Dop fracture sim export to maya, fbx? as seperate pieces

[gcas]

I have looked and looked and looked. And cannot find anything, I would think this is a common workflow.

DOP sim, create seperate group for the seperate pieces create.. >> connectiveity>partition>clean>group(to delete inside/outside shared faces)>rop

this successfully creates an OBJ sequence of each piece in its own group; when import as a single OBJ file.

Can I make an obj sequence from these to maya? 1# and 2# does each piece stay in the same group upon creation?

Also I can use this OBJ cache in Houdini and and then export an FBX, but when it comes into maya the fracture sim geo is all one piece.

Anyone actually have an answer to this workflow in its entirety?

Would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

file attached!

break_sphere_test.hip

[3dbeing]

I don't have maya, so I have no way to test, but my gut tells me, the nature of FBX, you would have to have each piece in it's own geo node, and export those geo nodes to have them separate pieces... so it's something that would really require a script ala shelf tool to make it at all feasible if there are more than 10 pieces..

[gcas]

yes, have successfully figured out how to write out each seperate piece, but how would create a new geometry object for each and place each cache in a new node, and continue to do this for each piece?

then yes, i could simple export and fbx, and it would be all seperated in maya like one should expect..? anyone?

[3dbeing]

Like I said, you would need to write a script that looks at the total number of pieces, and loops through creating a geometry node for each and you can then copy an object merge node that has an explicit reference to your main object and put the name of the group in the group field. It's not an impossible code, but it will take some effort, definitely using python would be best I think..

Give it a go..

[3dbeing]

Here's one piece merged into it's on geo node, all you need to do is duplicate this geo node, and change the number in the group name with the appropriate piece number..

objMerge_group.hipnc

[gcas]

thank you! yes i understand what needs to happen and how it gets there; but i need to i guess create "script" or "digital asset" that after simulation; it will read the file cache and create a new geo node, place and object merge and reference that per the animation?

I guess I just dont where to being to find how digital assets and python correlate with the nodes in houdini... any suggestions? or samples that I can study for reference?

thanks again for your help.

[3dbeing]

Start here

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini11.0/hom/

I have no idea what your scripting level is, but if you are completely new to python you may want to check out dive into python

http://www.diveintopython.net/

It's easier to answer more specific questions so see what you can sort out....

to get you started it's prolly easiest to use the hou.session module and create a User-defined method. then call that method in the shell... later you can move your method to a button in the shelf if you like or run it as a post sim process... but while you are deving try the hou.session.

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini11.1/hom/session