Hello everyone,
I've been trying for a few weeks now to convert a sequential series of meshes into a stop-motion animation in USDZ format.
In Unreal Engine, I’ve already figured out how to transform the sequential series of individual meshes into a smooth animation using the node system and arrays.
Unfortunately, the node system cannot be exported as a usdz animation logic in either Unreal or Blender.
Because of this, I have tried several other methods to incorporate the animation logic. Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
I attempted to create the animation in Blender with Render-/Viewports and mapping it to keyframes. However, in my experience, Viewports are not supported in the conversion.
I tried aligning the vertices of individual objects and merging the frames using the Shrinkwrap modifier in Blender, then setting up a morph animation with keyframes. However, because the individual meshes are too different, this results in artifacts, and manually editing each mesh is too difficult for me to handle.
I placed all individual meshes at the same position and animated them sequentially by scaling them from 0 to 100 in keyframes (Frame 1 is visible for 10 frames, then scales down at frame 11, while Frame 2 becomes visible at frame 11, and so on). I also adjusted the keyframes so that the scaling happens in a "constant" manner rather than the default Bezier or linear interpolation. I then converted this animation to .abc, and the result initially looked good. However, some information is lost when converting it with OpenUSD. The animation does not maintain its intended jump-like behavior in USDZ format, and instead, the scaling of individual files is visible in the animation.
I tried using a Blender add-on (StepMotion), which allows the animation to be exported as .abc, but it can only be read in Blender or Unreal. Even in the preview, the animation is not displayed correctly, so converting the animation logic does not work either.
Unfortunately, I have no alternative way to create the animation, as the individual frames have been provided to me as meshes. So far, I haven’t found a way to implement this successfully.
I would be very grateful for any tips or ideas, as I am running out of options on how to make this work.
Thanks in advance!
Topic:
Spatial Computing
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Core Animation
Reality Converter
Visual Design
USDZ