vertex color works, no need to add an extra animated obj inside the scene, so you need to send this video to blender guys ;) cheers
Wow! That setattribtype function is a life saver! I've been working with the assumption that I can only import a single color attribute and it has to be called Cd. Thanks for the tip. Looks like you got your fix to the 'static mesh with animated attributes' issue from other commenters. FYI, alembic and USD import/export in Blender are being actively worked on mainly by Sybren Stuvel. Unfortunately, alembic import (which would tackle these issues) is currently the final milestone, so we may have to wait a while developer.blender.org/T73363. I suggest talking to Sybren if you have questions or want to contribute to the Houdini+Blender alembic workflow!
Maybe you can help me. I've been using the setattributetype function and it will bring over my color data 'burned' but I can only see it in eevee or the material preview. When I go to cycles rendered view it is black. Any ideas? I notice in the tutorial they never showed a rendered view of it working either.
Blender also randomly changes vertex order on Aembic meshes. When I import a mesh back into Houdini from blender after I animated it, the vertex order is all changed, and none of my blendshapes work anymore. Not good at all.
been using the same hacky approach since blender 2.7, I think i got some succes by importing and exporting in 3dsmax, and finally importing that .abc file to blender.
Thanks so much! I've also found that the mesh must be animated to include animated Cd data. ONE QUESTION: have you found a hack to export animated curves to blender? For example if you use a point trail set to polygon, blender seems to import the alembic fine and it even plays the curve animation in the viewport, but when rendering it will default to the first frame. The only work around I know is to sweep the curve in Houdini first, but all that extra geo makes the file size balloon. You can see my channel for a few tutorials on how to export grains to blender .
@@Entagma ONE QUESTION: have you found a hack to export animated curves to blender? For example if you use a point trail set to polygon, blender seems to import the alembic fine and it even plays the curve animation in the viewport, but when rendering it will default to the first frame. The only work around I know is to sweep the curve in Houdini first, but all that extra geo makes the file size balloon.
@@MarvelousMediaEngine have you found out how to import animated curves? I'm currently diving into blender for rendering plenty of curves from houdini. Ideally, I'd want to color them in houdini and import the color in blender as well, but so far I can only import color on actual geometry with alembic (as shown in the tutorial). Do you have any hints if or how this is possible? Or maybe @Entagma knows something? Would appreciate any and all help!
You might want to check out an old function in Blender, called "Bake action", found under "Object>Animation", it will bake alembic anim into keyframes, this might get your particles moving (not sure)..
What about 2 objects fed into a DOPnet, (for example mixing 2 fluids using flipsolver inside a DOPnet) how do you get alembic with let say Object ID or different materials after they came out of DOPnet.
Nice tutorial, always good to know a bit more about the interoperability of different DCCs, particularly Houdini and Blender (I can definitely see myself simulating in Houdini and then rendering in blender). Just one thing: the official name of the “hat” character is “caret” :) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret_(computing)
hallo sir, do you know how to loop an alembic file in blender ? example, i havea cloth simulation coming from Marvelous Designer. But in Blender i dont have any Keyframe ? How is this workflow to become Slim 40 Frame walk Cycle to Loop ?
Once when I was exporting an animated alembic to blender, the animation just didn't work. Turns out I had pack primitives on and had to turn it off. It made it slower but in the end it was working
developer.blender.org/T73363 here you can find the development plan to improve alembic exporter/importer in blender to accommodate other 3D packages, I suspect it’ll be a lot more easier to export to blender when 2.91 or 2.92 releases
Thank you sir for the tips! the setattribtypeinfo method is cool and so useful. I also shared a a while ago how to use Cd inside blender here : instagram.com/p/CBFrNHkIMrR/ About the issue you mentioned, no need to add an animated geo to get animated colors, just add a mesh sequence cache modifier, import the abc file again to the 'file path' and 'object path' SHOULD be set to the vertex group with the same name under your layer menu! in your case it's merge1 (/file1/merge1) and 'Read data' to Color.
Hey guys! I just wanted to tell you all that if chanigng type of the attribute to color won't work for you ( it didn't for me, only Ton knows why xD) You can use DataTransfer modifier ( create new vertex color channel, import 2nd alembic with 2nd color and transfer it by seeting up Face Corner Data --> vertex color--> mapping by topology and set layers properly) Cheers!
