Power Mesh and Alembic/Fbx to Maya/Nuke issue

valarts_118 · October 12, 2021, 2:41pm

When exporting alembic or fbx files to nuke or maya it keeps failing . The following issue below keep showing up.

Using Maya 2022 , Mocha Pro 2022 , Nuke 12.5

*The mesh data works for a while then just stops responding . Everything else in nuke works.

*When imporitng alembic into maya nothing come in . In order to see something, i must write geo out of nuke for anything to show up .

Could it be an Alembic/EBX version issue ?

maryp · October 12, 2021, 3:03pm

Importing Alembic Meshes to Nuke. Nuke imports Alembic via the “ReadGeo” node.

Import your source footage to the nuke project
Create a ReadGeo node
Open the exported Alembic file via ReadGeo’s file browser
Change the import parameters if necessary
ReadGeo will then ask how you want to set up the camera and geometry nodes.
You can use the ReadGeo in combination with the Scanline Renderer node to composite warped textures over the top of the original footage:
Create a Scanline Renderer node in the node graph
Feed in the ReadGeo, Camera and Source image into the inputs of the Scanline Renderer node. If you view the node, the mesh should now be correctly projected over the top.
Add an image or material to the ‘img’ input of the ReadGeo node. This will then project the texture onto the Mesh.
Scrubbing the timeline should show the texture warping to the mesh faces over time.

In Maya your workflow should look something like:

Importing the alembic file
viewing the mesh through the camera
Create a new Background object
Assign a new basic material and assign a material
Import your source footage to the material as a texture

But it has been a long time since I did anything in Maya so don’t quote that exactly. What version are you exporting for Maya? Anything you’d export for Cinema 4D for example should come into Maya, I would think.

Let me know if that is still causing issues when you follow those instructions?

valarts_118 · October 12, 2021, 5:39pm

The power mesh alembic is now working in Nuke thank you . Maya 2022 however keeps on crashing when I import power mesh alembic file. Note that alembic from houdini works just fine in maya . I not sure what the issues between Mocha alembic and maya 2022/2020 is . Maya script editor spat out this error " PowerMEshPlateDCam.abc is not a valid Alembic file // " .

martinb · October 12, 2021, 10:42pm

Can you send us the file, please? Preferably with the Mocha project as well so we can compare. Footage will not be necessary.

Jon_D · October 15, 2021, 4:27pm

I am having the same issue. Maya crashes whenever I import an abc from Mocha.

As a workaround, I can open it in Nuke and then export an ABC which works in Maya. That’s not a very elegant solution though.

valarts_118 · October 17, 2021, 2:00pm

I will send hopefully later today .

goodson · October 25, 2021, 2:39pm

Same problem here, Alembic from Mocha Pro 9.0.1 crashes Maya 2019, Maya 2020 and Maya 2022. It imports well in Blender though (despite camera being wrongly orientated, which is pretty comon with Blender).

maryp · October 25, 2021, 4:29pm

Can you send the alembic to @martinb ?

goodson · October 25, 2021, 5:20pm

Sure Mary, how? (sorry is this is a dumb question, I’m pretty new on this forum and I can’t find a “send” or PM button anywhere).
BTW, the Alembic is fine with Autodesk Flame too.

maryp · October 25, 2021, 5:35pm

You can email it to martinb at borisfx.com, I type the separation out on the forums so email scrapers have a harder time. The at should be an @.

martinb · October 26, 2021, 12:12am

No worries, I’ve just repeated this crash with a separate file, so no need to send the data. We’ll try to get to the bottom of why Maya has a problem with some ABC files and not others.

goodson · October 26, 2021, 10:58am

OK Martin, let me know if you change your mind. And let us know if you find a workaround. Thanks.

martinb · December 16, 2021, 11:09pm

Just an update on this: We’re narrowing down the issue with the Maya team.

In the meantime, a potential workaround exists:

If you use the option “Cache > GPU Cache > Import”, this does not seem to crash Maya 2022 and the alembic files successfully import.

Give that a go next time you’re using the format in Maya and let us know if you run into any problems.

chaney-interport_bfb · January 7, 2022, 6:21pm

I am having the same issue. Please fix this.

And for what it is worth, Maya is so buggy and Autodesk really does not seem to fix things. So if possible, do not wait on the Maya team to figure it out.

chaney-interport_bfb · January 7, 2022, 6:25pm

GPU cache brings in the mesh but no camera.

chaney-interport_bfb · January 7, 2022, 6:34pm

Interestingly enough, If I run a python script to convert the gpuCache to real geo, the mocha_camera mysteriously appears. Not ideal but it will get me through the day. Alternatively, I believe you can do multiple mocha alembic exports ( not mesh ) and one will have a camera.

Here is the script from Roy Nieterau I used to get regular geo and the camera :

import maya.cmds as mc

Get selected leaf shapes (so we can filter to gpuCaches)

selShapes = mc.ls(sl=1, dag=1, leaf=1, shapes=1, long=True)

Filter to gpuCache (doesn’t work as one-liner above)

gpuCacheShapes = mc.ls(selShapes, long=True, type=‘gpuCache’)

for gpuCacheShape in gpuCacheShapes:
transform = mc.listRelatives(gpuCacheShape, parent=True, fullPath=True)[0]
filepath = mc.getAttr(gpuCacheShape + ‘.cacheFileName’)

# Import everything from filepath and reparent under the transform
mc.AbcImport(filepath, mode="import", reparent=transform)

# Hide the original gpuCache shape?
mc.setAttr(gpuCacheShape + '.visibility', 0)

#(Or delete it?)
#mc.delete(gpuCacheShape)

martinb · January 9, 2022, 9:21pm

Thanks for the updates and insight on this @chaney-interport_bfb .
The Autodesk Maya team is still investigating the issue as the ABC files work in other programs. We’re following spec, so we have to wait to see where the problem is on their end so we can implement a workaround if possible.