Houdini To Realflow Mesh

[mattd]

I heard a while ago of some one that created a pipeline for exporting objects from houdini to a realflow .bin sequence, thereby allowing import and rendering to a variety of packages that have realflow mesh loaders, also, the realflow .bin supports motion vectors.

Does this exist anywhere - or was this a proprietary solution - ?

MD

[TheUsualAlex]

I heard a while ago of some one that created a pipeline for exporting objects from houdini to a realflow .bin sequence, thereby allowing import and rendering to a variety of packages that have realflow mesh loaders, also, the realflow .bin supports motion vectors.

Does this exist anywhere - or was this a proprietary solution - ?

MD

Howdy. Mark Story wrote the rf->Houdini plugin. I am not sure if he's still maintaining it or if he leave it to the Houdini community. You might be able to contact him for the build version that you need.

http://www.digitalcinemaarts.com/

[Guest xionmark]

I heard a while ago of some one that created a pipeline for exporting objects from houdini to a realflow .bin sequence, thereby allowing import and rendering to a variety of packages that have realflow mesh loaders, also, the realflow .bin supports motion vectors.

Does this exist anywhere - or was this a proprietary solution - ?

MD

Hello,

The Real Flow plugins will read any file from RF into Houdini, will export particles and objects (SD files) from Houdini to RF, but does not generate mesh for RF; that's because RF does not support reading it's own mesh files (maybe it does in RF4, not sure but wil check).

And it's true that some shops have used the plugins to export particles from Houdini to be able more easily import particles *and* any abitrary attribute into say, Maya. But that's really a hack related to the lack of common file formats to share data between apps. However, now that Houdini supports Colada, you'll have much more success and you won't have to deal with yet another proprietary file format (RF files).

On a related note, I'm almost done with the modifications to the plugins for RF4 and will have H8.1 builds soon as well. Just super busy right now.

--Mark

[mattd]

Hello,

The Real Flow plugins will read any file from RF into Houdini, will export particles and objects (SD files) from Houdini to RF, but does not generate mesh for RF; that's because RF does not support reading it's own mesh files (maybe it does in RF4, not sure but wil check).

And it's true that some shops have used the plugins to export particles from Houdini to be able more easily import particles *and* any abitrary attribute into say, Maya. But that's really a hack related to the lack of common file formats to share data between apps. However, now that Houdini supports Colada, you'll have much more success and you won't have to deal with yet another proprietary file format (RF files).

On a related note, I'm almost done with the modifications to the plugins for RF4 and will have H8.1 builds soon as well. Just super busy right now.

--Mark

Thanks Mark, it's great that you are making your efforts available for everyone to use. However, what I was getting at was that someone once told me that a shop in NYC (?) that he was working at had developed a method to write out a .bin sequence of arbitrary houdini animated geometry, which then allowed them to render that animated, motion blurred geometry in maya. Really nothing to do with realflow, just an exploit of their file format and their maya mesh loader plugin.

I am working with animated .obj files, but the downside is lack of motionblur, and slow performance.

As I understand it, Houdini only supports reading of colada files - right? I unfortunately have to render in maya (mental ray for maya - not standalone) since it is what's on our renderfarm, and I do not have houdini Master, just select.

again, it may have just been a pie in the sky, but I wonder if anyone went anywhere with it

MD

[Guest xionmark]

Hello,

Hmmm ... not sure I know who it is or what they were doing then, more than likely if it had something to do with Real Flow and Houdini I would have heard about it, but memory can fade ...

Could it be someone at Charlex in NYC? Before I worked there, a guy named David Rindner, I think he's at DD now, was asking similar questions, I'd have to look thru old email to be sure.

Anyway, if you want to export particles or SD files out Houdini for Maya to read, that can be done now. As for writing out RF mesh from Houdini, maybe I used to have that code, but I don't think so, again, that memory issue ... I'll check later tonight ( I have to fire up an old Indigo II to look for it ...).

--Mark