USD Skin/Animation export and import

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Hello,
I was wondering if there are any examples around which cover USD Skin / USD Animation export from SOP which is not a Crowd Agent. I'm trying to get my head around KineFX rigging but mostly the exporting possibilities. Since we can export a capture.bgeo I'm hopeing we can use the same method to export a USD Skin which we can use as a part of our Asset container.

aka

asset.usda
    geometry.usd
    materials.usda
    surfacing.usda
    captureskin.usd

Then (in theory I would only need to apply the usd animation as a sublayer in the scene. But I can't find any examples on any side of this method.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

regards
stefan
Edited by StefanA - April 11, 2022 02:34:42
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I think the SOP Character Import LOP [www.sidefx.com] might be what you're looking for?
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cwhite
I think the SOP Character Import LOP [www.sidefx.com] might be what you're looking for?

Not really as that only gives you half of the answer. I'm wondering how we can export a USDSkel only to be used as a sublayer. So imagine at the end of that document (the character HDA) that you in preparation has exported the "capture" geo and the animator only exports the skeleton as animation.
So while clicking around I think the CharacterIO node might be the thing that I'm after. What I need is a separate export of each thing.

regards
stefan
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I might be misunderstanding, but if you just specify the Animated Pose sop path then that'll only import a Skeleton and Skel Animation prim, which you can use for layering?
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cwhite
I might be misunderstanding, but if you just specify the Animated Pose sop path then that'll only import a Skeleton and Skel Animation prim, which you can use for layering?

I'm going to do some testing and see if I can trickle out some screenshots (we don't have internet at the office, or do it in Apprentice).

regards
stefan
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So the idea is this. If you create an asset like the screenshot you add in the capture skin data as a layer. Then in a shot context the only thing you add as a layer would be the skeleton animation.

The "rig" ( super simplified example )would output first a capture.usd and a skeleton.usd (not sure if the latter is needed). Then the animator would output the anim.usd which would be the animated skeleton.

As a second layer blendshapes/shotsculpt can be exported as an additive layer.


But at the moment I'm not sure how to separate these into their own publishes. When I try and export the skeleton or anim it only comes in to LOPs as curves and not UsdSkel. So I'm thinking I missing something here.

I hope I make sense here.... probably not

regards
stefan

Attachments:
nodes.jpg (58.7 KB)
rig_nodes.jpg (36.6 KB)

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I think the issue there is that USD Export (well, SOP Import internally) just imports the skeleton geometry as curves.
For UsdSkel, SOP Import requires agent primitives, which is why the SOP Character Import LOP exists to do the kinefx -> agent conversion behind the scenes for you
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cwhite
I think the issue there is that USD Export (well, SOP Import internally) just imports the skeleton geometry as curves.
For UsdSkel, SOP Import requires agent primitives, which is why the SOP Character Import LOP exists to do the kinefx -> agent conversion behind the scenes for you

aha, then I'll investigate that route. Thanks for the input again.

stefan
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Hi. I am about to look into this myself. Did this work for you?

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The closest solution I implemented involved converting a KineFX rig and animation into agents.

After I was able to import character and its animation as separate USD layers, and use the Sublayer LOP node to apply the animation.
Sop import agent as "Create Instanced SkelRoots"

Sop import animation as "Create SkelAnimations"
Edited by 0x384c0 - June 12, 2023 08:12:47

Attachments:
kinefx_to_agent.JPG (44.6 KB)
import_agent_to_scene.JPG (91.7 KB)
import_agent_animation_to_scene.JPG (86.3 KB)

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Hi. I don't suppose you still have your hip file example for the above post do you?

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