Export Alembic Animations to Unreal Engine the correct way (WITH MATERIALS)

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

🔥🔥🔥Would you like access to the assets and project files I use in my tutorials, from Maya, Unreal and After effects files, to even full character models!? Behind-the-scenes demos of real client projects? AND have access to me to ask questions and get FREE advice? Support my channel at: 👉 www.patreon.com/animatorartistlife and join me in building a VIP group. Thank you, I REALLY appreciate any support, from David 😊

[@joseabboud-2607]

No words can express how thankful I am for this video. I simply can't believe I spent the past few years limiting myself to just bone and rigged animation for Unreal, not being able to go crazy in Maya with deformers, clusters, jiggles, cloth, etc... Man! Just can't forgive myself for this! hahah. And the most fantastic thing is that you can also drag your cached animation to the Sequencer. Superb!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

wow , thanks I glad it helped 🙂 I would love to see our work, come join the private facebook group and share your progress: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife And subscribe for more tutorials coming every month

[@rakeshpaudiyal9542]

If you match the names of materials inside Unreal with that of the shading groups inside maya(not the materials but the shading groups associated with materials inside maya), then the materials will automatically connect too. You won't have to reconnect them one by one inside Unreal. So basically you have to rename all materials inside Unreal just once for each asset.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Awesome! thanks for sharing

[@عبداللّٰهحسيب-ر5و]

Is that be right with blender?

[@Goefrei0516]

I've been stuck here for an hour or so maybe, trying every damn alternative I can, to the point I was gonna hand animated my object, really thankful and lucky that we already have this gem of a tutorial. I'm very grateful and now I'm closer to finishing my project :)

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Thank you! I'm glad it helped. I've started a new discord community of you'd like to join? discord.gg/g6REvhbWGP 🙂

[@lucianaaranda9150]

OOOOH MY GOD, IT IS INDEED THE DEVIL´S BUTTON, you are a life saviour. I spend the last 8 hours trying to separate textures, and spend hours in maya just selecting every single face to apply a material because I saw it in other tutorial, but that guy in the other tutorial mention to have that bloody button tun on! So I spend my time just trying to makes textures work with that button. Thanks a lot for this video!!!!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You are welcome, thanks for commenting, much appreciated, I also have a blog with free articles I'm building at animatorartistlife.com

[@albertusbodenstein1976]

Thanks for pointing out the "devil-himeslf" ~Awesome!!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Your welcome 😆

[@matthewisikhuemen8907]

This is the best tutorial I have found, after weeks and weeks of searching... Thanks so much for this. God bless Brother

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome, I'm gad it helped 🙂 come show your work in the private Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife

[@Janovich]

Just a heads up When you export the model fbx to get the materials, don't do so from a reference because it doesn't work. Also, when putting the materials on, its going to compile the materials and take a long time. Its easiest to check the part with a material thats already compiled, so you don't have to wait for it to load. Even though its the wrong texture initially you then see what part it is and can put the good one on immediately.

[@marcstatz]

dude you are a life saver. thank you!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Happy it helped.

[@ferlaur113]

Terrific! It works also with C4D. Same issue, same solution : untick the Devil's button, haha!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Awesome! glad to know it helped for C4D as well, thank you

[@Leon77Cruz]

This information is Gold !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Thanks, I'm glad it was useful

[@JoJosDankAdventures]

You're a legend s2fg 7:50

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

I wouldn't go that far! lol.. but I'm glad it helped

[@sinewzhang]

YOU SAVED MY LIFE THANK YOU!!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

😊 That's awesome, glad it helped. you can support the channel and get rewards here: 👉 www.patreon.com/animatorartistlife

[@kzukez]

YOU HAVE THE ANSWER. I"VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR IT. TURN FLATTEN TRACKS OFF. THE DEVILL

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Thanks for watching, I'm glad it helped 😊 If you really found them helpful you can now support me by buying me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/animartistlife . You can donate a one-time very small amount, or there is a monthly membership, where you get rewards and VIP treatment 😊

[@arielshtern4125]

7:54 That was unnecessary... Great tutorial! Thanks!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

lol... you're welcome :)

[@lordashwood]

That was exactly the info I needed; thank you

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Thank you, I'm glad it helped you

[@ksenja.]

Thank you! This is very helpful when importing from Houdini.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Thank you!, I'm glad it was helpful. Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@shoreydesigns3064]

Thank you so much for making Video, It help me with getting Marvelous Designer Simulations into UE4

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome, thanks for watching, spread the word 🤘

[@vindaravind876]

How did u do that bro ..

