Python Scripted Export of Hair Data Sets slowness

[adnanmg]

Hi,

I am exporting Xgen Interactive Hair via python script. The step that is taking the longest to process is the actual alembic export of the hair. I used the regular alembic export commands in a definition:

    def abc_export(self, filepath, objLs=None, start_frame=1, end_frame=1, data_format='ogawa', uv_write=True):
        job_command = '-frameRange {} {} '.format(start_frame, end_frame)
        job_command += '-dataFormat {} '.format(data_format)
        job_command += '-attr groom_root_uv '
        job_command += '-attr groom_group_id '
        job_command += '-attr groom_guide '        
            
        if uv_write:
            job_command += '-uvWrite '

        for node in objLs:
            job_command += '-root {} '.format('\"'+node+'\"')   
    
        job_command += '-file {} '.format(filepath) 
        
        cmds.AbcExport(verbose=True, j=job_command)

    def hairCache_export(self, filepath, objLs=None, start_frame=1, end_frame=1, data_format='ogawa'):
        job_command = ''
        job_command += ' -file {} '.format('\"'+filepath+'\"')
        job_command += ' -df {} '.format(data_format)
        job_command = ' -fr {} {} '.format(str(start_frame), str(end_frame))
        job_command += ' -mxf {} '.format('1')
        job_command += ' -wfw {} '.format('1')
        job_command += ' -obj {} '.format('\"'+objLs+'\"')        
        mel.eval('xgmSplineCache -j'+ job_command)

The above abc_export definition works, but a full head of hair can run over night and still take several more hours to finish exporting. I was careful to make sure the curves are not being selected etc (maya takes forever to select a large dataset of hair curves), I have redraw and undo off when running the code.

I decided to try the interface commands under generate and found mention of the xgmSplineCache command which is what I would user if exporting from the interface. For that, I am getting an internal error. I am not sure how to get the scripted export to be as fast as exporting via python code. As mentioned in another post I found on here (https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-forum/xgen-commandline-caching/td-p/8005964), the command can be found in this mel file: Maya2018\plug-ins\xgen\scripts\xgmSplineCacheExport.mel

Any help in speeding up this process of alembic export would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Adnan Hussain

[adnanmg]

Looking at it a bit more, I think xgmSplineCache might require an interactive groom object to work. Since I am adding attributes to the full hair set, I export an alembic, reimport add attributes and may need to export using the regular alembic export. It is painfully slow to export..any ideas?