retaining normals when using FBX for i/o

[dangerweenie]

Hi,

I've been trying to get to the bottom of this for some time now, and it seems like there are few different workflows ... however, I can't get any of them to work for my particular scene.

I've created a mesh from an L-System in houdini. It's growing, so the point count changes frame to frame.

Before exporting the sequence to FBX, I've insured that there is a P, N, and uv attribute on the geo. I also exported it to OBJ seq, then brought it back in to Houdini to speed it up.

When exporting this obj seq from Houini as an FBX, I can't seem to get the N (Normals) attribute to remain. When bringing the FBX into Maya or even back into Houdini as an FBX import, the pointCache works great, (despite being triangulated which is neccessary for a changing point count I hear), however the normals are always set to hard, and locked. Ticking on "unlock normals" in Maya's FBX dialogue makes no difference, nor can I modify or even unlock the normals in Maya. (a node is created (polySoftEdge, etc), however it has no effect).

Importing the FBX back into houdini, the normals are hard as well.

If I can just get the normals to unlock in Maya, I'll be all set. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks!

Matt

[dangerweenie]

So it would appear that the mesh is coming into Maya (viaFBX) with the vertices not merged ... that's why the normals aren't working.

Adding a fuseSOP in Houdini before export did not resolve it. For the time being, I'm just applying a "merge" to the FBX in Maya with the value set to the same as the fuseSOP.

Hi,

I've been trying to get to the bottom of this for some time now, and it seems like there are few different workflows ... however, I can't get any of them to work for my particular scene.

I've created a mesh from an L-System in houdini. It's growing, so the point count changes frame to frame.

Before exporting the sequence to FBX, I've insured that there is a P, N, and uv attribute on the geo. I also exported it to OBJ seq, then brought it back in to Houdini to speed it up.

When exporting this obj seq from Houini as an FBX, I can't seem to get the N (Normals) attribute to remain. When bringing the FBX into Maya or even back into Houdini as an FBX import, the pointCache works great, (despite being triangulated which is neccessary for a changing point count I hear), however the normals are always set to hard, and locked. Ticking on "unlock normals" in Maya's FBX dialogue makes no difference, nor can I modify or even unlock the normals in Maya. (a node is created (polySoftEdge, etc), however it has no effect).

Importing the FBX back into houdini, the normals are hard as well.

If I can just get the normals to unlock in Maya, I'll be all set. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks!

Matt