First of all, thanks for this tutorial (and all other good ones you provided). I have a solution on your problem. In Houdini, save the abc file as a sequence(using $F4). Then import into blender with the sequence option. Also., this way helps a lot to manage bigger geometry. In addition to that, I use to add a single point (using the add node) and merge it just before the ROP node. This helps to manage empty ABC files in blender. Hope this could help.
In the last version of Blender v2.92, the animation just works after material setting at 9:28. From release notes of Blender 2.91: *_Alembic Import: Animated Vertex Colors on static mesh_* _If the mesh was constant, no check was done if there were animated vertex colors and thus creation of a MeshSequenceCache modifier was skipped, this is now supported (T81330, rB449e6124)_
I think i found a workaround! When importing the alembic check sequence option and then go to the modifiers tab and check override frame, then insert a keyframe in the first frame, go to the last frame(50), set a value of 2 and insert another keyframe.
I'm pretty new to houdini but I use only attribute promote to bring colours to blender and then I use the Vertex colour node instade of attribute but I don't know if it's going to help with animation your tutorials are awesome by the way thank u :)
Great! I have a question in regards to the pyrosourcespread. Is it possible to make a mesh "fall" into a bounding box that will ignite the pyro? Like a collider that triggeres the pyro solver?
@@rokufx You don't have to code. Just use VOPs. Houdini isn't really artist friendly in my opinion. Due to its procedural nature, nodes and math behind it, its a bit harder to understand and not really intuitive. Btw, I'm more of an artist too, but I like coding as well.
to cache out the animation sequence for blender you should have deformation/animation, as a cheat we can create very tiny bit of animation for 1-2 frames, animation could be a change of 0.001 in tx on point[0], it will carry the animation to Cd attribute too.
Heya, we've got a course covering VEX over on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/Entagma Also there used to be a course taught by Shawn Lipowsky and Anastasia Opara called "VEX in Houdini" which was a great introduction too. Cheers, Mo
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Blender doesn't automatically add a MeshSequenceCache modifier to the alembic you import if its points aren't transformed in space, even if there's animation of other properties. You will have to add that modifier yourself, manually. And don't forget to set the object path. Also check the data to read (vertex, faces, UV and Color). This way you don't have to animate another geometry in Houdini and import it along your main geometry in Blender. I hope to have been of help!
It does if you check sequence when importing, then keyframe the override frame value an you don't need that geo hack.
@@edh615 I don't believe that the "Sequence" check is intended for alembic caches. The MeshSequenceCache is a more generalized tool. While checking it automatically adds a MeshSequenceCache modifier to the stack, Blender returns an error "Could not create Alembic reader for file ...". I had to disable it in the modifier stack, so it would work properly.
I want to simulate in Houdini, but render in cycles. Please do more Houdini to Blender tutorials! This is excellent!
@@fracteed that's nice but it isn't as appealing when you consider the hydra delegate cycles doesn't support GPU
@@zunainfaisal ah, I didn't realise that, hopefully that changes at some stage.
@@zunainfaisal Cycles supports gpu.
@@xanzuls read what I said again, very carefully. The hydra delegate of cycles developed by Tangent Studios does not support GPU rendering for the time being. Never said anything about standalone Blender.
@@zunainfaisal Please would it be possible for you to explain how to install the cycles delegate for houdini for windows o/s
Recently an add attributes panel has been added to the 2.91 master branch, like a basic attribute spreadsheet. It will be used for point clouds and hair initially , but there are plans to get it working everywhere in blender as part of "everything nodes" . Similar plans exist to support attributes being imported/exported via alembic/usd so there should be some nice interoperability between Houdini and Blender over the next year. Along with the HDCycles project, Blender and Houdini will be a powerful combo for studios and Indies in the near future :)
Great stuff as always! Just saying houdini instead of blender an awful lot. Old habits die hard I bet 🤭
@Entagma, its not a problem with houdini its a problem with how blender handle abc info, if you have time try to load the same abc into maya and you will see that animated vertex color works, no need to add an extra animated obj inside the scene, so you need to send this video to blender guys ;) cheers
I really hope that using mushrooms in Entagma videos lately means there's a mushroom growth tutorial coming up 🙏😊
Wow! That setattribtype function is a life saver! I've been working with the assumption that I can only import a single color attribute and it has to be called Cd. Thanks for the tip.
