Export alembic while keeping naming intact.

[TimSmiT]

Hi fellow tyflow magicians

Perhaps any of you could help shed some light on this subject.

In our current scene we are birthing particles using the 'birth objects' operator. The naming of the objects in the scene is relevant, so for instance 'object_1, object_2'...etc. We need to use the alembic exporter to export the particle for use in another software package, however the naming should carry over. So instead of churning out objects named 'tyflow_node_###' or 'mesh_###' we need the naming to remain consistent with the original 'object_1, object_2' naming convention.

Does any of you know if this can be done without scripting?

Thanks in advance!

Tim

[tyFlow]

Hmm yea that's going to be tricky...even if I allowed users to control Alembic node names like that (which I don't due to Alembic having a lot of built-in issues related to node naming)...there's no direct way to track the name of an input object within the flow itself...so there's no direct way to pass that info through to an exporter.

Closest workaround would be to do it indirectly like this:

1) Have your objects named numerically, in order starting at zero (object_0, object_1, object_2....object_33, object_34, etc)
2) Add them to Birth Objects *in that same order* within the list.
3) Add a Custom Properties operator and assign birth ID to a custom float channel...that way particle X which corresponds to object_X will have a custom float value of X in the specified channel.
4) Using Export Particles, export to objects and use the MAXScript rollout to assign the custom property to the exported object's name (click the [?] button in the "Objects MAXScript" rollout to see how).
5) The objects created from particles in the scene should now all be named "object_0", "object_1", etc.
6) Use Max's own Alembic exporter to export those particle objects, hoping that it keeps their name the same.

[TimSmiT]

Hi Tyson,

Thanks, as always, for you apt response! This actually helps a lot, and it will serve our purpose.

Awesome!!

Thanks,

Tim