aesnakes Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 Hello, I am coming from a maya workflow and like many people here just have come to find Houdini as the greatest thing ever. However I need to achieve a few things that I was doing in my old workflow. So I am doing some camera projection and mapping inside a 3D app and then exporting to either After Effects or Nuke/Fusion for compositing of 2D Characters. I need to import the Camera Data with Animation and a placement Geometry so i can find the proper positioning for the 2D Characters. this is so the ground does not slide underneath their feet. Now I have achieved this in maya-nuke and maya-after effects workflow using the MoCon_3_5_5 exporter. Please tell me there is an easy way to solve this in Houdini. I dont want to go back to maya PLEEEAASE NOOOOOO. lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewVK Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 for After FX CS3 (CS2).... In Houdini: ...Windows-> Python shell ...type something like: execfile('c:/aecam.py') select the camera and press enter. In After FX: File->Scripts->Run Script jump to camera comp and adjust scene scale by scaling "Scene scale" null object aecam.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aesnakes Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Did you write this? or get it from somewhere. Great job I wanted to thank you. Does anybody know like the other plugin how I can put placement goe and export to after effects to know where I would place the characters in 2.5d space. I know it made white planes with the exported geo and I just had to replace the layers and the characters where hitting their marks without feet sliding etc. thanks again!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewVK Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Yes...this is my script... i have not finished (polished) version which exports objects also (as AE null). I will post it tomorrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Hey AndrewVK, Have not tried your script yet... but this sounds great!!! It will be a very cool thing to export the Houdini camera to AE... and the objects as AE Nulls... That was the last thing to make Houdini part of the motion graphics pipline Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aesnakes Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Yeah, it works great. Im soo excited for the null object export!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclaes Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 (edited) Hi, I want to transfer my camera and some scene information as well from houdini to Nuke so far this is what I have found out: *) this thread has been really useful: http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/boujou-nuke-ummm-t10336.html In nuke 5 you can create a new camera and add a quick expression to some of its channels as a test to see what is generated by for the chan files. In the settings for the camera you can import and export .chan files. The chan files are just ascii files so you can open them up and have a look inside. The ones that Nuke requires are in the form of: FRAME TX TY TZ RX RY RZ FOCAL If you look in the plugins folder of the installation of nuke you will find the following script: import_chan_file.tcl. If you open that up you get a little help file explaining some of the requirements. There are various other formats supported through tcl scripts. I first tried running these scripts, but then noticed that the option is already there on the camera for importing & exporting chan files. It is good to know where to find the scripts for other formats as well. There is more information in the nuke user guide on tcl scripts and adding menu options and changing Nuke's Ui. In houdini you can create a new chops network and fetch the channels from your camera, this will give you tx ty tz rx ry rz focal. Now all you need is frame. So create a new channel (you can call it frame) and as a value give it $F. Merge this with the fetched data from the channels. The order of the merge is important! First the new "frame" channel, then the fetched data. Add a null underneath it (this makes sure all the above is definitely cooked/calculated, this might not be necessary), right-click on it and select: "save data channels". Make sure you write out your file with the ".chan" extension. Now just use that file in Nuke. This works, but currently I am having a "problem" because chops only fetches the data in local space and my camera is parented under a null which has been scaled up. ( I had to scale up my scene for some dynamics I am using) I am now trying to get the global/world position data into chops and from there into nuke. Does anybody know how to fetch the position data from a child node in world space? I have considered using an object merge in a new geometry node, but don't know which point represents the pivot of the camera exactly. (I can do a similar kind of parenting operation of the camera in nuke, but this gets a bit messy as you would need the scale value.) Hopefully this was helpful. Please post back if you find something that might help. Edited April 8, 2008 by pclaes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 use the object merge and point to the camOrigin node in the camera Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewVK Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Here is dirty version...i still learning python... I have no time to test it well. Looks like it works properly...but who knows... You can export: objects, subnets, nulls, lights, cameras Exported properties (can be animated): Pure Transform, Camera Zoom, Light Color, ConeAngle, Intensity. I have no idea how to change light type in AE via script... Just switch it by hand HoudiniToAE.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symek Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 (edited) Here is dirty version...i still learning python...I have no time to test it well. Looks like it works properly...but who knows... You can export: objects, subnets, nulls, lights, cameras Exported properties (can be animated): Pure Transform, Camera Zoom, Light Color, ConeAngle, Intensity. I have no idea how to change light type in AE via script... Just switch it by hand Thanks Andrew for that. Very handy. cheers, sy. btw. It should be put to the "Others" subforum and/or added to wiki. Edited April 8, 2008 by SYmek Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aesnakes Posted April 8, 2008 Author Share Posted April 8, 2008 Yeah Thank you VERY MUCH. This is awesome and totally unexpected. Now the last thing I need to learn is the Camera to Nuke export. I know people have successfully done it. If you know some good resources please post them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Sounds great, Andrew. Have you considered making this into a SOHO-based ROP? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewVK Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Sounds great, Andrew.Have you considered making this into a SOHO-based ROP? Apprentice limitation: Any other SOHO outputs other than the shipped Mantra ROP are not supported. :tumbleweed: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewVK Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Uploaded to Exchange with simple test scene (hip,jsc,aep) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 use the object merge and point to the camOrigin node in the camera Hi Michael... what happens when you have a "Look At" object? I mean... In my case the camera is looking at a null... so the position is ok with the camOrigin point being read into the chops... but the rotation is not correct since the camera is looking at a null? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodpacker Posted May 11, 2009 Share Posted May 11, 2009 Andrew, this is awesome!!!!! Exactly what I need. Great work cheers rodpacker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Dear friends thank you. When i open run script in AE where can i find Script File in which folder?thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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