Import and export Alembic files

Overview

You can save and load Maya scene files as Alembic cache files. The Alembic file format is an open-source format developed for exchanging complex 3D geometry data. Alembic files are highly portable and application independent so they can be shared, processed, and played back by a number of content creations applications.

In Maya, Alembic caches provide a number of performance improvements, including quicker loading time of large scenes, faster play back of complex character animations, and real-time play back of geometry data with topology changes. Complex scenes and animations can be exported as an Alembic file, and then re-imported into Maya to improve play back performance and reduce memory use. This workflow lets you easily pass complex scene data to various areas of your production pipeline, such as between animation and simulation or animation and lighting, without the large overhead of fully editable scenes.

For example, you can export a polygon mesh created from an nParticle effect to an Alembic file, then play the simulation back in Maya solely as a polygon object.

You can use the Alembic Import and Alembic Export windows to configure settings for loading and saving Alembic files. You can access the Alembic Import and Alembic Export windows from the Alembic menu located on Maya main menu bar. You can also use MEL commands to import and export Alembic files.

See Alembic > Alembic Import and Alembic > Export.

To import and export Maya scenes as Alembic files, the AbcImport.mll and AbcExport.mll plug-ins must be loaded. Open to the Plug-in Manager ( Windows > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager) to ensure these plug-ins are loaded into Maya.

For information about loading plug-ins see Load or unload Maya plug-ins.

Use MEL commands to import and export Alembic files

You can use the AbcImport and AbcExport MEL commands to import and export Alembic files. For example, use the following to export a polygon torus:

AbcExport-j "-frameRange 1 120 -root pTorus1 -file c:/temp/test.abc";

Note When specifying a file path for the exported file in the -f argument, the path cannot contain spaces. For example, you cannot specify:

C:\My Documents\maya\2012\Alembic Files.

You can instead use C:\maya\2012\AlembicFiles.

Help for the commands is available in the Script Editor using either AbcExport -h; and AbcImport -h;.