How can the Alembic format be useful in production of AAA games Alexandra Cunetchi

High quality game assets Big budget Several software's Realism Interchange file formats

Formats supported by game engines Unity 3D Unreal Engine Cry Engine FBX, Collada, 3DS, Maya, Obj, Cinema4D, Modo, Lightwave, Cheetah 3D FBX Custom tools for 3D software’s ~~ Collada, FBX, obj

Interchange file formats FBX Collada Obj Alembic Filmbox Recording motion capture data Autodesk .dae Collaborative Design Activity Sony Computer Entertainment + Khronos Group Open source Just nope .abc Sony Picture Imageworks + Lucasfilms Open source

Alembic Movies Games The Avengers Man in black 3 Hotel Transylvania Custom plugins https://youtu.be/OMxgo6zoAI M?t=1m10s

Evaluation and Comparison: Mesh FBX Collada Alembic Vertices Indices Edges Polygons (quads, triangles, etc.) submeshes same same

Evaluation and Comparison: Materials FBX Collada Alembic Basic level (phong, blin) Custom materials same Same But the custom materials are platform intended

Evaluation and Comparison: Animation FBX Collada Alembic Skeletal animation Vertex animation Baked animation same No prebaked Geometry cache almost baking but not really Don’t expect to keep the skeleton and skin Does not interpolate Very useful for simulations (particle fluids, cloths, etc.)

Evaluation and Comparison: File Structure FBX Collada Alembic ASCII and binary (custom) ASCII (XML) Binary (HDF5 and Ogawa) Debug, documentation problems => ASCII Custom tools => ASCII Version control => ASCII Smaller size => Binary Faster IO => Binary Secret => Binary

Evaluation and Comparison: File Size First need to convert the files  3ds MAX KATANA Houdini RenderMan Arnold Modo NUKE RealFlow Cinema 4D V-Ray Guerilla Render Maxwell Render Clarisse iFX LightWave 3D Keyshot Pro Octane Render

Evaluation and Comparison: File Size (MB) File Name FBX (binary) FBX (ASCII) Collada Alembic Gears 3.61 24.0 22.5 4.86 Private Place 2.86 15.2 9.46 6.39 Sci-fi Girls 7.12 30.7 35.8 83.1

Evaluation and Comparison: File reading speed Unity !!! Unreal Engine? ???????????? Custom Plugin ? Maya Scripting?

Evaluation and Comparison: File reading speed (seconds) File Name FBX (binary) FBX (ASCII) Collada Alembic Gears 2.3 4.3 3.5 0.94 Private Place 1.1 2.4 0.96 0.44 Sci-fi Girls 4.4 7.2 5.1 2.2

Evaluation and Comparison: Size vs Speed

Evaluation and Comparison: Size vs Speed

Conclusion Alembic is pretty awesome Don’t use if you need skeleton or skin data Use for everything else If you want to continue my research: textures file size difference mystery