I released a Free Blender Addon for exporting the new Curves object datatype from blender to an alembic file with the Groom schema dictated by Unreal Engine, the exporter gets the Attributes from the object to export it as properties on the alembic file.
Download and more Information: Gumroad
Quick Manual: Drive
Currently, the addon was only tested on Windows. (Linux needs to research for the pyalembic library.)
Updated to version 0.1.2,
Updated Manuals: For Installation and for How to use the Addon
I was able to installl it and everything looks fine till you export. Im getting this error:
Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Users\lucia\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.3\scripts\addons\GroomExporter\AlembicGroomExporter.py”, line 50, in execute
return create_file(context, self.filepath, self.groom_scale)
File “C:\Users\lucia\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.3\scripts\addons\GroomExporter\AlembicGroomExporter.py”, line 56, in create_file
oarch = CreateArchiveWithInfo( filepath, blender_version, userStr )
NameError: name ‘CreateArchiveWithInfo’ is not defined
Forget about it. Turbocheke is the man! It is working! Thanks a lot man!
Ps. I had to uninstall by hand and re install and everything works like a charm!
Amazing work mate. I thought I was going to have to redo a bunch of hair assets.
Looks like Blender are planning on introducing Alembic support for the new hair system in the future - but I doubt it’ll have all of the functionality this addon does (exporting as groups feature is nice!).
I don’t understand how to use this, Exported Groom properly but it’s not carrying over the color of my mesh.
Thank you for sharing. I’ll give it a try.
Just follow the steps with the addon and it works
I’m getting the same error.
I uninstalled and reinstalled the plugin.
problem not solved!
I didn’t quite understand all the functions of this addon, I limited myself to selecting the groom and pressing export, and it works.
The only problem is that on Unreal Engine 5.1 the hair curves don’t have the same subdivision and it looks angular.
Do you happen to know how to solve it?
Thanks in advance.
question for turbocheke, “seems the missing link is coverting models to makeup conforming to blender curves” this blender plug-in does not recognize Nurbs , polygon mesh…there is NO information on the type of curves it can recognize
I found a solution to the hair exporting lower resolution than in Blender:
You need to add a geometry node modifier that uses the ‘Subdivide Curve’ node. It should be placed before other hair grooming modifiers in the stack like hair curve profile, hair interpolation, noise, frizz, etc.
The difference will not be apparent in object mode, especially if you have your scene’s curve settings set for higher subdivisions.
The difference can be seen if you apply the “subdivide curve” geometry node and go into edit mode. In object mode, both hair curves look like the same resolution, but they are not.
In the Groom Exporter addon, you can see the vertex difference between the subdivided curve and the unsubdivided curve via the “Num Vertex” value:
The subdivided curves will export and will be higher resolution in Unreal as well.
My root uv’s seem to not work properly, when i use ombre, it goes all over the hair instead of just the tips
Hello, I couldnt solve my problem. I got the same error and I dont understad manual please can you helpm me? Even in tutorial on the YouTube the author didnt show the details of how he was expoerting hair groom in abc file
Hello, I am using your Groom Explorer tool, but I am unable to write a Groom ID for fur. It seems that it can only force each fur object to write a Groom ID separately. Looking forward to your reply
Thank you for this; it was incredibly helpful in getting me as far as I’ve been able to, but I’m running into a new wall:
The Attributes that come inherent to Blender’s Fur Curves seem to be critical in getting the colors to work in Unreal, and I can make them work perfectly at this point—but only if I use the native Fur Curves.
I’m struggling with getting those attributes to transfer from Particle curves. Converting particles to Fur Curves, you don’t get any of those Attributes, and it appears that creating them manually doesn’t do the trick, and the colors aren’t transferred successfully during the conversion.
Do you know where I might be able to look to get that working?
The reason I ask is the asset I’m working with already has eight particle systems and they’re unfortunately too complicated to get working from scratch using new Fur Curves…
Hey there. It looks like the addon doesn’t work properly in Blender 4.2 when exporting groom:
Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Users\Professional\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.2\scripts\addons\GroomExporter\AlembicGroomExporter.py”, line 50, in execute
return create_file(context, self.filepath, self.groom_scale)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File “C:\Users\Professional\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.2\scripts\addons\GroomExporter\AlembicGroomExporter.py”, line 56, in create_file
oarch = CreateArchiveWithInfo( filepath, blender_version, userStr )
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
NameError: name ‘CreateArchiveWithInfo’ is not defined
Very nice job!
But here is a bug : If the pivot of charactor’s pivot is not at the world origin (in Blender)，the groom hair 's position will be wrong in UE . Or I can say, the groom hair’s position is not correctly converted.
Thanks for your affort again.
I got the reason.
It’s best to place the model at the origin before export.
The plugin works OK. It saves the local relative positions of the curve.