[@fabianoperes2155]

@@vindaravind876 In MD export the animations as .abc, same process as you would do in Maya or any other 3D software.

[@fabianoperes2155]

Thanks, bro! You saved my week.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Glad I could help! 🙂 Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@princevasimalla]

OMG JESUSSSSSS THANKSS FOR THIS MANN

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome, thanks for watching!

[@princevasimalla]

@@AnimatorArtistLife I had 3 objects in an alembic sequence which are placed far away from one another, I exported them and imported in unreal but I can only get middle object and they got vanished:( Why is this happening

[@BigfootU]

Nice! So helpful. Thank you sir!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome, I'm glad it was helpful.

[@bharanisivakumar880]

From Unreal 5 all the Alembic meshes can be Auto textures Assigned Based on Naming Shader Group where it should match with Unreal and Maya Naming .

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Thats awesome to know thank you!

[@navidumardaraz7163]

Excellent thanks for sharing

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

My pleasure, thanks for commenting - I now have a discord community channel just launched if you want to join: discord.gg/g6REvhbWGP 🙂

[@gus_animator]

Jesus you are my hero!!! Thank you so much for suffering for us !

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

LOL.. love the comment, glad it helped 😆

[@gus_animator]

@@AnimatorArtistLife Maybe you can help me one more time, is it posible take out all motion blurs, I want to do a clean render as an playblast from Maya. I took off motion from the camera, from the post process and switched the AA and I’m still having blur from movements. Any idea how to fixed ? Thanks in advance !

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

@@gus_animator if your getting Motion blur in your playblasts from Maya , you must have it turned on in the viewport 2.0 settings. In the camera view main window menu under RENDER, NOT the main menu, the small one for each cam view. go RENDER then VIEWPORT 2.0 and click the little box for settings turn it off there.

[@creieru]

Thank you! Very useful !

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You are welcome!

[@СашаМ-о3б]

you are my hero!! THANK YOU 💖💖💖

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

wow, hero no, but it makes me happy my videos are helping others thank you. If you really found them helpful you can now support me by buying me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/animartistlife . You can donate a one-time very small amount, or there is a monthly membership, where you get rewards and VIP treatment 😊

[@KamalBhattacharjee]

You are like God.... Thank you very much...

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

That's a bit strong... but I'll take it LOL, joking aside, I'm just glad it helped.

[@raptorstudiosmx]

Hi, first of all awsome video, thanks! I am having a peculiar problem at importing my alembic to unreal is there any way i Can send you a vid of whats happening, hope you Can help me.😅

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, thanks for the feedback on my tutorial, it really helps me to make more. What exactly is your issue? I have just started a Patreon page where I intend to offer personal feedback, help, and give away my project files, you can support and join here: 👉 www.patreon.com/animatorartistlife 😊

[@alexzanderthegeek]

This is helpful!!!!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

I'm happy it helped 🙂

[@MaMa-km2do]

Thank u so much, it's awesome

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Welcome 😊 glad it was helpful

[@ahmadshishani1195]

Thanks a lot !! perfect

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Great, thanks for commenting, I'm happy its helped you. You can now support me by buying me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/animartistlife . You can donate a one-time very small amount, or there is a monthly membership, where you get rewards and VIP treatment 😊

[@MG_3D]

Thank you for sharing this tip. Super helpful. I'll tag you when I post the animation you helped me with!:)

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome, glad it helped. Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@serjsergeev1441]

Man you are the best !!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

lol.. you're welcome, thanks for watching

[@avtpro]

You're a BOSS!!!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Don't tell my wife that 😉... thanks for watching

[@speedfreakpsycho]

Thanks, it helped a lot.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome 😁

[@pronatabiswas8233]

Hello sir, would you please show us how we can use more than one alembic/usd caches( as like run, walk, dance etc. on the same character and keeping the all materials?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey, I don't think you can, that's the thing with alembics, they are their own entity for each animation. I still prefer to export a master rig fbx, then any animations you just export the joint anims, then in UE you can use your master character and easily swap between animations

[@andreidenisenko1020]

