Vertex Animation Textures ROP 2.0 Released

Forums Houdini for Realtime Vertex Animation Textures ROP 2.0 Released

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Akira_Vercoutter: Member; 16 posts; Joined: Jan. 2015; Online

May 7, 2020 3:47 a.m.

Hi mike.

Thank you again for the reply.
I tried “reopening trick” with same result as the previous process.

I even tried the following.

1. rebuild a scene from scratch (with a simpler box falling model)
2. create 3 ROP
a. Normalize turned ON version
b. Normalize turned OFF version
c. Normalize turned OFF (after rendered in turned ON) version
3. check the debuging view

The result is almost the same, but with an extra issue.

- extra issue
When exporting Normalize turned OFF from the beggining,
the result are totally messed up.
And “Pivot Max/Min” parameter has no values.

Am I definitely missing something?

I attach my scene file and 3 ROP results images.

Cheers.

Attachments:
VAT_RBD_precision_issue_03.hiplc (5.2 MB)
Houdini_VAT_RBD_precision_03.jpg (1.2 MB)


mikelyndon-sesi: Member; 394 posts; Joined: May 2017; Offline

May 7, 2020 11:10 a.m.

I made some changes to the UI recently that might have caused that issue. Please try tomorrow's daily build. The exported data was correct but the debug view was interpreting it incorrectly.

Also, there will be an offset in the result due to the nature of storing the pivot locating in the vertex colour with normalized turned on or off.

Attachments:
rigid_VAT_offset.png (265.7 KB)


Akira_Vercoutter: Member; 16 posts; Joined: Jan. 2015; Online

May 8, 2020 10:58 a.m.

Hi Mike.

Thank you again.
I will try tomorrow(Saturday): I assume your tomorrow means my day after tomorrow in Japan.

For the meantime, I tried the 460 version of the Labs tool.
And find that “exporting Normalize turned OFF from the beggining” issue is fixed: the debug view is all right.
But the results of Normalize tuned ON / OFF version are still the same (also in UE4).

One more question
Do I also need to update the Houdini version to the latest daily build?

Cheers.


mikelyndon-sesi: Member; 394 posts; Joined: May 2017; Offline

May 8, 2020 11:49 a.m.

Unfortunately there will always be a slight offset because we are storing the pivot information in vertex colour which might not be accurate enough.

And no, you don't need to install the latest daily build of Houdini.


Akira_Vercoutter: Member; 16 posts; Joined: Jan. 2015; Online

May 10, 2020 9:31 a.m.

Hi Mike.

I tested my scene with the latest version.
The viewer is fine,
but I still donnot have the weird behavior mentioned in your post bellow.

mikelyndon-sesi
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.

For the “Normalize data range…” parameter,
no matter the setting is, there is no “matching closer”: the results are all the same.

And I come back to my first question.
The VAT result seems very dislocated from the sims result,
are these the slight offset because of the lack of accuracy of the pivot info?

I created another scene with just 2 rotating pieces,
in which the result difference are very obvious (especially around 300th frame).

I attach my scene and a image of the viewer in Houdini.

Sincerely

Attachments:
Houdini_VAT_RBD_precision_04.jpg (174.7 KB)
VAT_RBD_precision_issue_03b.hiplc (2.8 MB)


johaaaaannnn: Member; 2 posts; Joined: Oct. 2018; Offline

May 11, 2020 4:44 p.m.

mikelyndon-sesi
Could it have something to do with the makeloop node? If you disable that and export the assets, does the hand distort?

It seems to still distort even with the makeloop node disabled, although in a slightly different way. Not sure if it's related, but I also notice that in Unity the model is offset from its origin, although it's not the case in Houdini. Thanks for your help!

