Bake as Alembic & Delete

These commands create Alembic objects from the currently selected objects (without their Child objects!) with linked Alembic files:

• Bake as Alembic: The selected objects will be maintained.
• Bake as Alembic + Delete: The selected objects will be deleted. Note: the original animation will be lost.

What is this process good for? Complex animations often play very slowly. Alembic animations can be played very quickly. You can cache individual objects using Alembic. Detailed information about this format can be found here.

Calling up the command will place the Alembic files in a folder named ,alembic’. If the scene has not yet been saved, you have to define a folder yourself. If the command is called up repeatedly, the Alembic files will be numbered sequentially. Files that are no longer needed should be deleted from time to time.

The Bake as Alembic + Delete command copies tags, which cannot be read by Alembic, to the Alembic object anyway (under which Child objects will also be copied, whereby Deformers will be disabled so they don’t have a double effect). This measure prevents objects and tags from disappearing since they may be needed in the future.