AYON monthly beginner’s topic - January‘24

Happy New Year :partying_face: :partying_face: :partying_face: !

Welcome to our Monthly beginner’s thread. This forum topic is used to capture all beginner questions (and answers) in one place. We start a new one every month on 1st of the month and lock the previous one.

We if you feel your question deserves it’s own topic in one of the existing categories, then by all means go for it and create on. We’ll also try our best to split out any interesting questions to their own topics when they warrant a bigger conversations.

So go ahead and ask to your heart’s content.


Questions Summary:

How to check my Ayon version ?

There are many ways to check your Ayon version.

From Server From Terminal

From Terminal: I’ve used this command

cd {ayon-docker-repo}
sudo docker compose exec server cat RELEASE

How to use the photoshop addon ?

Firstly, Add photoshop to your project as mentioned here

Then, install the zxp package as mentioned in docs

Also, Here’s a good tip from @BigRoy

Then, you can start using photoshop through Ayon
Here’s a quick demo knowing the fact I don’t use it on a daily basis but those are my 2 cents anyways

Questions related to unimplemented features:

Ayon is evolving and due to our Agile methodology, some features may not be there yet.
I’m move these questions here in this section for reference.

Is there any integration with pureref that people know of???

No, Not yet.
Currently, you can add pureref to applications.

Does Ayon respect/use the interchange pipeline settings ?

Unfortunately, not yet.

2 Likes

is there any integration with pureref that people know of???

And basically i just want that if you open pureref it automatically saves it.

If i start pureref from powershell with this .\PureRef.exe -c 'save;D:\pr_001.pur' it saves the file.
But if i at t the arguments in ayon -c 'save;D:\pr_001.pur' it doesn’t work.
This is from the commandline in ayon launcher >>> [ Launching "PureRef/PureRef" with args (2): ['C:\\Program Files\\PureRef\\PureRef.exe', "-c 'save;D:\\pr_001.pur'"] ]

any idea why, and would it be possible to add a ayon path to that???

Hi there!

I’m having troubles understanding the Photoshop addon. I’ve got it installed alright and I have the little window with the options “Workfiles…”, “Load…”, “Publish…”, Manage…", “Experimental Tools…”.

But I can’t get it to do anything and I’m not sure why. What are the buttons supposed to do and what is the intended workflow? :slight_smile:

@robert You should be able to supply a list of arguments. Could you try making -c one argument and then the value for it the next argument?

Which I suppose might need to be -c and the next one save;D:\pr_001.pur. I think each entry will end up being its own argument to a subprocess.Popen(args) call.

any idea why, and would it be possible to add a ayon path to that???

Use what type of AYON path for the filepath? A workfile path? This might be non-trivial if it’s not defined as a workfile compatible host.

It might be worth it to create a separate PureRef topic to discuss more in-depth how one would want to use it in production - what you’d expect AYON to provide as ‘handles’ to build that?

Each button there should pop-up a User Interface (Python Qt-interface). If it doesn’t there are likely errors or the ‘server’ it’s supposed to connect to is not running. How to best debug the Photoshop integration I’m not sure myself but the buttons should display a UI, like the same labeled buttons in other DCC integrations would open as well.

@BigRoy thanks, that dit the trick.

And indeed, now i want to save it to the correct folder with the ayon Directory Template or similair like

{root[work]}/{project[name]}/{hierarchy}/{folder[name]}/work/{task[name]}/{app}

That doesn’t work unfortunately.

And for now it would be simple as just create a workfile if you click the pureref icon, and open it if it’s there. (like prism does)
Publishing etc i can do through the launcher publisher, that shouldn’t be a problem.
But indeed maybe a separate topic on how to integrate pureref

I’m not sure what you guys are used to do in production.
but, I could only come up with this :face_holding_back_tears:

Here’s how I setup my Pureref application

and How I use it to save my file in the correct path.
Animation_29

I think it will be considered to have a dedicated addon for pureref after the latest updates where pureref would be used as a reviewing tool too!

https://x.com/ArtOfPilgrim/status/1742272487830827104


For future reference and for people who need a visual reference like me :nerd_face:
Here’s what BiGRoy’s mentioned in his comment

1 Like

for now really quick and dirty i copied your gif, saved it as a .pur scene and used a load as argument and hope for the best that artist name it correctly :wink:

I really need to dive into more scripting, but i have so many deadlines right now

1 Like

Okay, thanks for the answer.
Do you know anyone in the community that could be helpful in figuring out how to debug this in Photoshop? :slight_smile:

EDIT: Problem is solved, will post detailed solution further down.

The solution is Photoshop needs to be launched through the Ayon launcher. The Ayon launcher was not yet showing any applications, because I had yet to set the “Applications” attribute under Anatomy.

  1. Add Photoshop as an application under the project anatomy attributes.

  2. Open the Ayon Launcher, select a task and launch it in Photoshop.

  3. Launch the tool you need from the Ayon photoshop plugin

1 Like

The solution is Photoshop needs to be launched through the Ayon launcher

For what it’s worth - it’s good to note that all applications only have the integrations active when launched via the launcher. This is not Photoshop-specific but also goes for Maya, Houdini, Fusion, Nuke, After Effects, Resolve, Blender, etc.

Ayon does not install itself into your local installs of the applications (you can run them fine outside of Ayon without the Ayon tools). But instead only loads up the relevant bits when launched via the launcher.

There are some edge cases, e.g. where for Adobe products the plug-ins MUST be installed locally for Adobe to even consider them to work, so there may be potential ‘traces’ of Ayon. But the mean goal of Ayon is that it should not affect your applications itself when not launched via Ayon - if the host app allows that.

2 Likes

How do you import a published texture/image into blender/houdini/unreal etc through the Ayon Loader.

I can’t find any options in any program???

And another one, why cant i import an fbx from blender in houdini???

I think this feature doesn’t exist yet. (speaking of Houdini)

I’m not familiar with the workflow in Blender. and, I thought about giving it a quick test.
The model product type includes two representations abc and blend
I believe if fbx representation was included then you’ll be able to load it as fbx in Houdini.

Yeah the thing is if it’s a “model” as fbx from blender i can’t import them to houdini.
If it’s a “staticMesh” fbx from houdini i can import it into houdini.
(and the other way around)
Is that due to that houdini doen’t have a “model” as family support???

And i tried to quickly add a “model” family based on the "staticMesh"exporter.
But couldn’t get it to work.
Need to dive deeper into how and what, i just don’t have enough time, so any pointers would be more than welcome :wink:

I think the problem is the absence of a static mesh product type with a FBX representation in Blender.

@robert add the “model” family here https://github.com/ynput/OpenPype/tree/develop/openpype/hosts/houdini/plugins/load#L19 and then you should be good to go.

Then it will show load fbx option also for fbx representations of that family.

1 Like

Thanks.
Well try first thing in the morning.

Thanks @BigRoy

But. this will work if model product type in Blender includes fbx representation, right ?
I think the default model product type doesn’t have fbx representation by default, I mean I can’t find it.

The FBX Extractor for Blender needs to be enabled in settings first - it’s disabled by default.

Settings default is here

1 Like

yeah working, indeed very simpel.
Sorry for the noob questions, but what would be the best way to implement that for every one and also that it will be in the future updates?

And I think this has been brought up sometime before, but would it be better to disconnect the family and export type, and have it more modulair.
We use primarily Blender and houdini in our pipeline for the asset creation.
But they both have such a different “family”/ publishtypes.
I would rather have the option of what i export ( fbx, abc, bgeo) and attach the family myself.