Alembic playback type

[Anonymous]

Hi

The alembic playback controls dont seem to work at all. anyone have sucess with this ? only original range option seems to work. I wanted to retime a sequence but the results are not  predictable. for example the frame range is 270-280 but when I retime it only works on 224-240?

[irishman_team_kilber]

this is not an Alembic community ths is an autodesk community we don't deal with Alembic 3ds max and Alembic are made by different companies.  if you want help with Alembic you need to go onto their community

[Alfred.DeFlaminis · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anonymous,

I have a defect logged into the system about the alembic format time controls not working properly in 2016 and 2017.  I have added a link to this thread in the tracker case for this issue and when it is fixed I will update this thread and let you know.  

Because this is a known issue I am going to mark this post as the answer, despite it not working.  This will make it clear to other users searching about this that this is a defect and it is being look into.  I do realize it's not an actual solution to the problem but rather a confirmation of the issue.    

Best Regards,

[triffski]

Hey Alfred, I've just run into a related issue I think.

I've only ever used Alembic files within Max that start at frame 0 but I'm now animating a scene that's synched to audio and the related .abc is in the ~1,700-3,000f range of that audio. There'll be more Alembic files further down the line that won't start at 0 either.

The problem I've got is it's either a bit broken (as reported above) or there's no way to tell the importer to start the .abc playing at the frame I want it to on my Max timeline. I could just start at 0 but I'd rather keep my frame range as it is with max is set to the range above so the output is all numbered correctly. I don't think it's possible to have the .abc start anywhere other than Frame 0, which means my ~1400f Alembic anim is finished before my Max timeline has even started. Is this correct?

Cheers,

triff

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @triffski,

Hmmm.  Yes, potentially it does.  Let's see if we can find a workaround together.  Which renderer are you using?

Best Regards,

[PiXeL_MoNKeY · Accepted solution]

We ran into some similar issues with cached characters to ABC. What we found was that only playback graph would work to retime.

You will need to set linear keys for your start and end frame.

So if your ABC displays Start: 0.0 and End Frame:250.0 and you want it to playback between 200 and 450 you need to set the following keys:

Timeline: 200 set a key value for ABC Frame:0.0

Timeline: 450 set a key value for ABC Frame:250.0

Hope that helps. Again be sure to set your keys to linear or they will ease in and out.

-Eric

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Good find @PiXeL_MoNKeY, I am going to mark your post as a temporary solution.  Thank you for posting it. 

If using Vray, the VrayProxy loader can support allembic, that is another option.  You can delay the frames there.  Otherwise, the last option might be to point cache instead or record from frame 0 which is obviously not ideal.  

Best Regards,

[triffski]

Thanks a lot PiXeL_MoNKeY, sounds like that might be an option. Is this only with the Alembic transform controller? I usually replace that straight away so I can position the .abc in the scene, scale tends to be a bit whacky coming in from a Kinect. 

Alfred.DeFlaminis I'm using Redshift at the moment so I'm stuck with the standard importer I think so hopefully the above method will work and keep my OCD at bay 🙂

Cheers,

triff

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

In our case it was mainly just the point data at the object level.

However, for others if you are keeping the Alembic controllers you will need to modify both the object level and transform level values in sync or you could get unexpected results. I wonder if that may be some of the weird issues people are seeing in that they are only changing one of the areas, not both.

-Eric

[triffski]

Worked perfectly, PiXeL_MoNKeY - thanks a lot! All I had to change was the (curiously titled...) '??' controller to a linear float, key the start/end values and all is well. You've saved me potentially a lot of hassle and confusion.

Cheers,

triff

[paul_osadchy]

I have the same issue but animating of Playback Graph does not work either. 3ds Max 2021. Does Autodesk fix it someday?

UPD:
Ha ha, I'm sorry. My mistake. Everything works.