Alembic Exporter problems, possible bugs?
Orion_Uk
Posts: 231
HI :)
I cant seem to get the Camera to export from the Daz Alembic exporter in to Octanerender standalone, any tips please?
Also, I am having texture 'issues' still and would like help with that please? Here are a couple of links that discribe my problems I am having thank you :)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/527344/
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=37859&start=10
Should I file a bug report or is this user error?
Dont want to waste Daz teams time with a fake bug report lol :P
A copy of my post in Otoy forum (as you may not be able to view that area of the forum, I dont know!)..
How strange, my exported scene file (from Daz Studio Alembic Exporter) does not seem to show a connector for a camera (as seen in inthe post by Elvissuperstar007)... ?There is no Alembic camera slot on the exported 'scene' object file?
Also,
Still have a skin issue with Alembic but not obj?
Any advice please?
Thank you :D
UPDATE: Trying to import Michael 4 exported by Daz Alembic exporter crashes ORSA EVERY TIME, Genesis exports fine apart from the messed up texture issue! Also, choosing the option 'preserve subdevision surfaces' results in the Alembic export failing to load every time!
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Alembic does not carry camera or texture information - just the mesh and animation.
Thank you Richard :)
I will have to speak to the Otoy team then as a few images there are confussing me as they give the impression of Camera import!
The importer shows IMPORT CAMERAS option!
The imported .ABC file (export source program unknown as its a forum post image) in the attached image has a Blue connector which connects to the RenderTargets Camera 'slot', where as the .ABC exported from Daz exporter does not have the Bluse 'slot'..
And the final image shows (top right under render target setting) Camera:Octanemeshshattercam.abc as camera source!
I will take my misunderstandings back there, many thanks for your reply :D
PS: So you think the 'blocky' texturemaps are an issue for the Otoy team then yes?
UPDATE: Regarding the following...
Here is what Roeland @ Otoy says regarding meshes & cameras:
"Octane at the moment only supports triangle meshes, the other forms of geometry (subDiv, strands etc.) are not imported.
Also if the Alembic file contains a camera objects then the imported scene node will have a camera output (blue-green) for every of these camera objects. Cameras are part of the Alembic standard, this is mentioned on the Alembic website.
http://www.alembic.io/updates.html"
To keep to one thread (per forum), further comments will be posted here regarding my posts:
Daz Forum: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/35689/P45
Otoy forum (membership may be needed): http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=37859&start=20
im tyring ot figure out where the thread went.. I checked on the Otoy forums.. but the link your wrote seems to confuse me.
Sorry about that Wallase, bad copy paste on my part :P
I have updated the links in my previous post :D
Hi Daz team Please can you confirm that the exporter will be brought up to current standards soon ? I would like to see this exporter brought inline with current Alembic standards please? IE: Camera export inclusion, Thank you.
edited and removed by user
What is the verdict? Does the Daz Alembic exporter include camera information or not?
So far I have been unable to export a camera to .abc. Is there a trick to this or do I need to use different software?
----------------------
what about lights? Do those export from DS4 to .abc?
I have posted in a number of places and can not get a straight reply about the development of this plugin, its current status or future!
Hell, as you can see through the various threads (here and Otoy) regarding this even the Daz team members could not agree on what did and did not come 'as standard' with the Alembic format! I ended up getting a refund in the hope that OCDS Alembic support will resolve my issues! One thing I have noted in the 2.0 standalone, there does seem to be a 'create camera' option in preffs...
What's worse is they charge money for these incomplete plug-ins. I've been buying software for over 20 years and the norm is to release a product for free to get community feedback so that developers can refine and debug via an army of users. Whatever. Not anymore. The norm now is to sell broken software, deflect the complaints as "caveat emptor", offer no documentation or support, and fix it when they feel like it, then charge money again for the next broken version as an upgrade.
I've asked for a refund from both companies and neither (so far) have confirmed my request. Fine. I'll eat the loss. However, I will be taking a hard look at my direction. I've invested a lot of time and money to get substandard results. I may have to abort this workflow and move to Blender, Houdini, or C4D.
In the meantime, I did find a working solution which involves a combination of both plugins. http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=38119&start=50#p205734
Basically you use the Daz plugin to gather all the geometry animation and material nodes, and then the OcDS plugin to gather the camera animation and materials to attach to the daz nodes. Exprort the alembic and scene files to be opened in Octane Stand-alone and take it from there.
These instructions are a WIP and will be modified as time goes. All this info for FREE, because its a WIP (beta). Like it should be.
Alembic work-around with Daz and Octane
The Alembic exporter not including cameras does not mean it is broken, merely that it lacks a feature that you want. That may well be a fatal objection to its purchase for you of course, but it is not evidence of a defect.
Ah come on...semantics? More deflection and rationalization? First off, the product is totally black-box. There is one paragraph describing what it does. Secondly, if you go and buy a car for $9,999 and when you pick it up there no interior what do you do? Oh geez, I guess since it can roll down the road it should be considered functional. I think any sane person would conclude its broken. My point is, the expectation were not set by me, but by the Alembic format which includes more than just geometry. Thirdly, what good is animation if you can't move the camera? (or for OcDS if you can't animate the geometry).