Looks like you got your fix to the 'static mesh with animated attributes' issue from other commenters.
FYI, alembic and USD import/export in Blender are being actively worked on mainly by Sybren Stuvel. Unfortunately, alembic import (which would tackle these issues) is currently the final milestone, so we may have to wait a while developer.blender.org/T73363. I suggest talking to Sybren if you have questions or want to contribute to the Houdini+Blender alembic workflow!
Maybe you can help me. I've been using the setattributetype function and it will bring over my color data 'burned' but I can only see it in eevee or the material preview. When I go to cycles rendered view it is black. Any ideas? I notice in the tutorial they never showed a rendered view of it working either.
#1 tutorial voice. Thank you.
This video is inspiring me to learn and try to achieve good result and strength 💪 my UA-cam content
Great Bloudini tutorial. Keep them coming. Both great tools.
*Blendini.
Blender also randomly changes vertex order on Aembic meshes. When I import a mesh back into Houdini from blender after I animated it, the vertex order is all changed, and none of my blendshapes work anymore. Not good at all.
been using the same hacky approach since blender 2.7, I think i got some succes by importing and exporting in 3dsmax, and finally importing that .abc file to blender.
particles from houdini to blender ???
Thanks so much! I've also found that the mesh must be animated to include animated Cd data.
ONE QUESTION: have you found a hack to export animated curves to blender? For example if you use a point trail set to polygon, blender seems to import the alembic fine and it even plays the curve animation in the viewport, but when rendering it will default to the first frame. The only work around I know is to sweep the curve in Houdini first, but all that extra geo makes the file size balloon.
You can see my channel for a few tutorials on how to export grains to blender .
Heyhey, really great content over on your channel, liking it a lot! Cheers, Mo
@@Entagma ONE QUESTION: have you found a hack to export animated curves to blender? For example if you use a point trail set to polygon, blender seems to import the alembic fine and it even plays the curve animation in the viewport, but when rendering it will default to the first frame. The only work around I know is to sweep the curve in Houdini first, but all that extra geo makes the file size balloon.
@@MarvelousMediaEngine have you found out how to import animated curves? I'm currently diving into blender for rendering plenty of curves from houdini. Ideally, I'd want to color them in houdini and import the color in blender as well, but so far I can only import color on actual geometry with alembic (as shown in the tutorial). Do you have any hints if or how this is possible? Or maybe @Entagma knows something? Would appreciate any and all help!
when exporting to blender with group by name for different material groups, how to save the original name attribute for complex geometry?
cool!
thank you for this tutorial, it really helped
You might want to check out an old function in Blender, called "Bake action", found under "Object>Animation", it will bake alembic anim into keyframes, this might get your particles moving (not sure)..
couldn't get vertex selections to stick to my alembic until i somehow found your comment - thanks a lot!
thank you! is there is any possible way to export thickness/width attribute on curves from houdini?
Super useful! Thanks!
How to transfer melting animation with texture from Houdini to Blender? Could you do a tutorial on this?
welll you did not have answer I am looking also for a solution on hw to manage texturing
What about 2 objects fed into a DOPnet, (for example mixing 2 fluids using flipsolver inside a DOPnet) how do you get alembic with let say Object ID or different materials after they came out of DOPnet.
Nice tutorial, always good to know a bit more about the interoperability of different DCCs, particularly Houdini and Blender (I can definitely see myself simulating in Houdini and then rendering in blender). Just one thing: the official name of the “hat” character is “caret” :) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret_(computing)
You're amazing! 🔥👏
hallo sir, do you know how to loop an alembic file in blender ? example, i havea cloth simulation coming from Marvelous Designer. But in Blender i dont have any Keyframe ? How is this workflow to become Slim 40 Frame walk Cycle to Loop ?
I needed this!
Once when I was exporting an animated alembic to blender, the animation just didn't work. Turns out I had pack primitives on and had to turn it off. It made it slower but in the end it was working
developer.blender.org/T73363
here you can find the development plan to improve alembic exporter/importer in blender to accommodate other 3D packages, I suspect it’ll be a lot more easier to export to blender when 2.91 or 2.92 releases
How to export uv's on deforming geometry pls help
you can check out the current status of the alembic & USD import & exporters right here: developer.blender.org/T73363
Thank you sir for the tips! the setattribtypeinfo method is cool and so useful.
