AbcExport: how to maintain hierarchy but skip controllers/rig, etc

[hudson]

Hi,

Based on the help listed in AbcExport -h, it seems using the -sl and -root flags in combination would allow me to export a hierarchy but exclude some nodes. (The use case is exporting the geo of an animated character but excluding the rig while maintaining the hierarchy).

However, when I re-import the .abc file back into Maya, the hierarchy is there, but the actual geometry is missing.

Here is MEL that reproduces the issue.


polySphere -r 1 -sx 20 -sy 20 -ax 0 1 0 -cuv 2 -ch 1;
doGroup 0 1 1;
rename "group1" "geo";
spaceLocator -p 0 0 0;
doGroup 0 1 1;
rename "group1" "rig";
select -r geo rig ;
doGroup 0 1 1;
rename "group1" "assetRoot";

select -r assetRoot geo pSphere1;
AbcExport -j "-frameRange 1001 1001 -sl -dataFormat ogawa -root assetRoot -file C:/trying_alembic_geo_no_rig.abc";


After re-importing this alembic file, pSphere1 isn't there, but the rest of the hierarchy that was selected during export is present.

Is this not working correctly or am I misunderstanding the AbcExport flags?


Thanks so much,
Paul

[kirbysteele]

Hey Hudson,

If you are just trying to export the joints and mesh without the rig, I haven't used the ABCExport command but I have had success using the file command. Example of doing this to export a selection is :

file -force -options "groups=1;ptgroups=1;materials=1;smoothing=1;normals=1" -typ "FBX export" -pr -es "/Users/Kirby/Desktop/tests.fbx";

The important flag is the -es (export selection).

If there is another reason that you are using the AbcExport, I'm always interested to hear the use for certain tools, so if you have a second I'd love to learn.

Hope this helps!

Kirby

[hudson · Accepted solution]

Autodesk support cleared this up for me.

I was only selecting the transform and not the shape of pSphere1.

So changing the line where I make the selection to:

select -r assetRoot geo pSphere1 pSphereShape1;

does what I wanted.

Thanks everyone!

Oh and Kirby,

AbcExport is to export caches in the Alembic file format, which is now an established standard in the Visual Effects industry. You can read about it here: http://www.alembic.io/

[kirbysteele]

Cool, thanks for the info!