Bake as Alembic / and Delete

These two commands create Alembic objects with a linked Alembic file from the currently selected objects (without their sub-objects!):

• Bake in Alembic: The selected objects are retained.
• Bake and delete in Alembic: The selected objects are deleted. Attention: the original animation will be lost.

What is the point of such an approach? Complex animations are often played slowly. Alembic animations can help here, as they are usually played back very quickly. You can then cache individual objects using Alembic. Details on this format can be found under Alembic.

When the command is executed, the Alembic files are stored in an "alembic" folder in the scene storage location. If the scene has not yet been saved, you must define a folder. With repeated command executions (and the same objects), the Alembic files will be numbered consecutively. As these add up, you should delete files you no longer need from time to time.

Bake as Alembic and delete copies tags that are not understood by Alembic to the Alembic object (under which any sub-objects are also copied, whereby directly subordinate deformers are deactivated so that they do not have a double effect). These measures prevent objects and tags from disappearing into nirvana because they may still be needed.