imprting XSI data into Houdini

[melany]

Hello,

I know that for importing XSI camera data into Houdini i need a script.

Doed anyone can help me, please?

Melany

[lynbo]

Hey Melany

you might try

http://www.grahamdclark.com/

He was working on translation scripts at one point.

I too would like to find more info on this. If you or anyone can provide info

that would be great.

Thanks

Lyn Caudle

Visual Effects Swiss Army Knife

Janimation

lyn@janimation.com

www.janimation.com

[stevenong]

I hope the following post helps:

http://odforce.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=50

I tried the above a long time ago so it might be easier to write out raw curves from XSI now.

After writing out the raw curve(something in the fcurve editor to save the fcurve to disk), the file will have a bunch of headers etc which you must strip off so you're left with the following:

2.30476
2.30476
2.30476
2.30475
.
.
.
2.30474
2.28534
2.48441
2.20411

The formatting above is the .chan file format which Houdini reads. Also, each new line is a frame so you should have N lines for N frames of your animation. To help make things easier, you can set keys on the first & last frames before converting to raw curves. If you don't, you'll have to offset the data in Houdini.

After reading them into Houdini with a File CHOP, you have to rename it so if it's Translation X of the camera, then it's "tx". Repeat for all the fcurves you're exporting then pipe all of them into a Merge CHOP & export it to the camera. I believe the aperture & FOV settings are the same for XSI & Houdini but if it has been animated, you have to export raw fcurves as well.

Of course I might have just made things worst & caused you both great confusion so please let me know what I should clarify. I haven't tried XSI in years but if you can write out a raw curve to a text file(s), please email it to me then I'll set up a hip file for you to see how it goes.

Cheers!

steven

[lynbo]

I hope the following post helps:

http://odforce.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=50

I tried the above a long time ago so it might be easier to write out raw curves from XSI now.

After writing out the raw curve(something in the fcurve editor to save the fcurve to disk), the file will have a bunch of headers etc which you must strip off so you're left with the following:

2.30476
2.30476
2.30476
2.30475
.
.
.
2.30474
2.28534
2.48441
2.20411

The formatting above is the .chan file format which Houdini reads. Also, each new line is a frame so you should have N lines for N frames of your animation. To help make things easier, you can set keys on the first & last frames before converting to raw curves. If you don't, you'll have to offset the data in Houdini.

After reading them into Houdini with a File CHOP, you have to rename it so if it's Translation X of the camera, then it's "tx". Repeat for all the fcurves you're exporting then pipe all of them into a Merge CHOP & export it to the camera. I believe the aperture & FOV settings are the same for XSI & Houdini but if it has been animated, you have to export raw fcurves as well.

Of course I might have just made things worst & caused you both great confusion so please let me know what I should clarify. I haven't tried XSI in years but if you can write out a raw curve to a text file(s), please email it to me then I'll set up a hip file for you to see how it goes.

Cheers!

steven

13248[/snapback]

Cool Steven I'll give this a try and let you know.

[lynbo]

Hey... This worked well but doing every channel on every object on a scene

would really suck gravel. Scripting this would be the wat to go. If someone has done this pls let us know.

Thanks for the info.

[stevenong]

Hey Lyn,

I guess you might have to search the net for the script. I'm pretty sure there will be someone who had to dump out raw fcurves from XSI & wrote one to automate the process.

What about doing it yourself? Doesn't the script editor prints out every action you make? Sorry, I can't help you more plus I haven't really used XSI before.

Good luck & keep us posted!

Cheers!

steven

[lynbo]

Hey Lyn,

I guess you might have to search the net for the script. I'm pretty sure there will be someone who had to dump out raw fcurves from XSI & wrote one to automate the process.

What about doing it yourself? Doesn't the script editor prints out every action you make? Sorry, I can't help you more plus I haven't really used XSI before.

Good luck & keep us posted!

Cheers!

steven

13818[/snapback]

Yes it is easy for me to script the output from XSI. I can do that quick but I would like to refine it and use the object model which is harder and I am just starting to learn about this. More importantly I was thinking of automating the reconnection in Houdini. Basicly I would like to be able to say click export in XSI, then click import in Houdini and be done.

Sounds easy..... No?

And as for help ,you pointed me in the direction I needed. Thanks much.

[edward]

Not knowing anything about XSI either but I would recommend writing out a .cmd hscript file that you can just start up with:

houdini my_exported_xsi.cmd

[RickWork]

We're using XSI and Houdini in production and it works out ok to exchange data back and forth.

Don't forget that you can interface with houdini via hcommand.

See wiki:

Sending Hscript To Houdini

[lynbo]

We're using XSI and Houdini in production and it works out ok to exchange data back and forth.

Don't forget that you can interface with houdini via hcommand.

See wiki:

Sending Hscript To Houdini

13891[/snapback]

Hey thats cool. Duh I didn't think of that.

I'll try this when I get a chance. Busy right now.

Thanks

[MatrixNAN]

Hey thats cool. Duh I didn't think of that.

I'll try this when I get a chance. Busy right now.

Thanks

13892[/snapback]

Neat yeah that is what I am looking at doing too is using both XSI and Houdini together in Production. I also use lightwave, they just posted a conversion plugin to go from Lightwave to XSI at XSI Base.

Lightwave 2 XSI

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

I am thinking of going totally houdini when they release DOPS. XSI is kind of buggy, but I love mental ray too.

[lynbo]

Neat yeah that is what I am looking at doing too is using both XSI and Houdini together in Production.  I also use lightwave, they just posted a conversion plugin to go from Lightwave to XSI at XSI Base. 

Lightwave 2 XSI

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

I am thinking of going totally houdini when they release DOPS.  XSI is kind of buggy, but I love mental ray too.