Your tutorials are awesome, thank you so much! One question I have - is there anyway to import alembic to UE in order to make motion blur to work correctly with that alembic? For me there is always no motion blur on those alembics meshes, except only from camera animation blur.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi Andrei, thanks for the kind words, regarding your motion blur, sorry Im not sure how, as alembic isn't physically moving from point A to B, UE does not know how to apply blur. But there maybe another way, Id try asking in the Unreal forums, sorry I couldn't help on this issue, if you find a fix please post back for others to see. Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@kapwinng]

Awesome stuff. And if you were exporting a bifrost liquid simulation, you’d just select the liquid mesh node before the alembic export or all the bifrost nodes too?👍

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Huge apologies Dan I missed your comment! I'm not too sure with Bifrost, you would need to convert to polygons first I imagine, which I think there is a node in bifrost for. Let me know you got it working, thanks

[@kapwinng]

@@AnimatorArtistLife yeah, got it working by selecting the make poly mesh option in the attributes I think it is.

[@JavierGonzalez-qg5el]

This setting is the devil himself is the best catch phrase lolz

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

😆

[@yiding215]

thankyou!you helped me a lot!!!!!!!!! 😀😀😀😀😀

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Glad I could help! thanks for the feedback. Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/ And if you want to get the files from my lessons, you can join my patreon here: patreon.com/animatorartistlife

[@hotsauce7124]

AMAZING!! Have you made a video exporting Alembic to Unity? Have you seen Alembic not working in Unity motion blur? Another question, have you tried USD to Unity and UE4?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey, sorry no I havent used Unity much, but I did import an alembic once and it just works out the box I think. Ive not used USD yet, thanks

[@itsrabar]

so useful, thanx bro

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome, thanks for watching.

[@ThrillDaWill]

can you do this in blender?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

I don't use blender much, but I'm sure you can export alembic cache to use in Unreal

[@ThrillDaWill]

@@AnimatorArtistLife everything I’ve tried doesn’t import materials and I can’t find any tutorials on it

[@tondekiran4181]

thank so much sir thise is realy helpfull video thank you😊😊😊

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Thank you for the feedback, much appreciated! ... I now have a discord community channel just launched if you want to join: discord.gg/g6REvhbWGP 🙂

[@pixelstresd2971]

Oh! Thankyou very much!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome :)

[@bolee2344]

thankyou verymuch ~! it helpful~!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome, glad you found it useful

[@ThilinaSJ]

Thanks a lot! Keep up the awesomeness! 🙏🏽

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

thanks I'm gad it helped! Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@MrHarraga]

And You are the 👼 itself, Thanks

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

lol.. thanks 😊... I'm just happy it was helpful. if you want to get the files from my lessons and behind teh scenes etc , you can join my patreon here: patreon.com/animatorartistlife . you can also Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@tranvantoan1502]

hi i have a problem at 3:32 when i import in UE, i can't see the textures. Please help me.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, have you ticked the checkbox "Embed media" in the export FBX options?

[@tranvantoan1502]

@@AnimatorArtistLife yess i have ticked "embed media" in maya same your clip, but i can't see textures in unreal engine 5. what do you know other problems? :(((( please help me. Thank you in advance.

[@pedromiralles7697]

Great content!! Yes helped a lot!! Thanks

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Thanks very much, I'm happy it was helpful. Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@ronydey2696]

Great tutorial sir these is really a much helpful hi myself Rony an VFX student from India please also on CG PASSES class over maya to nuke

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Awesome, I'm really pleased it helped, thanks for watching. At my studio we use After effects for compositing because of the motion design we also produce, but I know Nuke is awesome for vfx and film. I was thinking of making a tutorial on rendering and compositing Cryptomatte passes when I can Thanks again 🙂

[@lozanosky]

You are my hero, thanks!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

lol.. glad it helped 🙂

[@charlesrobertson1860]

Thank you for the video! Can we control the animation? For instance in my game could I pause this animation?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey, you can add it to a sequencer in the normal way, and use a geometry cache track. Or if its for a game, yes you can use blueprints, but I'm not a game developer so wouldn't know exactly how, but yes definitely 🙂

[@charlesrobertson1860]

@@AnimatorArtistLife thank you!

[@01plaza20]

Great tutorial man, btw is there any way to tell the alembic when to start and stop the animation in unreal? I can´t find any information about it. Thank you so much.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

hey thank you! I think if you use the sequencer, add a geometry cache layer and choose your alembic, then you can trim it and have different options there for playback. There will also be a blueprint way but I dont have much experience with them . Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@01plaza20]

@@AnimatorArtistLife Yeaaah, i figured out that same thing yesterday and it works like a charm :D Thank you non the less

[@ARMORHOUS3weplay]

Well done!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Thanks!

