extract rotation from alembic transform

[mikethomson]

Hi guys - relatively new Houdini user here...

I have an alembic animation of a flying cube which I want to copy a detailed model on. How do I access the rotation information from the alembic (maya transform, no shape deformation)?

When I import the alembic animation, there's rotation info in there, but I only see the P attribute. Ideally I'd like to get the rotation of the alembic point and put it into the orient attribute.

I'm not sure if I should go the orient() expression, lookat vex node, or some other route...

Any help appreciated

 

-Mike

 

 

[mestela]

Mike!

Alembics store their orientation on a hidden intrinsic attribute on the prim; you can see this in the geo spreadsheet if you go to primitives, and use the 'instrinsics' dropdown to display 'packedfulltransform' or any of the other similarly named transformy attribs.

Anyway, to convert that to @orient means pulling out that 4x4 matrix, converting it to a orient quaternion, then promoting it dom from prim to point so you can drive a copy with it. This wrangle will do the first bit:

matrix m = primintrinsic(0,'packedfulltransform',@ptnum);
@orient = quaternion(matrix3(m));

And an attribpromote will do the second bit. I've attached a maya scene, houdini hip, alembic.

 

 

alembic_transform.zip

[mikethomson]

Matt!

I looked under prim intrinsics and it's pretty much zero'd out with no animation. Might be a weird alembic? It's just an animated cube in maya that I want to attach a model to...

I'll have a poke around your example scene though

 

 

Edited September 19, 2016 by mikethomson
crap spelling

[mikethomson]

Hmmm, looking at your foo.abc I get the same zero/one in intrinsic / transform. Should I be seeing results in the geometry spreadsheet?

 

Ah, just re-checked. It seems intrinsic transform shows nothing, but packedfulltransform looks the goods. I'll try popping your point wrangle into my scene. Thanks!

 

-Mike

[mikethomson]

...in the meantime, I hacked together a vaguely working version using the points on the three axes of my transform in a pointvop:

 

[mestela]

many ways to skin that quat.  

 

 

[eddgarpv]

Hello,

 I'm trying to do the same (get rotation) following Matt's suggestion but for some reason, there is a weird flip at some point in my orient attribute. I know I'm missing something, it's just I'm not really familiar with vex. Already tried a couple alternatives but this one looks more clear to me.  

I just wanted to create constraints and one thing leads to another I guess . 

test_constraint.zip

[mestela]

Huh, that's unexpected.

I'm sure there's a flaw in my vex thinking, meanwhile I tried an alternative way with vops, seems to correct the flipping.

primintrinsic -> extract transform -> deg to rad -> euler to quaternion -> orient

 

keepconstraint_v3.hipnc

[fuat]

as Matt said. or in order to just attach or copy your model onto the alembic (without extracting the rotation matrix explicitly):
primintrinsic (Signature Matrix4, Intrinsic packedfulltransform) pointing to your alembic file -> multiply by P (coming from geovopglobal) -> P (into geovopoutput). done. 
(this help comes from my friend Martin Matzeder aka booyabase and saved me 1 mio times so far....)

[eddgarpv]

Thanks Matt, it is even more clear   (I'm right now at the orient, matrices, quaternions and stuff )

Fuat: works good too, I'll see how much it changes within the dop network and constraints