I also shared a a while ago how to use Cd inside blender here : instagram.com/p/CBFrNHkIMrR/
About the issue you mentioned, no need to add an animated geo to get animated colors, just add a mesh sequence cache modifier, import the abc file again to the 'file path'
and 'object path' SHOULD be set to the vertex group with the same name under your layer menu! in your case it's merge1 (/file1/merge1)
and 'Read data' to Color.
Hey guys! I just wanted to tell you all that if chanigng type of the attribute to color won't work for you ( it didn't for me, only Ton knows why xD) You can use DataTransfer modifier ( create new vertex color channel, import 2nd alembic with 2nd color and transfer it by seeting up Face Corner Data --> vertex color--> mapping by topology and set layers properly) Cheers!
awesome .... pls let me know .that is the best configuration pc for the Houdini ..and gpu or cup is important for houdini ...
ua-cam.com/video/3H5mU11eKss/v-deo.html
Have you tried checking "in Sequence when importing alembic into blender?
First of all, thanks for this tutorial (and all other good ones you provided).
I have a solution on your problem.
In Houdini, save the abc file as a sequence(using $F4). Then import into blender with the sequence option.
Also., this way helps a lot to manage bigger geometry.
In addition to that, I use to add a single point (using the add node) and merge it just before the ROP node. This helps to manage empty ABC files in blender.
Hope this could help.
genius
cant export alembic in free try version of houdini, right?
No, you can’t.. but you can try out a more primitive approach, which is to use OBJ sequences. Good luck 🤞
In the last version of Blender v2.92, the animation just works after material setting at 9:28.
From release notes of Blender 2.91:
*_Alembic Import: Animated Vertex Colors on static mesh_*
_If the mesh was constant, no check was done if there were animated vertex colors and thus creation of a MeshSequenceCache modifier was skipped, this is now supported (T81330, rB449e6124)_
I think i found a workaround! When importing the alembic check sequence option and then go to the modifiers tab and check override frame, then insert a keyframe in the first frame, go to the last frame(50), set a value of 2 and insert another keyframe.
I'm pretty new to houdini
but I use only attribute promote to bring colours to blender and then I use the Vertex colour node instade of attribute
but I don't know if it's going to help with animation
your tutorials are awesome by the way thank u :)
Great! I have a question in regards to the pyrosourcespread. Is it possible to make a mesh "fall" into a bounding box that will ignite the pyro? Like a collider that triggeres the pyro solver?
??
been a while since I used pyro in Houdini. maybe you could try attribute transfer with an object that should ignite the fuel source?@@martinmenso6671
Never apologize for using VEX! It's a powerful part of Houdini!
I'm an artist. Artist should not code at all if a program is artist friendly.
@@rokufx You don't have to code. Just use VOPs. Houdini isn't really artist friendly in my opinion. Due to its procedural nature, nodes and math behind it, its a bit harder to understand and not really intuitive. Btw, I'm more of an artist too, but I like coding as well.
@@rokufx So are Joshua Davis and Refik Anadol, and everything they do involves code, so I'm not really feeling that argument.
@@rokufx let us see your art!
nice tut! what about pscale transfer?
Hi can i export crowd simulation into alembic or is there another faster way ?
to cache out the animation sequence for blender you should have deformation/animation, as a cheat we can create very tiny bit of animation for 1-2 frames, animation could be a change of 0.001 in tx on point[0], it will carry the animation to Cd attribute too.
way over my head....super technical wow.
Sir i want to learn vex from beginners to master, where from i can learn? Thank you.
Heya,
we've got a course covering VEX over on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/Entagma
Also there used to be a course taught by Shawn Lipowsky and Anastasia Opara called "VEX in Houdini" which was a great introduction too.
Cheers, Mo
this tut is great
What about when exporting to Maya? Will it be the same process? Thanks.
Very little clue, honestly. Never used Maya that much, sorry. Mo
@@Entagma oh no problem.
Sorry, I can't hear the url of the 3d scan @0:44
aixterior.com
@@Entagma Thank you kindly!
Hi! Use a vertex color node instead of attribute node! :D
What advantages does that have? Cheers, Mo
@@Entagma It animates without doing any tricks. At least for the Cd attribute
Oh and in Hungary it's your nameday so cheers for that! :D