[@francis_leigh]

Thanks for this, very helpful. Is there away to attach an emitter to a geometry cache actor? and have it move with the animation? I've got it attached but since the actor itself isn't moving the emitter doesn't move. Not sure how to actually attach it to the moving object.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey Leigh, the only way I can think of is perhaps in Maya create a small sphere attached to the hand, then export this as an animated fbx. Then in Unreal position it to match your alembic, then hide at and parent your emitter to this. If not you can try asking in the unreal forums, let us know if it works, or find another solution. It would be great for everyone to know 👉 PS I'll be stating a Facebook group very soon, this is exactly the kind of conversations we can have more in detail there and help each other, keep an eye on the community tab of my channel for a notice of when its live in the next day or so

[@francis_leigh]

@@AnimatorArtistLife Ha! I did this exact thing, sphere and everything. It's a pretty convoluted workflow but it worked a treat. Did have some problems getting the FBX in at the right scale / position etc, but was easy enough to manually fit it in. Also posted on the unreal forums, linking to a skeletal mesh was also suggested, though for my purposes this seemed overkill, was a plane, not a character.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

@@francis_leigh Awesome glad you got it sorted. I've actually moved away from alembic for characters but still use it for all animated props etc. For characters I export one character mesh, then all animation is just the joint data, much smaller files sizes. hey I just started a brand new private facebook group, be good to discuss things like this, would like to see you there: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@hotsauce7124]

Hello, have you come across the best UE5 "EXR" render settings for Alembic animated characters. When I render EXR's, I get ghosted blurry alembic assets in the output renders. Thank you for this video!!!!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, are you using the high res movie render queue? you will get clear renders from this. There are a few good videos on youtube about the best settings, for anti aliasing etc

[@hotsauce7124]

@@AnimatorArtistLife Thank you

[@samantha-draws-stories2176]

Hi there! Great tutorial really insightful stuff! Not sure if his is possible but does this method work also for fluid simulations and biforst such as waterfalls just because I'm trying and it doesn't seem to working so I feel like I'm missing something :) thanks!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey , it should do, I remember someone else asking similar, I'm not sure how biFrost writes UVs and face sets, but check you have these on when exporting. For a fluid sim you might not need material from Maya, as you can make a good single material in Unreal perhaps

[@MatusNovak07]

Hi, I still have problems with material IDs, but I am exporting from blender. I did what you said but still got 1 material ID in UE. Anyone with some helping advice?

[@mx472000]

How do you add the alembic cache animated file to the level sequencer when rendering out an image sequence?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey, select your geometry then go add to sequencer, then add a geometry cache track. Now as you scrub your timeline it will play it back, You can now render this with the movie render queue 🙂

[@rcompanyinternational879]

thank uuuuuuuuuu dear❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You are welcome! thanks for the comment... If your interested, I also have a blog with free articles I'm building at animatorartistlife.com

[@rcompanyinternational879]

@@AnimatorArtistLife yaa.sure 👍👍👍👍

[@rodrigosotoaltamirano3543]

Thanks, have you tried the Livelink between Maya and Unreal? to change the animations in realtime?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

hey, I haven't had a proper go yet, it doesn't work with alembic though, you'd have to reexport. For characters I've moved to a normal rig and exporting the joint data using Advanced Skeleton plugin., its easier and way smaller file sizes. I might try live link with this, but its very quick to re-export over the file and click reimport in unreal, Always open to hearing other work flows though 🙂

[@pierobejarano9749]

Thanks for the tutorial, do you know why some faces of the model appear totally black? I can't solve it

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

HI, it sounds like you have some faces with reversed normals. In maya select the geometry then go >Display >Polygons >Face normals and see if those faces are facing inwards.. you get little makers indicating which way, they should all be coming off the geometry. You can select that face and hit reverse to fix... let me know if this fixes it, cheers

[@pierobejarano9749]

@@AnimatorArtistLife I appreciate your answer, exactly, the problem was the normals.

