Hello! The latest version of the Skinning converter (the one with the skinningconverter_utility) can't be exported as a skinned mesh with Fbx Rop. And in Unity, it opens like a mesh renderer.

It works when you take bonecapture, solidembed and bonecapturebiharmonic out of the skinningconverter_utility. Take a look at the screenshot attached. The left one is working, right one isn't.

I believe it has something to do with how Fbx rop is detecting the skinning.

Looks like nobody's interested in the bug. Are there any devs here at all?
Maybe there is another forum where I can post a bug report or something? Email? Twitter? Text message? Dove mail?

Hi,

I must have missed the post, hence the lack of replies from my end.. Sorry about that.
Bug reports should be submitted to support@sidefx.com to get assigned to a developer for it to get fixed. Please do not rely on the forum for this, since there is no guarantee it will get picked up.. Since that's what the support channels are for

Please send a ticket to the email provided above with a file to test with, and an explanation like you already provided in your post!

Thanks,
Paul

Hello, I am very new at Houdini. I installed sideFX labs but don't see the skinning converter. I have the apprentice version.

Hi,

Which version of the toolset did you install?

Hello again, thank you for your quick response. I bought a licence finally. Houdini Indie.
I installed the sideFX Labs (the latest version)
I want to export a cloth simulation into SparkAR. I created the simulation in Maya and exported the alembic file to Houdini where I used the skinning converter tool, which looks like it is working great in Houdini. Then I export the file as FBX. (then I imported the FBX file to Maya just to check if its working) But when I open it again in Maya the mesh is separated from the bones. Bones are animated but the skin is not bonded. Please help!

Hurma,

Here are my notes to get the skinning converter results exported out of Houdini:

-Exported objects must be visible.
-Skinning converter utility is bugged out: internals need to be pulled out / connections broken / timelines locked / cache weights.
-Force skin deform on fbx options

I fix this by redirecting pCaptSkelRoot to “../..” before applying bone deform.

This has been fixed and is no longer a bug. If you still have issues, update to the latest Labs Daily build.

Hello!

I see that the latest version of SideFXLabs updated the skinning converter node, where the interface has changed and there are now three separate outputs instead of one.

But is it just me or it's missing the convert button? I can't seem to find it and I feel like I am going crazy. Or is the node supposed to work completely different now? Can the documentation be updated to explain the new intended workflow?

Thank you!

Aaaand found it just a bit after posting, in the release notes for SideFXLabs. The node is now supposed to be used within the new KineFX workflow for rigging and character animation. Because I was still working in 18.0, I had managed to miss its existence entirely, so the change was really disconcerting.

So, if somebody has a similar problem, the answer is connecting the three outputs of the skinning converter node to the three inputs of the bone deform node, and also to the three inputs of the FBX character output ROP, which you can then use to export the FBX. (If I am making some mistake here please correct me, I literally just learnt of the existence of KineFX and am still trying to wrap my head around it).

Now my problem is that upon importing in blender, I get a bunch of animated empties and no armature, and the mesh is not skinned. I have no idea if that is the intended behaviour or a problem with blender's FBX importer as it's well known to be quite flaky. But I can work around that for now with the empties to bones addon and rebinding the mesh. Hopefuly this can get irnoned out somehow?

Hi @DiegoM,

The documentation indeed needs to be updated, I will do so today and also update the example file to reflect the change. That should allow you to get a working example.

Hey @Ambrosiussen,

Is there any update on this? I'm also having issues exporting the results of the skinning converter into Maya. It just imports in an unskinned mesh with no animations. I used the example file to try to test with no luck. Thanks

is there an update on how to use the skinning converter usage with the Kine system? I also noticed it changed