Having just made a new tool to export object sequences, I thought it would be really handy to be able to also import them back in. So, I made another tool that imports object sequences.
Being able to transfer animated mesh data between different software packages is a crucial part of a post-production house that uses multiple programs in their pipeline. Since I'm using more than one program, I need to be able to transfer scene data between programs to work with. I recently made a tool that lets me export an OBJ sequence into other programs. But alas, I also need to be able to bring them back in again.
There's various reasons why you need these types of importers and exporters. My software can import and export static meshes, but it cannot do sequences. Unless you manually export them yourself every single frame. Something which would become too tedious on bigger projects.
I built the export tool to cover one half of this scenario - being able to export object mesh sequences so that other programs can open them. But, I felt I really needed to cover the base where I might want to import back into my main 3D application. So, I built an import to do just this.
I built it into it's own object plugin. The object is simple and has only a few controls. There's a screenshot below with the user interface:
Like the exporter tool, the importer uses some regular expressions to read the sequence file names. But in addition to this, I also added in the ability to use an expression that lets the user switch between a proxy and final versions of the sequence. This means the user can use a proxy version while working in the viewport - something that's smaller and lighter for the system to handle. And when it comes time to rendering, the user can switch to the higher quality version. I also added the ability to offset, loop and bounce loop the sequence frames. I can even scale the sequence, which helps when other programs export at a different scale. They're just little details that simplify the user experience.
And because the object is available as a generator, I can treat the object's polygons just like any other object; meaning I can bend, deform, and add materials to it etc.
I think these two little tools will be really handy. They've made the door open a little wider now for my pipeline capability. It means I can work between different software packages, depending on the needs of the project.
Another box ticked.