eetu Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 (edited) Hi all! I wrote a simple .mdd reader for Houdini in Python. Some obvious features are still missing, but it should work. http://undo.fi/houdini/mdd/ This is my first foray into Python SOPs and hda/otls so apologies if I've done something stupidly eetu. Edited September 18, 2007 by eetu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbardakos Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 that is simply fantastic!!! I was about to do a request for the next version of Point Oven for such a thing!! ) (what about an exproter? many thanks !!! J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbukovec Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 I second that! This is fantastic! Thank You for Your effort! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 I'll second the kudos for the effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vmuriel Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 Great !! ... and thanks. I was searching two days ago for a MDD exporter, for export Houdini animation in MODO and render there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eetu Posted September 18, 2007 Author Share Posted September 18, 2007 Yeah exporter will be next. It's just a tad trickier as you need to know how many frames you will write before writing to the file. Probably good exercise And I forgot to say; if any of you want to make it better, feel free to build on it but please post any improved version here.. eetu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shikung444 Posted October 6, 2007 Share Posted October 6, 2007 awesome! awesome! Thanks for posting this. Waiting patiently for the mdd exporter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eetu Posted November 14, 2007 Author Share Posted November 14, 2007 Ok, here's a very raw .mdd exporter. http://undo.fi/houdini/mdd/ It's very dirty.. When currentframe==startframe it creates an empty mdd-file with endframe-startframe frames and after that just appends one frame of data to the file per every cook. You should be careful to properly step thru the frame range - if you scrub, you will end up with see-saw motion in the file and possibly a corrupt .mdd (I also made a .geo importer for LW, but I guess that belong in the 'other software' forum.) None of these have seen any real production use yet, so proceed with caution. eetu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shikung444 Posted November 15, 2007 Share Posted November 15, 2007 Hi eetu, I have tried your mdd exporter from Houdini, and followed the instructions, it is writing a file out, but when I use point oven in 3ds max to read the file in, there is no motion. I'm not sure what the problem is. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eetu Posted November 15, 2007 Author Share Posted November 15, 2007 (edited) I have tried your mdd exporter from Houdini, and followed the instructions, it is writing a file out, but when I use point oven in 3ds max to read the file in, there is no motion. I'm not sure what the problem is. I guess I know what the problem is, I skipped creating proper key times for the mdd file as I thought they're not really used anywhere, stupid of me I tried a couple of mdd readers in lightwave, one played back the animation and two didn't, so I guess I just originally tested with a lazily implemented reader.. Expect a fix shortly. EDIT: v0.2 now up, i hope it works better now eetu. Edited November 15, 2007 by eetu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbukovec Posted November 19, 2007 Share Posted November 19, 2007 hi eetu! I really like your efforts to make this mdd import/export. Thank You for that! The reader works pretty well, but the exporter still unusable. I tried to import back the written mdd file and the geometry dissapears in Houdini and in Maya too. I got python error on node. Try it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shikung444 Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 (edited) The exporter works for me with both Houdini and 3ds max point oven. Thank you so much! All we're missing now is a script to play through the timeline so that it recorded with less hassle. But it is totally usable in its current state. edit: Just so you know, it seems like the last two or three frames of the export are always messed up. It has happened the two times I've used it so far. But so far this is the best bridge yet getting animation between Houdini and other software. Now if only there were obj or geo sequence importers for max and xsi... Edited November 21, 2007 by shikung444 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eetu Posted November 21, 2007 Author Share Posted November 21, 2007 (edited) I got python error on node. Try it. It worked for me with houdini and lightwave. What's the error it gives you? Have you tried with an easy case, e.g. a rotating cube? All we're missing now is a script to play through the timeline so that it recorded with less hassle. But it is totally usable in its current state.edit: Just so you know, it seems like the last two or three frames of the export are always messed up. It has happened the two times I've used it so far. But so far this is the best bridge yet getting animation between Houdini and other software. Now if only there were obj or geo sequence importers for max and xsi... Nice to know it's not completely messed up I obviously do have to test it a little more. A button to play back the frames is the next step of course eetu. Edited November 21, 2007 by eetu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shikung444 Posted November 22, 2007 Share Posted November 22, 2007 just so you know how useful it is, I am now using it to send a Houdini particle simulation to 3ds max and rendering with afterburn and final render. I had no way to do this before. Thanks so much! I'm looking forward to this tool being perfected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbukovec Posted November 22, 2007 Share Posted November 22, 2007 I tried with a more complex geometry from maya, also tried with a torus in houdini added some animated noise, and it worked flawlessly. With maya modell i got the following error: Error: Python error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 33, in <module> File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.783\python\lib\python2.5\struct.py", line 87, in unpack return o.unpack(s) error: unpack requires a string argument of length 4 hope it helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eetu Posted November 22, 2007 Author Share Posted November 22, 2007 Hiya, I did some small updates on both reader and writer; The writer is now quite a bit handier to use, it has a button that automatically steps thru and cooks the desired range. The reader now has a frame offset parameter. I also fixed a bug when loading the last frame - it tried to read one frame too far to establish subframe motionblur.. (which did give me the error dbukovec saw, but only on the last frame) There might still be something funky with the last frame, I'll investigate further when I next get free r&d time eetu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbukovec Posted November 22, 2007 Share Posted November 22, 2007 cheers Man! will test it as soon as i have a bit of time thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbukovec Posted November 22, 2007 Share Posted November 22, 2007 to have it simple i tested it on a simple torus and sphere, deforming them with the mountain SOP. Wrote out the mdd file and used the Point OVen plugin in maya to read it back, unfortunately i had misplaced vertices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netvudu Posted December 10, 2007 Share Posted December 10, 2007 How the heck did I miss this thing for so long...this gonna be a godsend! :notworthy: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinCohen Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 I've found some small issues with writer. These relate to using the native .mdd reader in LW8; they may not be issues with Point Oven or with other readers. 1. I had to flip the z-axis in the script. 2. The last exported frame disappears in LW. It seems the reader in LW expects an extra record at the end. I appened one, and that fixed it. 3. If the exported range is in the middle of the timeline, it seems to be offset by a frame. For example, if I want to export from frames 400-450, I need to export from frame 399. Thank you for this very useful asset. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.