Can I export an animation to maya?

I would like to take a Gazebo sim and get a really great looking render out. I'm assuming that getting the sim into a rendering application like Maya or MODO would be the easiest way to do that.

Alembic is a pretty well-supported format in the 3d graphics industry, and allows for baking animation data in a way that easily compressible.

Is there anything like that with Gazebo? I just want awesome looking renders in the end, and if I can integrate Gazebo sims with other elements in 3d that would be really great.

Asked by layermonkey on 2016-10-20 18:00:15 UTC

Comments

I reposted your answer as comments, since it wasn't an answer

Asked by Peter Mitrano on 2016-10-21 21:48:56 UTC

Gazebo is open source for this reason. You could try writing something that would convert log files or save running simulations in some animation format

Asked by Peter Mitrano on 2016-10-21 21:49:51 UTC

Answers

simple answer: no.

The only kind of output you can get from gazebo besides what you see on the screen are screenshots/videos, and simulation logs. Could you take those logs and meshes and somehow convert that to a file format that a rendering/animation program might take? uhhh maybe? sounds hard.

I feel like gazebo isn't the program you want. Are you actually trying to simulate something?

The only thing that comes to mind is to just use a better rendering engine in gazebo. There has been some work on this with ignition-rendering src1 and src2

Asked by Peter Mitrano on 2016-10-20 21:50:21 UTC

Comments

That's too bad.

I'm interested in working with folks who use Gazebo for creating completely accurate simulations, especially in the robotics field. What I've noticed is there's a massive hole in bridging the gap between "wow that's accurate" and "wow that also looks amazing." And I don't really buy the idea that nobody cares about how sims look. We all look in the mirror each day before leaving so we can make sure we look as good as we can, even if we're not professional models.

Asked by Peter Mitrano on 2016-10-21 21:45:37 UTC

With all due respect to the developers working on custom renderers for Gazebo, I don't see that as the answer. Support for something like Alembic, or Pixar's Universal Scene Description (USD) format allows for geometry data and animation data to be easily moved between applications. And from there the challenge of a really great render has already been solved. Beyond that, sim data can be combined with other 3d elements to create a more complete final render.

Asked by Peter Mitrano on 2016-10-21 21:45:57 UTC

I wonder what the Gazebo API is like, and whether a point-caching approach is possible to connect Gazebo's great sim capabilities with the rest of the 3d world, rather than simply expanding Gazebo island.

Asked by Peter Mitrano on 2016-10-21 21:46:16 UTC