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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: paq on July 31, 2017, 06:02:59 PM

Title: Single .chan import from Houdini ?
Post by: paq on July 31, 2017, 06:02:59 PM
Hello,

I'm trying to understand how to import .chan animation data to feed a single input parameter type, like for example the feature scale from a cloud fractal.
I have created a test motion in houdini .... but I can't get anything working in Terragen.

If I prepare a single channel file, Terragen complain that file is badly formatted.
If I prepare a .chan file with 3 channels, Terragen import the file (240 keyframe created), but I can only 3 keyframes in the graph editor.

Beside I don't understand why I have to create 3 channel to animate a single channel parameter.

Does anyone already succeed to import .chan for this kind of usage.
I have seen discussion about camera import from 2008 (using 7chan formatting), but nothing about single parameter animation.

In attach. there is a faulty single .chan file, with 240 keyframes  :-[
Title: Re: Single .chan import from Houdini ?
Post by: paq on August 01, 2017, 10:06:40 AM
Ok got it :

From the wiki :

Writing chan files

chan files are are a simple text format. Essentially they consist of multiple numeric values per line, with each value separated by a space. How the values are interpreted on import depends a bit on how the file is imported. chan files are easy to generate if you want to create animation data from a script or spreadsheet or similar.

If you want to generate chan files for use with the Camera node the preferred format is the 8 channel Nuke .chan variant. In this format there are 8 values per line, ordered like this:

    Frame number
    X
    Y
    Z
    Rotate X
    Rotate Y
    Rotate Z
    Vertical field-of-view


I was assuming the line number = frame number, my bad.
So to animate a single channel, .chan formatting need to look like this (2 rows : frame number and value)

[attachimg=1]
Title: Re: Single .chan import from Houdini ?
Post by: Oshyan on August 03, 2017, 03:06:34 AM
Glad you got it sorted out. Apologies for the slow response the last few days, SIGGRAPH is very time consuming! :D

- Oshyan