Attachments:
2020-05-11_13h42_56.png (22.7 KB)


mikelyndon-sesi: Member; 394 posts; Joined: May 2017; Offline

May 12, 2020 noon

You haven't given me enough information to figure out what the problem could be. Have you checked your uv's to see if there is more than one uv set. That could conflict with the VAT ROP.
Have you tried writing out the animation to an alembic file or bgeo sequence and reading that back in? Most Mixamo files use animation takes which could cause issues with the VAT ROP.


mikelyndon-sesi: Member; 394 posts; Joined: May 2017; Offline

May 12, 2020 3:51 p.m.

Akira_Vercoutter
And I come back to my first question.
The VAT result seems very dislocated from the sims result,
are these the slight offset because of the lack of accuracy of the pivot info?

Hi Akira,
It turns out the math in the VAT ROP was incorrect, causing the offset. I think I've found a fix but it requires changing the materials/shaders too. I'll be updating the VAT ROP in the next couple of days with a number of changes and a new version.

Unfortunately that means you will have to wait a little longer to resolve your issue.

Mike


Akira_Vercoutter: Member; 16 posts; Joined: Jan. 2015; Online

May 13, 2020 8:59 a.m.

mikelyndon-sesi
I'll be updating the VAT ROP in the next couple of days with a number of changes and a new version.

Unfortunately that means you will have to wait a little longer to resolve your issue.

Hi Mike,
Thanks for your work.
I will wait tranquilly: I have plenty of time nowadays.

Respectfully


dominiksartor: Member; 6 posts; Joined: Aug. 2019; Offline

May 15, 2020 3:49 a.m.

Dear Mike,

i have problems with newer versions of unity. LWRP is not avalible anymore. With URP I have problems with the shader. I already tried to change some lines in the shadercode, as you have recomment to another user, but with no succes. I believe your magic is far more strong than mine. Could you please help.

I need URP, because it is supported by vuforia. LWRP isn't, I'm afraid. I would love to use VAT for my AR projects.

Thanks a lot.

Dominik


Lee_zhang: Member; 2 posts; Joined: July 2018; Offline

May 27, 2020 2:27 a.m.

Dear Mike,

I try to use VAT To UE4 but someting is wrong,and i don`t know why

The result like the picture, Can you tall me where i went wrong?

Thanks a lot.

Attachments:
1_1.png (198.1 KB)
1_2.png (242.5 KB)


dansidi: Member; 59 posts; Joined: Oct. 2010; Offline

June 1, 2020 12:11 p.m.

Hi!

What a thread this is! Amazing work from all concerned.

I have a quick question before I ask a load more questions…

Will this VAT tool work with Crowds into Unreal UE4 ?

If the eanswer is ‘yes’ then I have a hundred more questions!

Thanks a lot.


mikelyndon-sesi: Member; 394 posts; Joined: May 2017; Offline

June 1, 2020 1:24 p.m.

dansidi
Will this VAT tool work with Crowds into Unreal UE4 ?

That depends on what you want to do, but yes, some people have used VAT for crowds.

I'd suggest starting a new thread since it's specifically about crowds in UE4 with VAT.

And I'd recommend you read this blog post - http://www.rubendiazhernandez.com/houdini-crowds-to-unreal-a-use-case/ [www.rubendiazhernandez.com]


dansidi: Member; 59 posts; Joined: Oct. 2010; Offline

June 1, 2020 1:46 p.m.

mikelyndon-sesi
That depends on what you want to do

Thanks Mike, for your reply.

Ultimately I want to have a stadium crowd, reacting to events inside Unreal.
I have no idea if this is possible or not, or even if it's a good idea, but it's something to try, isn't it?

I will start a new thread for it, just in case there are other poeple living in that little niche.
I will ask all my questions there. There will be many, I struggle with the basics in Houdini, to be honest,
and I know even less about Unreal…

Edited by dansidi - June 1, 2020 13:46:32


mikelyndon-sesi: Member; 394 posts; Joined: May 2017; Offline

June 9, 2020 4:39 p.m.

Akira_Vercoutter
I will wait tranquilly: I have plenty of time nowadays.

