Xgen Interactive Groom Problem: Alembic Cache Exports Deleted Hair

[evan.clark95FX8]

Hi all,

I am having trouble exporting my interactive groom. I need to be able to get my hair as curves in another project, and while this is no problem in traditional Xgen (exporting descriptions as MEL files), I've not been able to find a way to do this in the interactive groom, so have been exporting them as alembic caches. 

The problem is that any hair that has been painted out using the density mask or brush re-appears when exported as an alembic cache. I found an old forum post from 2017 reporting the same issue, and it was said that the problem is that the hairs painted out in the density are considered hidden rather than deleted, and that they were looking into adding an option to cull hidden hairs when exporting, but that was two years ago and we don't have one yet.

The below image demonstrates my issue - on the left is the density mask and it's effect. On the right shows the difference before and after export.

I really need a solution to get the hair out as curves and I'm happy to be pretty hacky when doing it as I probably won't be using interactive groom again after this project, but I can't find any way to actually delete hair in the interactive groom unless it's been placed by the place brush. If anyone could help with this, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Evan.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hello @evan.clark95FX8 ,

As far as I know, there's two solutions you could use.

1. You could get around this issue with an option in the Export Cache window.

If you enable Multiple Transforms, the splines will be hidden in the alembic file.

Unfortunately, this option make the alembic file much slower to read but you get the visible hair.

2. Use Density Brush instead of painting a density mask. (3rd item in XGen Interactive shelf section)

I hope it helps,

Renaud