I think I know the answer but I’ll ask anyway.
I know there have been some handy new features in the latest C4D releases about alembic files but I didn’t keep up so I’m hoping there’s something I overlooked that can help me out here.
I’m importing alembic scenes and as far as I know there’s no way to convert an alembic to keyframed objects in C4D (or in any other software).
Does this still hold true considering the new features introduced lately with alembic files support in C4D?
All the PLA stuff is baked into the file – so no, unless someone has a clever workaround. Some other baking plugin maybe? (I just crashed C4D trying to Nitrobake an Alembic file).
Thanks @Darth_Mole
My approach at the moment, for example with a camera, is to create a new camera at the first frame from the same abc camera view, add a keyframe and then move to the next moment when there’s a significant change in the camera movement. I then use the transfer tool to copy the new position/rotation to the new camera and I create a new keyframe and so on so forth to the end of the scene.
Is not perfect nor ideal but in more than one case it worked out fairly well.
The problem I’m having is with a scene where the most subtle adjustment in the curve editor for camera and objects has a drastic effect on the new camera/object in Cinema. At first, I thought it was because of the scale but I double checked and the scale is right.
I have to admit, working with the curves in the curve editor in Cinema has never been my favorite part of the animation process. For some reason, any new keyframe or adjustment always end up messing up a good chunk of animation as it affects the keyframes before and after the one I’m adjusting.
Something I haven’t experienced with 3dsMax, Softimage or Blender. This always puzzled me about C4D animation curves.
You can only bake to keyframes if the alembic files have a constant point count/point order.
Just use the Bake function of the timeline to bake them into keys.
Sometimes it’s useful to export an Alembic as an FBX to get PSR keyframe from a bunch of animated objects. And for ABC point level Key frame conversion I remember seeing a tutorial that uses C4D pose morph Tag on a copy of the ABC mesh.
Found a workaround.
-Import the alembic file.
-Use a cloner with spheres or whatever, distributed over the alembic object in whatever number and way suits your needs (vertices, surface, etc).
-Left click on the cloner, bake as alembic.
-Every cloned object now has transform data. Use a constraint tag.