[@AiYaXuanDa]

COOL!Thank you!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome, glad it helped

[@creaturezilla1210]

Thanks for this tut!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

you're welcome - Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@Opeyemisam487]

This was useful thanks but I need to export my almebic animation with materials from maya to blender ...pls can you make a video on that

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

I don't use Blender but it would be the same process. Alembics cannot store materials. so you export your alembic as in the video with UVs, then in Blender, create new materials and apply your texture maps, the add to your character

[@seanrodrigues8323]

Question: How do you import a Maya camera animation into UE5 to view the Alembic animation?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, you can export your maya camera as an FBX, just bake the keys first 🙂. I think now you can even set up live link

[@seanrodrigues8323]

@@AnimatorArtistLife Thank you

[@thebensimon]

Thank you so much for this! Would you know how to import the material to the alembic file if it's an image sequence?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey thanks for the feedback. I'm not totally sure, but I imagine you would set up that material in Unreal , there are a few tutorials on how to use image sequences in materials, then just apply it to your alembic. Come and show your work in the private Facebook group: 👉 facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife/

[@SogDough]

Hello, i imported the alembic file from Maya but it imported the mesh all messed up and theres no animation 😨😣

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, It's difficult to tell without seeing it. Did you bake it out first in Maya?

[@mythsfuture3201]

When I tried importing the alembic file I got an error saying "Unable to import mesh due to a face consisting of 5 vertices, expecting triangles (3) or quads (4) " not sure how to troubleshoot this issue. If you can help that would be greatly appreciated!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, its because you have one or more polygons with 5 sides, Unreal can only accept quads or triangles, so three or 4 sides. In fact this is generally good practice in Maya also. To fix in Maya select the mesh and go to mesh > cleanup, and open the options... check look for polys with more than 4 sides, but make sure select is checked not fix... it will highlight the exact poly that is giving you the trouble, then fix it manually, hope that helps

[@mythsfuture3201]

@@AnimatorArtistLife Thank you I got it to work! However, my animation has a constraint. So how can I import an animated mesh with another mesh constrained to it? (its naruto mesh holding a rose mesh)

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

@@mythsfuture3201 you need to bake the animation on the rose mesh he's holding, then export as a separate alembic. if its in a group node you may need to use a locator to remove the parenting and get it into the root and bake all keyframes. try it, once exported just open the alembic cache in a new scene to check it plays ok

[@mythsfuture3201]

@@AnimatorArtistLife I did bake it and import it into unreal. however, its not following the same direction as it was in Maya. So it doesn't fit into Naruto's hand animation like it did in Maya. Do you mind if I email you my maya and unreal project files so you can see what I mean?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

@@mythsfuture3201 Maya and Unreal have different axis, Maya is Y up and z forward but Unreal is X forward, I normally ahve to rotate 90 degrees. Just play with rotating your alembic in unreal till it fits

[@paulcharisse7746]

Do you know if alembic into UNREAL can support multiple UV sets? Had no luck with so far.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

I dont think it can, but UE is progressing so fast, I haven't tried in 5.2 it's probably best to ask in the unreal forums to get an answer, let us know what you find out, thanks

[@chrisjohnstone6164]

Got it to work with Flatten Tracks on and without embedding media on the fbx export. To do this, import an static frame of the geometry as a fbx into Unreal, all materials attached. In Maya its important to do the following: named al the material nodes in the hypergraph the same as the Shading Group with a token such as "_mtl" on the end of the name. Once imported to Unreal the remove the _mtl token, it is important that the texture files have the Shading Group material name. When exporting the alembic use the strip namespaces option to clean up any prefixed naming from references. When importing the alembic as a geometry cache into Unity opt for find materials - The materials are found automatically this way, whether flatten tracks on or off - that's it -- let me know if you have any more questions... 🐦

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Sorry I missed your comment!.. this sounds excellent, thanks for sharing! :) I hope to see you in the Patreon community 😊 patreon.com/animatorartistlife where you can get access to my project files, client project videos, and access to my new character animation rigs I'm building for all supporters!. Also Don't forget to join the discord group: discord.gg/g6REvhbWGP 🙂

[@huawenxuan4975]

Can you explain how to export the particle system to Unreal Engine 4?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, I'm not sure what particle system you mean? I am exporting character animation here. But you can probably convert your particle system animation to geometry then cache as an alembic to bring into Unreal

[@mahammadul]

Unable to add Alembic cached animation in seqencer track , object is comnig on sequencer track but not the animation, please help.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, after adding your almebic to the sequencer you need to go to the submenu on your sequencer layer and add a "geometry cache track", then select your alembic

[@xvirus6417]

hi im getting an error Normals were supposed to be available but none were found, please how to fix this

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, Ive never heard of this error, are you exporting from Maya? make sure you have ok normals in maya, you can view the normals, and also go mesh display > Normals.. set to face, and other options. Also make sure you have done your UV unwrap.

