Alembic Importer?

PepperoniDAZ

There is already a DAZ Studio plug-in for exporting in .abc format, which is awesome. My question is, could importing alembic into DAZ Studio be happening soon? Can DS handle .abc format or vertex animation in general?

The reason I ask is because I use DS as my primary rendering application and I use several programs in conjunction with it, among them Maya, Realflow, iClone and Marvelous Designer, all of which support alembic. I've learned that iClone 6.5 (which is still in beta atm) will be able to export animation as .abc, and also the recently released MD 5.5 can now output clothing animation as .abc.

I use iClone to do the bulk of my animation work with Genesis 2, going back and forth between it and DS. Which is why I'm particularly excited about iClone 6.5's alembic export now that we can finally bake and export soft body animation (clothing and hair dynamics) that is simulated within iClone. But it won't mean a thing if we can't import the animation file into DS...

The same with MD, right now the best way I know to bring clothing animation into DAZ is by way of obj sequence, which requires a bit of a multi-step process. With alembic though, this can be done in one fell swoop - that is, when and if DS can finally import alembic files.

So I'm just wondering if something's in the work right now; if someone's working on an alembic importer plugin or if it's going to be implemented in the future version DS.

Because if yes, then this is a very exciting time.

Richard Haseltine

This would be a good topic for a feature request http://www.daz3d.com/help/help-contact-us

PepperoniDAZ

Good idea, Richard. Thank you.

I will submit a request.