Update Alembic Version?

[timdan]

So, the most recent version of Alembic is 1.7.4. Maya 2017 is only using 1.5.8. Is it possible to update the version of Alembic? Our studio has perpetual issues getting Maya to work well with Alembics, but AutoDesk has proven that they do not care in the slightest that these issues are happening. RoryalRender has even reached out directly to AutoDesk to try and help resolve the issue, but alas they remain completely silent.

Was hoping that, perhaps, an Alembic update could help. Has anybody done this?

[sean.heasley]

Hi @timdan

I don't know of a way to force an Alembic update to Maya 2017 but I do know that we plan to bring the correct version of Alembic to Maya 2018 in a future update.

I understand this may not be the solution you are looking for, especially if you or your studio is sticking with 2017, but I figured it would be best to pass this information along to you for future reference!

I am however currently talking to some members of our dev team just to see if there is a potential workaround for you!

I hope this is helpful and let me know if you need any more information!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @timdan

Another Autodesk employee had this to say to your question:

"We tend to stick to one library version for that release and bump up as needed on major releases. With that said there is nothing stopping the customer from compiling their own and using it Maya as its opensource."

Please let me know if this information helps or if you need any more assistance!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[timdan]

So... sounds like it's sort of an "unsupported" feature and a bit of a hack to make it work. Any idea of 2018 uses a newer version of the plugin?

[sean.heasley · Accepted solution]

Hi @timdan

At the moment, 2018 is also on 1.5.8 however we plan on updating it to the most recent version of Alembic in our next update for 2018.

Unfortunately I can not say when we plan to release the update but I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I'm allowed to share that information!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

Hi Sean,

Thank you for your support,

Do you have any news on the next  release of Maya 2018 with alembic 1.7?

Cheers,

Jean-Marc

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

No news yet on when we will be updating alembic to 1.7 but I'll be sure to let you know as soon as our dev team lets us know!

[Anonymous]

Hi Sean,

Thank you for your nice reply,

hope it will be in a 2018 release as we plan to use it for our beginning production.

All the best,

Jean-Marc

[Anonymous]

Users on the beta may know, but I wouldn’t expect Alembic 1.7 until at least Maya 2019, which should be built using CY2018 of the VFX Platform. Maya 2018 should be using 1.6.x as per CY2017, so I find it interesting that it doesn’t use the official release (possibly using a customized and backported 1.5.8 build) considering AD had a lot of contributions to that release.

Cheers,
Mike