Hi Mike,
I tried the pighead yet again double-checking the inside faces were laid out and the material assigned to all the slots, but although the inside faces are no longer static, the pivots still appear broken as shown below. Strangely, when I was testing this previously in 18.0.287, when I *didn't* adjust any UVs the pivots were fine and it was only the static inside faces that were the issue.
I tried an even simpler case with just a cube and I have the same issue with the pivots being broken so I must be missing something obvious. UVs are there, as are vertex normals so I don't understand why I am unable to get even this more primitive case to work correctly. Screencap and simple test attached.
In the gamedev tool demonstration videos of this workflow, I have never seen the additional UVs being laid out or mentioned. These are the cases where example files would help considerably in confirming workflows are correct.
Vertex Animation Textures ROP 2.0 Released
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- Arvan
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- Not Intricate
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Hello, thanks for the thread guys!
I struggle to get the desired result with VAT export using VAT ROP 2.0
I was trying to export with “soft” method with no avail at all, both houdini double-click-rop-debug-window and UE4 fail to show anything reasonable. Then I tried to use “fluid” method and got at least something, but still it's a mess.
Please notice the mismatch in the debug window (same happens in UE4).
Animated gif link [i.imgur.com]
a closeup of mismatch
HOWEVER, the old otl in “fluid” mode works as intended, no problems there.
Either I miss some crucial component in the new ROP usage, or there might be a bug.
I attach the sample alembic of the animation I'm debugging.
I struggle to get the desired result with VAT export using VAT ROP 2.0
I was trying to export with “soft” method with no avail at all, both houdini double-click-rop-debug-window and UE4 fail to show anything reasonable. Then I tried to use “fluid” method and got at least something, but still it's a mess.
Please notice the mismatch in the debug window (same happens in UE4).
Animated gif link [i.imgur.com]
a closeup of mismatch
HOWEVER, the old otl in “fluid” mode works as intended, no problems there.
Either I miss some crucial component in the new ROP usage, or there might be a bug.
I attach the sample alembic of the animation I'm debugging.
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- 3W
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- free.zonew
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Hi, I see that the new version has a `double texture` toggle. Does it mean that I can export two 8bit textures to get an effect similar to 32bit?(if the project does not support 32bit).
I tried it in unreal. the effect is not good. Is it something wrong in export settings or material settings?
My English is not good, Can you make sense of this question
Thanks
I tried it in unreal. the effect is not good. Is it something wrong in export settings or material settings?
My English is not good, Can you make sense of this question
Thanks
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- lemple
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Arvan
Hi Mike,
I tried the pighead yet again double-checking the inside faces were laid out and the material assigned to all the slots, but although the inside faces are no longer static, the pivots still appear broken as shown below. Strangely, when I was testing this previously in 18.0.287, when I *didn't* adjust any UVs the pivots were fine and it was only the static inside faces that were the issue.
I tried an even simpler case with just a cube and I have the same issue with the pivots being broken so I must be missing something obvious. UVs are there, as are vertex normals so I don't understand why I am unable to get even this more primitive case to work correctly. Screencap and simple test attached.
In the gamedev tool demonstration videos of this workflow, I have never seen the additional UVs being laid out or mentioned. These are the cases where example files would help considerably in confirming workflows are correct.
Hey Arvan or Mike,
Im running into a similar issue. Super primitive scene set up, result in the debug view are matching. But when following this tutorial and copying the values in correctly it seems as though im getting the output shown in the picture.
Its super frustrating as I can't tell if its the VAT tool or something im doing incorrectly. Im using SideFX Labs tool 416 and Houdini 18.0.416
Let me know if you or anyone knows the solution to this. Ive also attached my export files
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- Arvan
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Hi lemple,
Unfortunately I can't help - I abandoned this tool when I could not get get even a simple case to work and received no help from this forum.
Like yourself, I tried repeatedly after watching the videos with no success. I assume there is something wrong with the tool or a discrepancy between it and the published workflow demonstration videos since for example nothing has ever been mentioned about re-mapping internal UV faces which are required for this to work.
I would suggest reverting to the standard .fbx export until more complete answers are forthcoming about the use of this tool and/or it is fixed.
Unfortunately I can't help - I abandoned this tool when I could not get get even a simple case to work and received no help from this forum.
Like yourself, I tried repeatedly after watching the videos with no success. I assume there is something wrong with the tool or a discrepancy between it and the published workflow demonstration videos since for example nothing has ever been mentioned about re-mapping internal UV faces which are required for this to work.
I would suggest reverting to the standard .fbx export until more complete answers are forthcoming about the use of this tool and/or it is fixed.
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- mikelyndon-sesi
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Quick note. We provide demo files for almost all of the SideFX Labs tools. You can find them at the link below.
https://github.com/sideeffects/SideFXLabs/tree/Development/hip [github.com]
As to both of your issues, I'll revisit it tomorrow when I have some time.
https://github.com/sideeffects/SideFXLabs/tree/Development/hip [github.com]
As to both of your issues, I'll revisit it tomorrow when I have some time.
