baking ncloth animation (maya 2009)

I'm trying to bake out ncloth animation so I can export as FBX and import it in another app (specifically XSI). I found this thread but it was never actually answered.

I've tried edit->keys->Bake simulation, but that just seems to plot keys on each frame, and it makes it so I can delete the ncloth node (which means shapes are being stored somewhere), but the shape manager is empty too! If I try to export the baked cloth out as an FBX it comes into XSI with all of the frames, but no animation (as expected from mayas shape/graph editor). Anybody know how to get this baked out so I can export to FBX with animation?

hrm, actually I just realized that FBX doesn't support shape animation. Guess it's time to get a point cache going

AFAIK you can bake it by using the ControlPoint option in the Bake Box - baking each points position into an animation curve - it will be slow, or depending on the density of your cloth, very slow. But I have done this a few times to get stuff into Houdini from Maya.

I am also trying to bake my nCloth simulations so that I can export my cloth object (in this example a cloak) to another Maya file so that it can be merged with existing animation and then hopefully be rendered…

I have tried your point method Thomas but had no luck, or am I not doing something correctly?

I am not sure what you mean by "no luck" - essentially if you bake the animatino you should have an animation curve per vertex. Then exporting and importing, particularly in maya should be trivial - where does it go wrong and how?

If you use the regular geometry cache instead of the nCache and export using FBX it should import fine into any application that uses a recent-ish version of the FBX SDK. I have gone between Maya and Houdini like this a number of times.

OK, this is what I do:

Select the nClothShape1 (the Current Mesh not the Input Mesh) and then go to the Edit>Keys>Bake Simulation options box. I leave everything as it is except control point which I click. Once it has baked the keys I then go File>Export Selection (using default settings) and save it as a *.mb file.

Then I open up the Master Maya file and import the *.mb object (default settings) that I just exported.

Is this the correct method?

When I did a test object this method worked. In my actual scene I am using a reference object and that is where the fun starts…

It don't seem to work with referenced objects!!!

I will have to import my object, transfer the animation from the referenced object and then export it - that should work

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.