16037[/snapback]

Hey Nate

I think we are all excited about DOPS, I certainly am. The XSI implementation of ODE is a bit kludgy feeling and on occassion gives some really weird results. I'm not real fond of the particle system either, but I manage to grind through somehow. Did you see the camera script Rick posted in the Wiki?

http://www.odforce.net/wiki/index.php/SoftImageXSIToHoudini

This works well, best part is you can replace "Camera" in the code with "Null" for instance and get transforms of an object that you need for your Houdini scene. -=This is provided you put a few nulls in your scene for just such an occassion.=-

Cheers

Oh Yea Mental Ray does ROCK!

[MatrixNAN]

Hey lynbo,

Awe man no I didn't know about that script kick butt that is awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah I will totally check it out. XSI 5.0 is far more solid now than the 4.2 so yeah that really helped and GATOR kicks butt too. But yeah the particles are by far the weakess part of XSI and DOPS is the most advanced way of doing Dynamics interactions out there. I mean try doing cloth to fur interactions in XSI and just watch them pass through each other but you could do it in Houdini DOPS and they would interact with each other. I was more looking at the XSI, Houdini and ZBrush pipeline as a way of having a fully intergrated pipeline for Film, TV, Commericals, and Games all in one so to speak. That would let us bring the power of Houdini into games not directly but still better than most things. Jason was saying that Mantra is even faster than Mental Ray with the Ray Tracing so I am going to have a stronger look at Mantra yet again. I certainly prefer XSI's and Houdini's shading system over Maya's because of the limited level of detail with their node systems in Maya. Thank you so much if I come across anything more useful in this regard I will drop you a line.

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

Hey Nate

I think we are all excited about DOPS, I certainly am. The XSI implementation of ODE is a bit kludgy feeling and on occassion gives some really weird results. I'm not real fond of the particle system either, but I manage to grind through somehow. Did you see the camera script Rick posted in the Wiki?

http://www.odforce.net/wiki/index.php/SoftImageXSIToHoudini

This works well, best part is you can replace "Camera" in the code with "Null" for instance and get transforms of an object that you need for your Houdini scene. -=This is provided you put a few nulls in your scene for just such an occassion.=-

Cheers 

Oh Yea Mental Ray does ROCK! 

16188[/snapback]

[edward]

XSI 5.0 is far more solid now than the 4.2 so yeah that really helped and GATOR kicks butt too.

25061[/snapback]

How does it compare to the AttribTransfer SOP?

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Edward ,

Well its a little different I mean GATOR you can transfer anything to anything. Meaning you can transfer rigs from one model to another including the weight painting, texturing, UV Mapping, Shaders, Animation, etc etc etc. It just kind of works. I mean you can map a characters animtion to like something as simple as a plane and now that plane is dancing around like that character was and it has the same rig the weight painting everything you need. In Houdini a lot times we can just get around this by just connecting up some more nodes or roll it into an OTL and now its a digital asset and transfer it that way. Thanks to Simon we no longer have to paint weights so I mean yeah its hard to compare the two because they are totally different systems. AttribTransfer SOP only works on models if I remember right just like the AttribTransfer POP. So that would do the same thing as GATOR for those particular areas. I suspect though that you have more control in your Attribute Transfer SOP over what GATOR does. GATOR just transfers it accurately but your Houdini Attribute Transfer SOP has a lot of options that the end user can do. So that is cool. I know in Houdini you can transfer the UV Pelt information too from one character to another which is cool also.

I talked with a rep at Softimage and they said they were going to make an export from face robot to Houdini. Probably support it with something like point clouds or what not the representative said. XSI and Maya are getting the most support. Then Max.

I guess the most significant thing about the GATOR in XSI with Houdini is that you could import something from Houdini into XSI and then GATOR it onto the character or whatever in XSI. Talk about saving a bunch of time. No extra work I mean you get one solution going and you just keep transfering it over and over to your other assets. You could do something similar with XSI to Houdini with the Node Systems OTLs and Attribute Transfer Nodes.

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

How does it compare to the AttribTransfer SOP?

25062[/snapback]

[edward]

I'm confused. I thought GATOR only transferred attributes. It transfers animation?

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Edward,

GATOR Animation Transfer

GATOR Attribute Transfer

XSI Demo Video Library

I also have the videos to face robot although I suspect you have seen them.

I don't know if the animation has to be applied as a nonlinear clip to the rig or not but I suspect it does and you just transfer everything to the other character. Boom so to speak. XSI can also handle over a billion polys now which is good for doing large scene renders. They call it the Gigapolygon core its on the video page. I would love to see Houdini handle large polygon counts if possible. I don't currently know what Houdini's Polygon limit is I know I have loaded a 8 million poly character without a problem but I have never pushed it into the 100s of millions of polys thus far.

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

[sibarrick]

I saw that face robot thing at Siggraph it looked very cool and they had some great demos. Love to know how they are doing it. I did wonder if it was bascally a shape blender but one that automatically set up all the blend targets for you. It would be great though if they could do a plugin for houdini it could do with not being left behind for stuff like this.

[DaJuice]

Not sure how gator does anim xfer, but if you transfer the capture attribs from one model to another you can grab animation too.

[edward]

Yeah, I looked at that first video, it's doesn't say that they're doing "animation", it says they transfer "shape animation" which is blendshape weights. If you had attributes driving your blendshape weights in Houdini, AttribTransfer would do exactly the same thing. Transferring the capture weights in that first video is exactly what AttribTransfer can do (and one of its original purposes). Note that AttribTransfer was done in mid 2003 and released in 2004. The only thing missing though is slick demo videos.