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- mikelyndon-sesi
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lemple
Let me know if you or anyone knows the solution to this. Ive also attached my export files
Arvan
Unfortunately I can't help - I abandoned this tool when I could not get get even a simple case to work and received no help from this forum.
Hey folks. Without seeing your UE4 projects I have to take your word that you've set things up correctly. Both your hip files look okay. One note for lemple is that you don't need to transfer uv's on the assemble node.
I'm using a vanilla install of UE4 4.24
Here's a link to a video of me running through the setup with the file you posted. Check to see if there's anything in there that you might have missed.
VAT RBD Walkthrough. [drive.google.com]
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- lemple
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Hey Mike,
Sorry I didn't see your response here. Thanks so much for you help with this and your quick responses to my questions! I just downloaded the simpleCube scene and went through your video and it seems to be working! Not sure what I missed as im fairly certain I did all the steps. But like you said unless you had our Unreal scenes its difficult for you to know.
My guess where I messed up would be importing the mesh. I was setting ‘vertex color import’ later on and either messing up by not saving my changes after ticking it or not having the mesh update properly. Either that or having full precision UV's turned off.
Either way what you showed worked for me! Going to run through it again with my scene and see if it works for that but im sure it will. Thanks again for your other tips on my scene as well as the github link to the other hip files. But most of all thank you for taking the time do the video walk through again.
Sorry for all the back and forth but its really appreciated!
EDIT:
Been playing around with my scene using the rubber toy test geo. For the VAT debug mode I was still running into issues where it would crash after diving in. However when plugging in a simple cube it would work fine.
I did some debugging deleting attributes etc but I found that it seems to crash if the poly count is too high. I took a cube and bumped it up to about 23,000 polygons and I was able to repeat the crash. So after running a polyreduce on the rubber toy test geo I was able top prevent the VAT node from crashing. I guess this is due to a limit how much the VAT can hold?
But just incase anyone has this issue on there side this is what I found to be the cause.
Sorry if this is obvious as im new to Real Time FX but any insight into this would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Phil
Sorry I didn't see your response here. Thanks so much for you help with this and your quick responses to my questions! I just downloaded the simpleCube scene and went through your video and it seems to be working! Not sure what I missed as im fairly certain I did all the steps. But like you said unless you had our Unreal scenes its difficult for you to know.
My guess where I messed up would be importing the mesh. I was setting ‘vertex color import’ later on and either messing up by not saving my changes after ticking it or not having the mesh update properly. Either that or having full precision UV's turned off.
Either way what you showed worked for me! Going to run through it again with my scene and see if it works for that but im sure it will. Thanks again for your other tips on my scene as well as the github link to the other hip files. But most of all thank you for taking the time do the video walk through again.
Sorry for all the back and forth but its really appreciated!
EDIT:
Been playing around with my scene using the rubber toy test geo. For the VAT debug mode I was still running into issues where it would crash after diving in. However when plugging in a simple cube it would work fine.
I did some debugging deleting attributes etc but I found that it seems to crash if the poly count is too high. I took a cube and bumped it up to about 23,000 polygons and I was able to repeat the crash. So after running a polyreduce on the rubber toy test geo I was able top prevent the VAT node from crashing. I guess this is due to a limit how much the VAT can hold?
But just incase anyone has this issue on there side this is what I found to be the cause.
Sorry if this is obvious as im new to Real Time FX but any insight into this would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Phil
Edited by lemple - April 30, 2020 07:45:14
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- mikelyndon-sesi
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If you can post your test scene where it crashes, I can take a look. When you say 23000 poly's, how many rigid body objects are there? Remember that as you increase your poly count and number of chunks, those values still need to be stored in the vertex colour, and uv of the mesh, so you could run into precision issues.
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- lemple
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- mikelyndon-sesi
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Hmmm. I've tried it on a Windows system with an RTX 2080 and a 2016 MacBook pro and it's not crashing. What system are you running?
For RBD the polycount doesn't matter as much as the rigid body count because we only store a unique uv values for each chunk.
I've had crashes in the debug view before but not consistently enough to figure out the reason.
For RBD the polycount doesn't matter as much as the rigid body count because we only store a unique uv values for each chunk.
I've had crashes in the debug view before but not consistently enough to figure out the reason.
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- lemple
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Mines a windows system with a nvidia GeForce gtx 980 which isnt too bad. You think it might just be an issue with my machine? If I was back at the office I would test on there more powerful machines to see if its a hardware issue. By allow editing of contents and stepping through, the crash seems to occur in vat_RBD/objects/debug/rigid_vertex_shader. Il give a go exporting this to see that despite the crash that it still runs in Unreal.