[@xvirus6417]

@@AnimatorArtistLife thanks alot for your reply I shall check them out

[@NeroForte_]

Hello again. I am having proble with one of the characters. her eyes hair and teeth gets off the face in certain frames,. its like they are separated from the body while I imported as a single file like you did here

[@NeroForte_]

please help.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi Sorry for the late reply, I've been away. Are your characters eyes etc skinned and weighted or parented? If they are parented or even inside groups, Unreal snaps them to world zero position. You'll need to bake them first. Sometimes I've had to create a locator, parent it to the geo in question and back this. Then duplicate and parent the geo to this locator and bake again

[@biblesforbreakfast]

Thanks. Is this compatible with AiStandard shaders or only Maya shaders?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Maya doesnt understand if shaders are Arnold or Vray etc, so they have to be standard blinns or phongs. I often add a basic material in maya, then in Unreal replace with a nice Substance source material

[@hicaneaotsuki2516]

Hey, your tutorial was really useful, but as you said parented objetcs like guns books etc do not work even if I'm reparenting the object, in fact my character is holding a guitar on his back, I tried everything and it's seems like UE5 do not understand this parenting , even if I see that on my alembic the guitar came well setted on my character back, when i'm importing it to UE the guitar is on the ground.... I really want to find a way for it to work, could you help please ? :(

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, UE will pop it back to world zero, so you will need to bake out the guitar for in Maya, and it needs to not be in a group node in Maya. So you can create a locator and parent that to your guitar on constraint group node in Maya, ,… then bake this, bake all frames.. then remove your guitar from any nested groups, and parent your guitar to the locator, then bake the guitar all frames. Then you can export this as an alembic and it should be in the correct position. I hope this helps!

[@rexmediastudiox307]

I just drag and drop materials directly to the character in the viewport... saves me from tries and errors

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Yes you can do that also, thanks

[@imnhantran]

OMG thank you so much!!!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

You're welcome! I'm glad it helped - You can now support me by buying me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/animartistlife . You can donate a one-time very small amount, or there is a monthly membership, where you get rewards and VIP treatment 😊

[@joshjen1129]

Hi there! Great videos 🔥 i was wondering if you could let me know how to render an ABC file? (cinematics). It only works when I press play, but doesn’t move or animate when I use a cine camera

[@HobzyMcRuse]

learn how to use the Sequencer. It's under Cinematics. There's plenty of tutorial on KZbin.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi Josh, apologies for the late reply. You need to add it to the sequencer then add a geometry cache track and choose your alembic, then it will play back. let me know it works for you thanks

[@joshjen1129]

@@AnimatorArtistLife thank you!

[@jzargo1795]

thank you! one more question, Does 'material instance' support alembic geometry? becuz when I put material instance into my alembic geo cache, it becomes unvisible! xD only material (no instance) is working.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, it should do, I haven't tried it but cannot see why not. You should be able to apply the material like a normal material. If not , it maybe worth posting if a material instance can be applied to alembic on the Unreal forums

[@MonsterJuiced]

Hey, have you ever had issues when exporting an animation you duplicated from blender/ maya to alembic and imported to ue4 resets the location/rotation/scale of the bones/mesh you duplicated to their original positions from where you duplicated the animations from? I've tried everything but no matter what, only when I import into ue4 do the meshes reset their positions to the original location rather than the new one. In my example it's a vase of flowers and I just copied the first animated flower a few times but they all snap back to their original locations once they're imported into ue4 (as alembic).

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

hey sorry for the late reply, I missed your comment. The mesh by default in maya will be reset to world zero inside unreal. You can either include some positioner geometry in Maya to manually match the position in UE, or I think you could parent it under a single bit of geo like a sphere at world zero then it might respect its positions then hide it in UE. But Also make sure you "freeze the transforms" in maya in position you want before creating the alembic. then try exporting again, this may fix it, let me know if that works

[@DGFA-]

Hi, I work on Mac and on import of fbx I have no textures. I set all the options as same as you have. What did I oversee?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey, its tricky to tell without seeing it but first thing to ask is have you enable "embed media" on FBX export?

[@DGFA-]

@@AnimatorArtistLife yes, and the export created a folder with those textures but ue will not recognize it.

