Alembic for Unity

Hello there. I'm trying to export a default shuriken particle system from Unity to Alembic without luck.
Using 1.0.5, I do not see the checkbox "Capture Components / Particle System ".
Using github version,i see the checkbox, but it doesnt work either..
Changing billboards to mesh doesnt change anything.
If it should work, please what is the procedure?
Thanks

Works within Unity with "Entire scene" instead of "Target branch", but i can't import correctlyin 3d Max as i guess the particle mesh is not exported.

 

Any news regarding console support for those who haven't managed to build the plugin on their own?

 

I an using Unity 2019.1.14f1 and alembic version 1.0.5 via the package manager. My alembic animations via the animation stream work fine in the editor, but don't show up in standalone builds on Windows. The abc files should be copied into the StreamingAssets folder of the build, but aren't. Manually copying them in does not seem to work.

Do I need to do something to make this work or might this be a bug?

Edit: turns out i has exported from Maya with default settings. Re-exporting with the advised settings from the documentation made it work.

 

Thank you for the reply!

That's unfortunate, we were looking forward to potentially using Alembic but since we're releasing on PS4/Xbox we'll be avoiding until there's hopefully support for it at a later date!

 

Hi there,

Currently having issues with Alembic files in Unity. Occasionally they seem to be losing their connection to their 'stream descriptor'. See below -

I can fix this temporarily by dragging in a new copy of the prefab and copying the Stream Player from the new copy to the gameObject with problems, moving the copied component up to the top of the Inspector stack and the removing the old, broken Alembic Stream Player... but then I get the following error while attempting (and failing) to build my project:

Code (CSharp):

1. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
2. UnityEngine.Formats.Alembic.Importer.AlembicStream.UpdateAbcTree (UnityEngine.Formats.Alembic.Sdk.aiContext ctx, UnityEngine.Formats.Alembic.Importer.AlembicTreeNode node, System.Double time, System.Boolean createMissingNodes, System.Boolean initialImport) (at Library/PackageCache/com.unity.formats.alembic@1.0.5/Runtime/Scripts/Importer/AlembicStream.cs:194)
3. UnityEngine.Formats.Alembic.Importer.AlembicStream.AbcLoad (System.Boolean createMissingNodes, System.Boolean initialImport) (at Library/PackageCache/com.unity.formats.alembic@1.0.5/Runtime/Scripts/Importer/AlembicStream.cs:144)
4. UnityEngine.Formats.Alembic.Importer.AlembicStreamPlayer.LoadStream (System.Boolean createMissingNodes) (at Library/PackageCache/com.unity.formats.alembic@1.0.5/Runtime/Scripts/Importer/AlembicStreamPlayer.cs:75)
5. UnityEngine.Formats.Alembic.Importer.AlembicStreamPlayer.OnEnable () (at Library/PackageCache/com.unity.formats.alembic@1.0.5/Runtime/Scripts/Importer/AlembicStreamPlayer.cs:137)
6. UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

Can anybody help me out with this? It's a serious show-stopper, and we're scheduled to ship shortly.

Thanks in advance,

--Rev

 

Tried to install with packagemanager but get an error alike:"cloth not found"
Thanks for fixing.

 

I can't import that alembic(.abc) file exported with CINEMA4D R21.
Attached a simple file exported by C4D R21. And the particles gif movie.
This abc file(alembic1.zip) can reproduce the error.I tried to import with Unity 2017,2018,2019,
and alembic asset 1.0.0preciew11-v1.06 but all Unity were downed.(C4D R21 can reimport this file.)

If there are the solution strategy for import, please tell me.
Or else, please fix the asset.thanks.

 

Hi thanks reply.
Wow Can you open this file?? great!
What Unity & alembic asset version did you use? My main unity is "Unity2018.4.4f1" & 1.0.6.
When abc file put in assets folder, my Unity2018 is always downed.
I never can edit the alembic setting.

 

@cguertin thanks reply
I continued to try.
and I could check the Import Ponts while got to crash 2 times.
but abc file doesn't work...

02:20 crash
03:14 crash
can't D&D in scene and hierarchy
(and crashed by menu > Assets > reimport )

attached a mp4 movie.

and console message
A default asset was created for 'Assets/1.abc' because the asset importer crashed on it last time.
You can select the asset and use the 'Assets -> Reimport' menu command to try importing it again, or you can replace the asset and it will auto import again.

what cause do you see? I don't know what to do.

 

Thank you for the 2.0 preview.
is it now able to load/stream alembic file from outside unity project folder without import the alembic data ?

 

Hey guys!

We are trying to bring multiple UV sets, 4 to be precise, based on the fact that ShaderGraph can access up to 4 channels, but we just run into the issue that the ABC importer will only read the first 2, would it be possible to add support for the extra two UV sets?
I tried manually modifying the AbcAPI.cs and AlembicMesh.cs thinking that it would be just a matter to have the importer fetch the data from the Abc and create it, but turned out to be not as simple as that.
Any help on this matter will be greatly appreciated

 

I have an issue.

