gto (GPL) cache file format

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
#1

Googling around i’ve found an interesting link to an open source cache format …
maya & houdini integration , python binding and rman support for direct rendering. One of the big missing feature of blender is exactly a standard format to store caches datas, gto is just an example, but the i think blender should aim to something similar for the unified dynamic system.

http://www.tweakfilms.com/products/open-source-software

cheers.
L.

#2

ooh, shiny. :3

#3

A standard format would be nice. You’d be able to transfer fluid caches directly into Maya for example without manual conversion. Tweakfilms has some nice helpful employees - I helped compile their Maya version of the GTO plugin a few years ago.

The question is whether or not GTO would be the best format to use. Its progression is controlled by Tweak Films. They may change it if Blender devs suggested when requirements exceeded the limitations but it’s not guaranteed. I know with open source it doesn’t matter greatly in terms of being able to but the point of doing it would be for compatibility.

#4

A unique binary cache format , with a good documentation , would be great , even it’s not gto.
I hope one day the BF will take a look to a something similar .
L.

#5

hi all ,
after a while i’d like to come back to this post …
gto now is hosted to sourceforge as openGTO ,under BSD license (is it compatible with blender ?)

now i need a help…
i’ve moved the source of the library into /extern , created the scons file , added a WITH_GTO flag and modified the scons to handle this library , and succesfully compiled with blender.
ok , great… what i have to do now ?
i guess i have to create a .h e a .c file to start exposing the import export function into blender but:

  1. I don’t know where to put those files
  2. it’s the first time I try to do something similar , so i really don’t know where to start… any help ?

I know that gto have a python wrapper (2.4 i guess with boost … ) but i’d like to use directly the library.

cheers.
L.

http://code.google.com/p/open-gto/

#6

best to ask these questions either on the mailing lists or irc: #blendercoders @ irc.freenode.net

#7

I’m there right now… :stuck_out_tongue:
L.

p.S
better to try with the ML.

#8

You can include the library, just keep the copyright notice.

As an example, Blender includes the BSD licensed openjpeg library: see source in blender/extern/libopenjpeg

#9

thanks Charlie :slight_smile:
L.

#10

Maybe look into how the current physics cache works and convert it over to gto?

Oh, and a BSD license is compatible with the GPL as long as you don’t strip the license header and/or replace it with a GPL header. Plus you’re really just linking to a lib so there shouldn’t be any reason to mess with the BSD code.

GPL into BSD project is another story altogether though.

#11

Don’t know where all the references to BSD license is coming from. This library is LGPL.

EDIT: I was looking through the code repository at github and saw they’ve recently changed it to BSD

#12

THanks uncleEntity,
i was thinking to create an exporter for the meshes ,
but looking at the particle cache is a good idea as well :slight_smile:
cheers.
L.

#13

Yeah, meshes is already covered pretty well by Collada. From what I’ve read, the areas where GTO excels over Collada is large data sets. (like particles, simulation caches, and complex meshes with things like subsurf, multires, and shapekeys)

In fact, in the sparse google groups postings, it was admitted by one of the devs that there is a good deal of overlap with the Collada project, and that maybe they might eventually consider merging their project with Collada if the opportunity presented itself.