[@LetsPlayWithMichal]

I have an issue where the alemic loads perfectly inside maya & blender but when I import it into ue it doesn't import some of the meshes/body parts

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi Michael, this is strange, are you exporting as one combined alembic or separate parts?

[@LetsPlayWithMichal]

​@@AnimatorArtistLife It's all one alembic, I went as far as re-exporting it from different programs just to get the same result, could the issue be with the mesh topology? Would ue skip the mesh if it was invalid?

[@LetsPlayWithMichal]

Hey, I figured it out! ue4 doesn't know how to handle subdivided meshes, so if you had subidived enabled on export ue4 won't read those meshes! might be worth mentioning this in the description somewhere

[@davidhallows2389]

Hey, thanks for all these, super useful. For some odd reason when I try and bring in the body mesh it's unable as there is a face consisting of 6 vertices, expecting tri's or quads. When I triangulate or quadrangulate the mesh in Maya, it gives me the same error. Any ideas, I'm going maaaaaaaaad ;)

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey, In Maya select the mesh and go to mesh > cleanup, and open the options... check look for polys with more than 4 sides, but make sure select is checked not fix... it will highlight the exact poly that is giving you the trouble, then fix it manually. Im sure it will find one, thanks

[@davidhallows2389]

@@AnimatorArtistLife ​Thankyou! It was a bit of a needle in a haystack so I dug out an old mesh that was ok and rerigged. One last question please, my deadline is loooming!, when I import the model the smooth mesh is not enabled, making the alembic look blocky, any ideas? Thanks!!

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

@@davidhallows2389 make sure you have smoothed the normals before exporting the alembic, but don't forget unreal doesn't have a smooth key like the "3" key in maya, you need to have a high resolution mesh sometimes. once you have made that alembic you could also try subdividing by going mesh > smooth mesh but generally as long as you have smoothed the normals first it should look ok in Unreal

[@davidhallows2389]

@@AnimatorArtistLife Thankyou! Yes, I brought the alembic back into Maya, smoothed the face, hair and other essentials then ran the alembic again, worked a treat. I'll look into smoothing the normals.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

@@davidhallows2389 awesome, glad it worked out

[@PradeepSingh-g6z]

is it possible to run animation without hitting play in this method

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey, apologies for the late reply. Im not quite sure I understand,.. you want to playback teh animation without hitting play?

[@Dante02d12]

Hello! Do you happen to know how to do that from Marvelous Designer? That software allows us to export an animated outfit as Alembic too, but I see no option to "keep" the material slots. No matter what I do, I can't get colors T_T.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi Lulu sorry for the delay in replying as I've been away. I don't know marvellous design sorry, but I'm sure its possible as another member recently commented that it was useful for their marvellous designer. You could reply to them and ask how they did it, many thanks

[@Dante02d12]

@@AnimatorArtistLife Hey, thanks for the reply! I eventually found a solution, I'll leave it here for everyone else: 1) Export from MD as FBX. 2) Open that FBX in Blender. 3) Export from Blender as Alembic. *Tick "Set Faces".* 4) Import the Alembic file in Unreal Engine. Untick "Flatten Tracks" and tick "Create Materials". 5) Import the FBX file (without its animation, there's no need for it). This gives you the materials. 6) Assign each materials to the proper slot in the properties of the Alembic file.

[@PrasadNarse]

Question, I have a groom on my character, I am having a hard time binding groom to the alembic animation. Is there a way to bind the groom to alembic animation? I designed groom inside maya and cached it and imported in UE4, any help would be appreciated. Thanks for the process of importing the alembic animations, it was very helpful :)

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, sorry I havent done much groom work or tried exporting to Maya. I know when unreal first released the hair function you had to export the hair as a separate alembic, but know they have a better system now. I imagine you wouldn't bind the hair to the alembic, but bind to the original mesh, then export perhaps, sorry I don't have more knowledge on this Try the Unreal forums, they can be helpful Thanks

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

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[@johnhempstead2381]

I'm using C4D and UE 4.27 keeps crashing when I import the Alembic file... ? hmmm

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Sorry John, I don't use C4D so not sure how to help this time. Have you tried upgrading your Unreal or even going to v5?

[@Norma-so7mu]

Hello! Do you know if it's possible to export a file made in Clo3d to Unreal Engine 4? Thank you for your help !

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey, sorry I'm not familiar with Clo3d, if it can create alembic then yes. Or animated FXB if its not organic deformations, thanks

[@Norma-so7mu]

@@AnimatorArtistLife okay thank you very much for your response!!