My alembic animation doesn't seem to be in sync.

For example, if the movement is fast, the eyes of my character will literally pop out of the characters' faces, but the same alembic file works as expected in Max.

Now I'm wondering since I saw a few things, does alembic import on unity smooth out some curves or something?

When I'd expand the alembic file, in the _frames I'd see in inspector debug that it's 60fps (I export it @ 30) and the High Quality curve is ticked on?

How do we go about changing this?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Md5WAFlk5yb9XRpCdyCQF8rkeVnSr9Wc/view


EDIT: I found out this desync happens when scaling bones in my character

 

Thank you so much! this what i looking for!
now our unity project didn't have to import or duplicate the alembic from our server, currently we try to integrate Unity in our tv animation pipeline.
and now will try modify your script to match with our pipeline and more Artist friendly!
again, thank you so much for developing this plugin.

 

We export a single alembic file, but the model itself has eyes on separate joints, the eyes don't get merged with the mesh.

I'll see if I can export a short sample of animation and you can test it out, we are scaling bones in 3ds max making the full anim, and then exporting into unity.

 

I posted the problem I'm having in this thread:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/alembic-not-showing-in-build.829989/

Basically everything works great on editor, but it does not load the alembic in the build :S

 

This did not resolve the issue, disabling interpolation produces still the same result as before

 

Looking to push Alembic files to the HoloLens2, which uses an ARM processor. Is there any plans for deploying the plugin dll for ARM in addition to x86_64?

 

I want to use this on Android,please,please,please,please,please...

 

Please, any news on this?
I really need ability to update manually alembic Stream Player.
Now that Timeline has Alembic Track, it should be default behaviour to update alembic animation state on calling

Code (CSharp):

1. playableDirector.Evaluate();

Right now Alembic Stream Player updates only once per frame. But an ability to update more times via timeline is essential also for consistency reasons.

 

I'm having an issue where Alembic models eventually fail to load during the normal run of my application.

Basically if I load/unload various Alembic models that have been prefabbed (to include custom material/timelines) throughout the course of my application running - they will eventually fail to load with the error: "failed to load alembic at Assets/My Scene/Models/example.abc".

It's very strange because they will all load normally for 1-2 minutes of Play time, and then fail out of the blue.

The worst part is that once the references are broken, they seem to be broken for the good in the editor. I have to close and reopen the editor for the errors to go away.

 

Hello. I still am not able to fix my memory leak problem tied to alembic. I noticed (By process of elimination) that the longer the animation plays, the memory id being consumed and it does not stop. I don't usually let it go past 3 Gig but I almost let go so far to crash my computer. Is there a solution to this issue?
A lot of help would be appreciated as I want to give others a chance to try out the demo, however, it would be a bad idea due to this.

 

Any update about Alembic working on Nintendo Switch?

 

It doesn't work on Switch?

 

Was trying to export a Alembic Page Turn From C4D(Using Mospline to turn the page) works fine in the editor but will not build. The Game seems to be missing the alembic animation and does not show the model even. Any ideas what i could be doing wrong between C4D > Unity

 

Here is an easy question. I know that the API is not yet public but all I want to do it GetComponent<AlembicStreamPlayer>() to see if an object has this component. But AlembicStreamPlayer is inaccessible since it is an internal private class. Soo is there any "clean" way for me to find out if the component is there? Can I query the Animator for to find out if it is an Alembic animation?

 

Hello again,

I have a problem with motion vectors / alembic interpolation for alembics exported with RealFlow.
Here is a small repro showing the problem: https://github.com/JohannesDeml/AlembicInterpolationBug



The two things that are strange here:
* Motion Vectors don't work for the alembic even though the alembic standard material is applied
* The mesh seems to not interpolate its frames even though interpolation is enabled

Any idea what the root cause of this might be?
When opening the exported mesh in blender it correctly goes through the animation frame by frame.

Edit:
Is it maybe due to the everchanging geometry of the mesh that changes vertex number in the animation? If that is the case, is there a possibility to somehow work around that limitation?

 

I'm trying to import hair with an Alembic file. I'm using Unity's built-in Alembic package.
I can drag the file into the asset section but cant open the file

 

hi

 

I have a bullet that has an alembic mesh as a child. In the editor everything is fine, however, on build the alembic mesh is invisible. You can use create object on the alembic mesh its self and it will work in build, but not if it has a script attached or is a child of a scriptable object, it will once again be invisible in build.

I am 100% sure that I didn't program anything to make it deactivate or turn its self invisible.

 

Hi guys , because i have a project in plan , can you give us some estimated time when alembic or other format you mentioned will support for mobile ? 2021 or 2022 ? thanks.