Hi there,

I was wondering if the developers for Houdini would consider adding FBX support so that Houdini could work with Kaydara Motionbuilder. Here is a quote from Michel Besner of Kaydara posted on the 3D Buzz forum:

There is more than 20 companies on board to support FBX.

Maxon is slated to have FBX support for Cinema4D very soon !!

Both truespace and houdini don't have any plans to support FBX…. but you can ask them to do so (we sell an SDK to software companies in order for them to support FBX)

M.

I'm currently enrolled in the online Houdini course being offered at 3D Buzz (which is AWESOME by the way-thanks for supporting free education!) and would like to learn Motionbuilder as well and it would nice to know that in the future the two applications would work well together.

Standards are a great idea, but as always with this there's problems. It's disappointing that they're charging companies for the software kit *and* licensing - it would smell better as open-source. I've also noticed that A/W isn't in their list of partners, so the plugin they offer(is it free?) must have been done by them or associates because they couldn't convince A/W to cough up money and they're the biggest platform right now. Then of course, there's the biggest problem - acceptance by the community. This is the toughest challenge. Part of the problem of a (self described) “generic” file format is that you force the application developer to water down their packages capabilities when transferring your data. Nothing would be more applicable in this context as Houdini - you're going to be surrendering all the true procedural capabilities. I'm sure this is true, to varying extents, in all the packages.
I know I'm being ultra-negative here - sorry about that, but I need a coffee… It's just that I've seen standards come and go - it's a stunningly difficult concept to sell because absolutely everyone has a “better” way to butter a bagel, and trying to force them to funnel their capabilities into a new format is an expensive proposition for them to implement, with a debatable return on investment. There are already methods out there that have been developed to transfer that are more tailored to the specifics of various packages. Even nowadays, all the major packages scramble and struggle when importing/exporting - you still see obj, dxf, IGES, tiff, rla, etc. being used the most - and how old are those formats? There's a reason - unlike MIDI for music, no-one is agreeing to sit down at a big table and come to an agreement. It will never happen, and something that costs them money *on top of* the cost to develop will only happen if there's enough demand - the old chicken and egg again.
After all that dissing and bitching - I'd *love* there to be a better, more accepted format that could encapsulate more than simply data, or simply animation - but I would prefer an opensource project that involved individuals at all the various 3d companies throwing monkey wrenchs at it - hammer it out and make it something that everyone could contribute to. I think it could be a real success story, but it needs an evangelist…

Cheers,

J.C.

Hey J.C.,

You bring up many points I didn't even consider. There's alot more involved than what I had initially thought. No need to apologize for being negative. It reads more realistic than anything. Thanks for your input.

basically, i asked the question about fbx support for houdini in the 3d buzz forums…. even though you have a point JColdrick, i dont think that Side FX could not afford the time or money they would have to spend on building fbx export…. it is a growing sile format and since motionbuilder is starting to become very popular these days, i think it would be a worthy investment… other than that, the reason why i posted this thread at 3d buzz is that i really like houdini and i was thinking of buying it when i become really accustommed with it (using the apprentice edition now) and i realy want to buy motionbuilder also and, as draz said, it would be cool if these two programs could work together….

I agree.

FBX compatibility would be a major plus.

JColdrick wrote: “I've also noticed that A/W isn't in their list of partners”

Hmm.. that could be because A/W owns them. (Sorry to be a smart-ass… )

Anyway, there are a lot of supported standards in Houdini like .tif, .tga, .obj, etc. that probably didn't get hammered out by every vendor sitting down at a big table throwing wrenches at them.
For example .obj import/export loses Houdini's proceduralism and has a lot of limitations, but we all find it useful and use it. MotionBuilder .fbx export would be no different- it just holds more info for animation, etc.

.fbx would be just another “standard” to enable Houdini to export stuff for use in other packages (and game engines!!) making Houdini much more useful for everyone. It could also open up a lot of potential freelance work for Houdini character animators. Most production houses/game companies could care less about proceduralism or what package something was done in, they just want some simple animations for their games/crowd simulation/commercials/whatever that they can import into and use in their own setup and Houdini is kept out of that market since Houdini tends to be an “island” unto itself.

DOPs is great for keeping the core heavy effects base happy and productive and ahead of the competition, but things like .fbx support would enable the character animation side of Houdini to start playing on a level playing field and garner market share.

