I started learning Blender just recently with main aim to compliment Houdini on modeling front. I must admit I am truly blown away and humbled by the overall capabilities and paradigms of Blender and am seeking for ways to more thoroughly bind the workflow between these two applications.
The current problems that I see are: a) Lack of ALEMBIC that is vital for animated data. Are there any solutions, plugins? When can it be expected?
b) No scene referencing for any scene/object data? (e.g maya reference - including external OBJ files ). I assume python hack is possible.
Can anyone elaborate on these topics. Thank you!
// Here’s a small experiment I did with Blender and Houdini modeling. Sculpted entirely in blender ( my first blender sculpt/model; wip of cgcookie tutorial). It was sent to Houdini and converted to OPENVDB (volume) where I applied some boolean operations/detailing (screws, cuts etc ). By using OpenVDB it’s easy and very fast to do non destructive boolean operations so I can still do major sculpting changes in Blender and progressively apply detailing with booleans(and other objects) in Houdini. Similar outcome can be achieved with Boolean modifier but it is not as flexible to my understanding. I just found the workflow to be pretty cool and wanted to share.
Very cool indeed! Good to see more experienced users taking a look at Blender as part of a pipeline.
To answer your questions:
Alembic is in the (relatively) near future. There is an Blender branch where Alembic where is currently ongoing.
Not sure what you mean with the scene reference issue, as I’m not as in the know on Maya’s scene handling as I’d like to be. Can you give an example of what you’re trying to do here?
By referencing, in addition to internal data, it would be great to LINK external meshes (e.g .OBJ / .obj sequence and ideally FBX animations). It would enable your team and colleagues to work with any applications on specific components that would progressively update and come together in Blender. Unlike manual import these should retain all Blender scene and object specific data (transformations, modifiers, render parameters, animations etc). It is very important in collaborative work environment that the best tool is used for the job and any artist regardless of their individual software preference can be efficiently integrated and utilized.
Now that Houdini Indie is only 199$/year, I truly believe that Blender and Houdini are extremely complimentary and have the potential to create most powerful workflows and pipelines(especially for small studios, also individuals). Blender is ideal due to very deep Python integration (resulting in tremendous flexibility) as well TOP modeling tools, GPGPU rendering, overall richness of features, insane customization ability and much more(still a lot to explore for me).
Houdini on the other hand would give Blender artists and studios not just top of the line VFX and non-destructive workflow, but also the ability to create/define their own functionality for any problem that would otherwise require a plugin(often non existent) or be a showstopper in production environment(causing great loss of time and quality). There is tremendous potential between these two applications! I have personally chosen them as my primary tools(previously life long max,maya user). I would highly recommend it for anyone seeking to elevate their Blender workflow and am very hopeful that in future it will be even easier to work across these two applications.
I reiterate that the only question is interoperability(alembic, data referencing between dcc apps) that would enable efficiency and quality oriented multi-app workflow. This is vital for all studios.
Alembic appears to be a target of the Gooseberry project:
"Alembic support: We should really work on unifying the use of animation caches in Blender – including support for entire characters, with particles, hair, fluid and smoke. Having such caches stream in real-time in Blender would be much faster and prevent issues with instancing, duplication and linking issues as well. Campbell will work on this further. http://gooseberry.blender.org/development-targets-for-gooseberry/
It may not address the scenario you’d like to see but Blender exports to Alembic today using third party plugins like the Octane render Addon. Demonstration of that here:
