Alembic cache animation not working in Sequencer

Development Cinematics & Media
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1

I exported an Alembic file out of 3D Max. Imported fine in Unreal, it plays beautifully when I hit simulate.

I need to have this animation rendered through a Sequencer composition, but once I add the actor to Sequencer, I can’t find a way to enable the animation, I can’t scrub through it on the timeline. When I hit play, the animated actor stays still.

Please, can anybody help? I have a tight deadline and no idea how to solve it.

Thanks

2

Hi there,

Scrubbing with alembic cache geometry doesn’t work with sequencer at the moment. You can, however, add a keyframe to start the cache running. Here’s what it would look like:

124183-sequencer_alembic.jpg
124183-sequencer_alembic.jpg701×240 18.8 KB

3

Thanks a lot Max! You just saved me!

Any idea when this kind of integration Alembic/Sequencer will be available, so we can have better controls, like scrubbing through keyframes?

Thanks again for the super quick answer!!

4

It won’t be 4.15. But hopefully one or two releases after that.

5

Any news on this? I am aware abc is still experimental in 4.18 (which I’m using right now) but without this functionality abc usage is heavily restricted.

The mentioned hack does not allow the abc to e.g play from the beginning of the cache. In order for the sequencer to show the same playback result at frame X twice in a row you’d have to wait til the playback is over before starting sequencer playback again. If you are working with the sequencer that means you’ll have to figure out what cache has the longest playback, then wait til that’s done and replay. Switching ‘running’ off and on does not reset the elapsed time, which could’ve been another hacky way of resetting it.

If we can have the usual (think BP timelines, the basics really) controls over abc playback that’d turn abc in UE from sort of functional to just amazingly useful. :slight_smile:

Also, I’ve had situations where checking ‘running’ does nothing, when it was just fine 5 mins earlier. I am not sure why, might file a bug if I can replicate it.

Thanks!

6

You can now load Alembic cache files as “Skelaton” (and define frame range, etc) which in turn creates an actor and an animation file. With the Sequencer, you can load the actor, then load the animation track - and now with this you can retime and edit the alembic animation cache.