If this were a weapons system Daz is offering the bullets, and OcDS is offering the gun. Both are claiming its Alembic. Neither will work to its intended capacity. Like throwing bullets or pistol whipping, its just not the same thing chambering a bullet and firing. What word would you like to use to describe this scenario? I think "broken" fits nicely.
Am I being unreasonable?
For me, this has been a very frustrating experience. It would be nice to deliver a finished product as per the story board without having to go back the customer 3x a week and explain you hit a wall because the software you are using won't animate a camera fly-by, or render articulated geometry, or only accepts certain types of lighting, or whatever...the list never ends. I just want to make art (and money) like everyone else. Instead, I get rhetoric and dismissal (my favorite rebuttal so far: " I shouldn't use these products commercially" - WTF!).
I'm just not feeling the luv'n.
I'm certainly not trying to stop you from asking for additional features. However, selling something that is faulty (“broken”) is clearly a wholly different class of action from selling something that works, but not as you need, and that is the distinction I was trying to make.
edited and removed by user
I am having very similar issues only for me the almebic comes in like 100 times scale and I can never find it--anyone know how to fix that issue...?
To me OTOY is not being wholly honest though--they make it appear as if the almebic process is jut "oh load this" and it isn't and there are no tutorials on the process that tell you how to get it to fuction properly or work out kinks. This is frustrating for me as I have been trying for a week to get alembic files to come in corretly ( and yes I have th eplug in, but I have a VR project and need to make use of the 360 panoramic camera) --The alembic obj. sin 100 times acale, I can't fidn them and they wreck my scene...they have to know that alembic files come in that big and yet they don' t tell you this or even give you a method with which to scale it to a normal size. It's unethical to not be forthcoming with an issue that huge. As it stands I can't use the darn thing at all...so it doens't work at all, not just "in the way I want it to."
Alembic is a right pain in the butt it is limited to 200 frames, you need to redo textures and I have yet to get a camera in with a DAZ export.
you can use the ol readycam lua script but not with the imported abc file animated
The only time I use it is to get a HD character from DAZ studio into an exported octane render scene file from Carrara plugin which does alembic cameras BTW
I am going to refrain from commenting on the DS Octane plugin
lets just say I utterly love the Carrara one, the other not so much
for your VR I do not understand why you cannot use Carrara, C8.5 will even import iClone pipeline exports animated, you said on Reallusion too dear but in Platinum Club cheap, I know you used previous versions of Carrara, it will make life much simpler as it just renders spherical equilateral images and videos out the box.
Good luck getting help with the Alembic textures issue, no one has any answers, not DAZ and not OTOY--I was having the same problems as you can see from the files. I was told to reduce the bump maps to zero. I did. Same issue. Went back and forth with Otoy regarding the matter (they acted as if this was the first time they every heard of these issues) and finall ysent the octane package files to them via drop box. In the end they brushed it off on Daz saying it was the size of the textures that was the issue--after that, they refused to naswer any more questions regarding what I need to do next. I've psent the last two days resizing textures and photoshop and had to buy a merchant resource package to fix the eyebrow and mouth issues...alembic sucks in regards to Octane right now and I don't think they care about fixing the issue.
KrakenSurf said >>Like throwing bullets or pistol whipping, its just not the same thing chambering a bullet and firing.<<
Broken or incompatible feature sets?. I understand the fustration however is this not the case with everything about 3d cgi animation? I never commit to a project until I have confirmed the pipeline in end to end testing, When your planning on software application interdependency ~ the only thing I learned to count on is there is always one elusive piece to the puzzle that will be missing. I know it doesn't help with todays deadline but next time test before you commit. Even a upgrade patch can break the continuity or degrade productivity.
With emerging features and standards specifications its always a moving target to have application vendors create not only their support for the function, but also ancillary application interfaces and support for new features they support, So at any one given point there will be _some_ level of incompatibility and limits to feature support. In our world here, its more evident than ever when you observe the Poser/DS content asset migration abilities or that of Daz figures and IClone 3dExchange Pipeline. You will never get "everything" working.
Thats why as users and investors in the software we NEED to see application development roadmaps and progress updates so we know where to commit our learning and resources for linked applications. Can you imagine commiting to a customer based on rumors (this one brngs tears to my eyes)
I do agree that version update readme files should include specification changes and product to include maximum detail so purchases can be decisive.
Hello,
to resolve the texture issue on the first post, you must select the "preserve subdivision surface". Like I'm not a specialist, I selected all options! I have no trouble to import the abc scene in octane.
On the picture : on the left a standard object, on the right the abc scene and I copied the face material of the obj to the abc.
My versions: Octane V2.41.1, alembic exporter V1.2.0.59/DS 4.8
Hope it helps!
This solved the texture issue, yes. But unfortunately in that case all normals are inverted... Big problem when try to apply subsurface scattering in i.e. Cinema 4D...
I don't have this problem in Octane Render where I also use SSS
Hm... I´ve tried it today again and magically it works with the Cinema 4D AR, Physic and vray - renderer. Only Arnold (demoversion) has that problem. Perhaps I´ve made some mistakes yesterday....
Perfect!