[@ryanc1304]

Hello, i'm on maya 2022 and i don't have any file format, what can i do ?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi Ryan, sorry Im not sure what you mean? what are you referring to with "I don't have any file format"? You need to select your geometry in Maya and export an alembic cache file as show in the video

[@userchia]

hi, Is is possible to update the alembic with different cache? Example I have 4 similar characters, output as alembic cache, instead of going through the process of assigning individual characters materials. Can I have one master static mesh and assign alembic cache to that static cache?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi, I think the only thing you can do is add your alembic character actor to the sequencer, and add a geometry cache track. From here you can try and choose any alembic files you have imported, let me know if that works for you, thanks

[@mjfabian86]

Sadly, I think this creates a material slot for every object. So if you have rigid body destruction animation cache with hundreds of objects, that means hundreds of draw calls.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey Fabian, that's not the case for me, or I would have more materials for all my characters geometry parts. like eye lashes, accessories etc. if I have one material assigned to 5 objects, I will only get that one material in my alembic. Can you check your simulation is not assigning different materials or ids to each particle perhaps? thanks

[@mjfabian86]

@@AnimatorArtistLife That's a good point. I was using Blender but I'm trying to switch to Houdini. I'll check that in blender though and let ya know

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

@@mjfabian86 that'd be great thanks, as it may help others

[@mjfabian86]

@@AnimatorArtistLife Blender allows you to assign the "interior" mesh (e.g. broken concrete) material ID, but that's about it. But I'm not sure you avoid my issue using Maya.. why would your left and right eye take up two material slots (0 and 2) at 14:09? I haven't tried Houdini yet but since I'm doing a rigid body destruction sim, my backup plan is to layer a bunch of (single material) allembics on top of one another :)

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

@@mjfabian86 hey, sounds like your software is automatically applying a separate material to each particle. can you do a standard geometry cache of the simulation, then delete history (or equivalent in blender?) then apply a single material to everything, then do your alembic cache? if not try and ask on teh blender forums possibly. ps, you can join the private facebook group I created here: facebook.com/groups/animatorartistlife

[@DavidWKimber]

RE: Applying materials manually, I wonder if Datasmith would be an option there. Have you checked that out yet?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hi David, thanks for the comment, there is no Datasmith plugin for Maya currently, and for some reason I don't think they intend to make one. Also I don't think datasmith works with alembic caches. Many thanks

[@freenomon2466]

Thanks for this is great. however to take the guess work out of which goes where, in maya you can assign the name to the material part (the blue node right to the main material) and the name will show in unreal. : )

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Awesome thanks for sharing, I think I tried this a while ago, and naming the shading group instead on the material etc but couldn't get it tow work, I'm glad you've done it, proves it can be done, thanks

[@ravi5879]

@@AnimatorArtistLife I didn't understood what @free noman convey , please explain , Thank you.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

​@@ravi5879 Hi... @free nomon was referring to the shading group node.. in your hypershade if you view graph view your input and output on a material you will see it at the end.. it has "SG" at the end. But I did try this once and could not get it to work. I'd be interested if others can, thanks

[@ravi5879]

@@AnimatorArtistLife sure , will try and tell . Thanks . Your video was reall helpful to me :-)

[@fangedorgasm3508]

was so excited about this tutorial but for some reason when I am at the stage of transferring the materials from the static, textured character (fbx in my case) to the alembic cache, the materials do not seem to scale correctly...? So for example, when you dragged the eye_mat to the alembic element 0, in m case the characters eye would just go completely white. Does anyone understand this struggle or could help me out? Much appreciated :)

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Hey, the first thing to check would be if your uv layout is the same on the original and the alembic cache. If your using Maya just check both in the UV editor

[@karimdad3592]

Hay can any one help with this! I have created a lottery ball simulation in maya and want to render them out in unreal Engine but its not working the textures are not coming on the balls, I have created alembic of the ball simulation and try to import it in unreal but the textures are not appearing properly ,the balls are half black and half textured even I have uncheck the “Flatten Tracks” option as well but its not working. if any one has solution please help.

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

Have you checked "write uv sets" "color sets" and "Fasce sets" when you are exporting alembic in Maya or your 3d app? Then what happens when you drag a material to the material slot in Unreal?

[@KintaroTakanori]

why does the playback speed do nothing when i put it at 2x speed?

[@AnimatorArtistLife]

HI are you referring the the alembic playback speed?