-Craig

you're going to be surrendering all the true procedural capabilities

Proceduralism and character animation are two concepts which cant live together.
Instead of FBX support i would be glad to see working character setup and animation tools. Everything in our industry is because of the character animation.

Sorry if i sound to direct.

…i would be glad to see working character setup and animation tools.

which ones aren't working?

some
Proceduralism and character animation are two concepts which cant live together.

Is that true, Arctor?

Has anyone looked at Collada?

http://www.collada.org [collada.org]

Interesting - thanks for the link… do other packages currently support Collada yet?

Ah - I see; Max, Lightwave, Maya.

Collada as far as I know doesn't really exist yet.

They are starting with a modelling specification and slowly growing a full animation specification. I haven't heard of this being fully fleshed out yet.

Kinda like OGL2… It will take a while to be agreed upon and then will take a while to have support for it.

FBX is an existing and supported format. I would also like to throw in Microsoft's DirectX model/animation format. I believe it is fairly flexible in it's latest incarnations, but I know this will make the Linux users shake in revulsion…

-Craig

(shaking in revulsion )…I'm interested in anything that helps sharing information…of course the DirectX thing is fairly useless IMHO since it's tied to the OS and flies in the face of the word *share*.

Collada is interesting, just downloaded it, and yup, it really does seem like a work-in-progress. Not too fussy on “yet another way to use XML”, though. Not surprised, since XML is being used to diaper babies nowadays, but frankly I'd rather see a well-designed, open binary format for digital media. Of course, Alias is pushing FBX…*sigh* all these competing formats with political agendas gets tiresome.

I've had a request by the 2D department about this format…I'm not sure what they think they'd do with it, though. Still, while a decent opensource approach appeals a lot more to me, would there be any political issues for SESI to provide an FBX path?

Cheers,

J.C.

I would personally prefer that Side Effects (or some other knowledgable Houdini SDK programmer) just work a little bit with the programmer of Polytrans to provide the hooks in Houdini for Polytrans to work with it. The developer of Polytrans is interested in supporting Houdini, but he says it's just that the expense of R&D to do it isn't worth the minimal sales he would get from it.

Polytrans is something like $500 and talks to every other package and supports practically every other format including fbx and Side Effects wouldn't have to re-create the wheel.

Actually in checking this out, I see that Kaydara has a .fbx importer, but as far as I can tell, no fbx exporter. Crap, there goes my argument. Anyway, it would be cool to have a Polytrans hookup for Houdini.

-Craig

Proceduralism and character animation work perfectly fine together - you just have to do more thinking at the start
I'd love to see a standard interchange format for 3D apps…fbx looks to be headed in the right direction…but as far as Houdini goes - it's character tools are better than they ever have been, some here have said that *some* of Houdini's character animation features are the best out there…
so why leave Houdini to go to motionbuilder (or whatever) just to animate then have to come back into Houdini for the rest? or go to yet another package?

personally I'd rather SESI spend their time on Houdini…and having to pay for the SDK is just stupid…

Hmmm, supposedly no support for trimming NURBS in FBX…that's disappointing. I'm not sure what could be done with the Polytrans solution(which I agree is a great product) since the developer says it's not lucrative enough for them. Even with SESI's help, I'm not sure that would change things.

Cheers,

J.C.(going off to design his own format )

JColdrick
going off to design his own format )

John had me start working on his revolutionary 3d format…let me know what you think of the first pass.


<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“ISO-8859-1”?>
<awesome3dformat>
<version>John's Format 0.0001 alpha</version>
<geo>
<ye_ole_polygon>
<just_one_single_point>
<dimension_x>
<number><whole>8</whole><decimal>30</decimal></number>
</dimension_x>
<dimension_y>
<number><whole>3</whole><decimal>15</decimal></number>
</dimension_y>
<dimension_z>
<number><whole>1</whole><decimal>78</decimal></number>
</dimension_z>
</just_one_single_point>
</ye_ole_polygon>
</geo>
</awesome3dformat>

Hmmm…motionbuilder was a good software, If alias wants to support it more, they should write a houdini plugin

These pr companies are pure fun. Don't you guys think they are so popular only because SESI doesn't care about marketing at all?
I only licked houdini but it's just pure power. It's master Yoda.
Now that I can compare it to others, they only make me laugh.
The competition looks pathethic with all their rainbow coloured slogans
produced by hardwired marketing heads.

P