Alembic export pretty please

Hello

Alembic export with correct naming/hierarchy would be very appreciated.

Thanks

When I read this, I had no clue what you were asking. A quick Google resulted in:

Alembic is a lightweight database migration tool for usage with the SQLAlchemy Database Toolkit for Python.

If this is, in fact, what you mean by “Alembic”, then you’re asking for something that would be of use to a small (perhaps vanishingly small) percentage of SketchUp users. And as such, has essentially no chance of inclusion as a native feature in SketchUp.

If you really need it, especially for professional use, you might consider either coding your own extension to provide the functionality (if you’re comfortable coding), or commissioning the creation of an extension through a post in the Commercial and Collaborative Work category on this forum.

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Hi

Sorry for not being clearer. The alembic I meant is the open source 3d format http://www.alembic.io/

It is the most popular format for exchanging 3d data in the vfx industry. supported by max, maya, houdini, nuke, gaffer, blender, katana, modo etc etc

I would look into writing my own exporter but ruby is not exactly my area of expertise. perhaps if it was python or js.

I stand corrected :smiley:

The reason alembic is important for sketchup is for exporting animation to be rendered in another renderer (it would allow animation renders in Octance). Octane is now the preferred renderer, as it is super fast (all gpu) and looks amazing. The sketchup for octane plugin does not currently support animation (although still images can be rendered and saved). So one work around is to export the scene to the Octane standalone render engine. But the format to export the scene (.ocs) does not include animation. However, the Octane standalone render does import alembic (.abc) format, and this would allow for animation. In other words, you would be able to render photoreal renders of architectural walkthroughs, very fast, at very high quality. So this would be useful to more that a small group of sketchup users. All architects (a large part of sketchup’s base) would want this.
Here is a tutorial on how to use alembic with Octane and Maya (
Standalone Edition v3.x - Alembic Import).
It would be fantastic if Sketchup would support this important format (alembic).

Hi just curious…Do you mean camera path animation, or object animation, or both?

Cheers

Thanks for the info about Alembic; I’ll pass that on to our Extensibility group for further study. For now, our best export path into the vfx industry is Collada, unless you are using Autodesk products in your toolchain… in which case it is FBX.