Thank you for your patience. Tomorrow's daily build of SideFX Labs has the changes to the rigid export.

dominiksartor
I need URP

Tomorrow's daily build of SideFX Labs includes a Unity package with URP compatible shaders. Hopefully that works for you.

Please refer to this thread [www.sidefx.com] for more info.


Akira_Vercoutter: Member; 16 posts; Joined: Jan. 2015; Online

June 11, 2020 12:02 p.m.

Hi Mike!

mikelyndon-sesi
Thank you for your patience. Tomorrow's daily build of SideFX Labs has the changes to the rigid export.

Your brand new VAT ROP works wonderfully.
I tried the Rigid method, and the result seems quite precise in houdini and in UE4.
I didn't even recognize the “1st frame precision issue” for my case.

I' very happy to see my fracture result in UE4.
Thanks a lot for your work.

Cheers.

p.s.
That aside, I have issues with the life easier method using content plugin.
I'll talk about that at the forum 2.1.


gyepes: Member; 28 posts; Joined: July 2005; Offline

June 21, 2020 4:31 p.m.

Hey all, I was having issues getting the soft body VAT solution to work between Houdini 18.0.391 and UE4.22, but updating to the latest SideFX Labs Toolset v501 fixed me right up! Thanks for all the detail in this thread to point me in the right direction…

gregory yepes | http://www.GregoryYepes.com [www.gregoryyepes.com]


Carbonarah: Member; 1 posts; Joined: June 2020; Offline

June 29, 2020 9:59 a.m.

Hi Mike,

I tried to understand the content of the VAT textures by myself, especially the specificities because I did not find any documentation on this subject.

I tested the VAT ROP on the version 509 but the next part is for all the versions since the production version 460.

I figured out that for a cube in fluid mode and so with an exploded view of my cube as a mesh, the number of pixels between each frame is not constant.

With an exploded view, I'm not having any optimization by indexed vertices and so I normally have by frame/line:
6 (faces) * 2 (polygons) * 3 (vertices) = 36 pixels per frame.

I forced my “Target prim count” to 12 and not 6 as the “Calculate Optimal Prim Count” feature gave me (which is probably a bug in a cube case). In fact, I dit it to have for an UE4, a visual cube and not a retopologized one with half its polygons in the fluid case.

What I'm not understanding here is that for a cube with a transform that move the yaw 30 degrees by 30 degrees on 3 frames and a texture size setted up to 1024 pixels, I have a texture with:
1st row: 36*4 = 144 texels used
2nd row: 36*3 = 108 texels used
3rd row: 36*2 = 72 texels used

I also saw the GDC 2017 conference you've done for your implementation of the VAT and the attached ressources you provided contained “constant” frames so there is obviously something that has been changed in the VAT Textures since this GDC.

I guess it's probably something like an additional interpolation information but how to disable it if its somehow possible and can you explain what it realy is?

Thanks

Edited by Carbonarah - July 6, 2020 10:01:07

Attachments:
vertex_animation_textures1_pos.exr (2.0 KB)


dickonknowles: Member; 9 posts; Joined: Jan. 2018; Offline

Aug. 5, 2020 1:55 p.m.

Hi,

I'm having an issue with shadows from the objects I bring into the scene. The animation is coming through correctly, in this test I have a simple bax bouncing and spinning, but the shadows don't seem to be moving with the animation. They are only looking at the static mesh, not the VAT animation. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?


dickonknowles: Member; 9 posts; Joined: Jan. 2018; Offline

Aug. 5, 2020 1:56 p.m.

Hi,

I'm having issue with shadows. The animation is working correctly, I have a test scene where I have a box bouncing and spinning, works just fine. But the shadows don't seem to be moving with my box, they are only reacting the stating mesh, they aren't taking into account the VAT animation.

Any idea what I've missed?

Thanks

Attachments:
shadow_issue.JPG (50.4 KB)

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