EDIT:
Yeah was able to export and bring into Unreal just fine. So the issue seems to be only related to the debug view on my side. Which although makes things slightly more difficult in terms of precision checking, at least it doesn't seem to affect the exporting the effect to Unreal.
EDIT:
Yeah was able to export and bring into Unreal just fine. So the issue seems to be only related to the debug view on my side. Which although makes things slightly more difficult in terms of precision checking, at least it doesn't seem to affect the exporting the effect to Unreal.
Edited by lemple - April 30, 2020 11:20:21
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- Arvan
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@mikelyndon-sesi, Thank you for the workflow clarification as my experience with UE4 is very limited - the issue was upon Mesh import. Only the disabling of “Remove Degenerate” that was noted in previous demos was modified, so the Vertex Texture Import option was still set to the default value of “Ignore” in the parameters. Re-importing the mesh with that set to “Replace” was all that was necessary to have this work properly, so thank you for the updated video walkthrough that clarified this - I'm sure the example scene and video attachments in the thread will prove very useful for those who come here later.
@lemple, I opened your scene in Houdini 18.0.416 on Win10 with a GeForce 660 Ti and did not experience crashes viewing the debug mode if that helps at all in your debugging
@lemple, I opened your scene in Houdini 18.0.416 on Win10 with a GeForce 660 Ti and did not experience crashes viewing the debug mode if that helps at all in your debugging
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- johaaaaannnn
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Hi Mike & all 
First off, thanks so much for this tool, the tutorial videos and the continued support in the forum. Super appreciated!
I'm using the workflow with Unity, and it works great! Well actually maybe 99% great. There are these couple frames where for some reason the arm of my model gets stretched (see screenshot 1). I'm just testing this with an animated model grabbed from mixamo, and imported into Houdini using agent and unpack nodes (see screenshot 2). I think I've got all the exports and texture settings set up properly given that the vast majority of frames work perfectly.
Any idea what this could be related too? Thanks for your help!
First off, thanks so much for this tool, the tutorial videos and the continued support in the forum. Super appreciated!I'm using the workflow with Unity, and it works great! Well actually maybe 99% great. There are these couple frames where for some reason the arm of my model gets stretched (see screenshot 1). I'm just testing this with an animated model grabbed from mixamo, and imported into Houdini using agent and unpack nodes (see screenshot 2). I think I've got all the exports and texture settings set up properly given that the vast majority of frames work perfectly.
Any idea what this could be related too? Thanks for your help!
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- Akira_Vercoutter
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Hello Mike,
I have a question for the Rigid Body VAT.
In my case of the rigid body VAT,
I have a big difference of position between the sims version and the VAT version.
Am I doing something wrong or this is the nature of the VAT?
I've done a rigid body fracture simulation in Houdini and exported it to UE4 with no big problem.
The problem is the lack of precision of the VAT which is also noticeable in the debug view of the ROP in Houdini.
I know that the VAT will never be by 100% accurate and loses precision,
but the difference seems quite big and make me uncomfortable.
I will attach my scene file and some images to clarify my anxiety.
Thanks for any insight you could possibly give me!
Cheers.
I have a question for the Rigid Body VAT.
In my case of the rigid body VAT,
I have a big difference of position between the sims version and the VAT version.
Am I doing something wrong or this is the nature of the VAT?
I've done a rigid body fracture simulation in Houdini and exported it to UE4 with no big problem.
The problem is the lack of precision of the VAT which is also noticeable in the debug view of the ROP in Houdini.
I know that the VAT will never be by 100% accurate and loses precision,
but the difference seems quite big and make me uncomfortable.
I will attach my scene file and some images to clarify my anxiety.
Thanks for any insight you could possibly give me!
Cheers.
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- mikelyndon-sesi
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- mikelyndon-sesi
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Akira_VercoutterThis isn't very helpful in terms of the underlying problem, but I tried exporting your setup with “Normalize data range…” turned OFF. That matched a lot closer obviously. But the weird thing is, I then turned it back on, hit render, and now it matches a lot closer. Can you try that?
Thanks for any insight you could possibly give me!
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- Akira_Vercoutter
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Hi Mike.
Thanks for your quick response!
I tried your suggest, but with no expecting results.
Turning off the “Normalize data range…” makes absolutely no difference in Houdini (and also in UE4).
The result of the turn ON and OFF version are exactly the same.
Any help?
Here is my environment if it helps
OS : latest mac OS (Japanese version)
Houdini version : 18.0.416
Labs version : 437
I attach my scene file and some images.
Regards.
Thanks for your quick response!
I tried your suggest, but with no expecting results.
Turning off the “Normalize data range…” makes absolutely no difference in Houdini (and also in UE4).
The result of the turn ON and OFF version are exactly the same.
Any help?
Here is my environment if it helps
OS : latest mac OS (Japanese version)
Houdini version : 18.0.416
Labs version : 437
I attach my scene file and some images.
Regards.
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- mikelyndon-sesi
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