Alembic Export Settings
Use these settings to define the frame range of an animation to be exported. The animation prior to and after these frames will be omitted.
This setting should be familiar to you from the Edit Render Settings menu (see Frame Step). Here it has the same effect on exported animations. Not every animation frame will be exported if a value greater than 1 is entered. For example, values of 2 or 10 will export every 2nd or 10th frame, respectively.
If you want to save subframes in addition to the ,normal’ animation frames, enter the desired value here. This value defines the number of animation frames in the Alembic file per Cinema 4D animation frame.
Example:
- You export an animation from frame 0-3. At a Subframe value of 2, the animation information at 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 will be exported.
- You export an animation from frame 1-3. At a Subframe value of 4, the animation information at 1.0 1.25 1.5 1.75 2.0 2.25 2.5 2.75 3.0 will be exported (note that exactly this last frame will be exported as the last animation state).
Subframes are, for example, required for calculating motion blur (Cinema 4D does not have the animation information saved in its own Timeline and depends on the information from the Alembic file).
This factor can be found at numerous locations throughout Cinema 4D when importing or exporting foreign formats. Therefore, don’t be surprised if the term ,export’ is used if this factor is seen in an import function (this factor is explained as a whole here).
This factor lets you scale files upon import/export, i.e., practically all relevant numerical values saved in the file or those to be saved will be multiplied by this factor and then saved - or interpreted when loaded.
The unit at the right in turn defines how upon
- Import the numerical value saved in the file is converted to the current Cinema 4D unit. Example: if an X value of 1 is saved in the file and you define Feet, the X value will be converted to 30.48 cm in Cinema 4D (if centimeters are defined by default in Cinema 4D).
- Export numerical values are saved in the file. Example: an X value is set to 100 cm in Cinema 4D. If you define Feet for export, the exported file will save a numerical value of 3.281 (1 meter = 3.281 feet).
More information about units and scaling can be found in the Project Scale section.
If enabled, only the selected objects and their Child objects will be exported.
Selected objects will be saved with global coordinates (instead of local or Parent object coordinates, as is common for hierarchical objects).
All cameras in the Project will be exported.
If enabled, the Subdivision Surfaces will be exported as low-res SDS objects (Alembic can read these). If disabled, the Subdivision Surfaces will be exported as subdivided mesh (as if you had made it editable).
Enable this option if you want to export Subdivision Surface Weighting.
If enabled, all Splines in the Project will be exported. (as described in the Alembic section’s Curves description)
If enabled, all particles (without the related geometry) will be exported as vertex objects.
Note that the allocation into groups upon export will be made according to the assigned TP geometry objects.
Enable this option if you want to export the particles together with any related polygonal objects (only these will be rendered). When using Thinking Particles, make sure that you assign geometry using 
TP Geometry. This will ensure that subsequent Alembic imports will work better.
If enabled, a Hair object’s Guides will be exported as Splines (curves). If the Hair object’s Type is set to Spline, the hairs can also be exported as curves.
Enable this option if you also want to export XRefs. If this option is disabled, the entire XRef hierarchy will be excluded (incl. all non-XRef objects in the hierarchy).
If enabled, the respective objects that are hidden for rendering will also be exported in a hidden state. Alembic only recognizes visible and hidden states for the Viewport and rendering simultaneously. Therefore, both hidden settings will be set to red in the Attribute Manager upon import.
Use this option to define whether or not vertex Normals should be exported (even if no Normal tags exists, these will be created internally upon export).
Enable this option if UV coordinates should also be exported.
If enabled, polygon selections will be exported via Polygon Selection tag.
If this option is enabled, Vertex Maps can be exported as vertex colors (Maya can, for example, import these files vis the -rcs option). Multiple Vertex Map tags can be used, which should however each have a unique name. Otherwise only the last tag will end up in the Alembic file.
Enable this option if Vertex Colors should be exported. For multiple Vertex Color tags, make sure that they have unique names (Alembic cannot handle identical names).
Enabling this option will export a mesh as a vertex cloud (without polygons).
Vertex colors will also be exported (as long as the Vertex Color tag’s Vertex Color setting is set to Only Points).
Display Colors to Vertex Colors
This option can be used in conjunction with the Display Color to export colored objects as vertex colors, for example, to export colored MoGraph objects.
Enable this option if Vertex Colors should be exported.
Cache objects that are, for example, created using Generators (e.g., Cloner or Symmetry objects) can be merged into a single mesh upon import (like a Cloner object that duplicates an object 10,000 times), which can be loaded into Cinema 4D much faster and be displayed more fluidly.
Careful: Parametric primitives are also Generators and can be merged as well.
Note that if this function is used with the same Generator on various types of objects (e.g., splines and geometry), only one type can be exported.
If this option is enabled, multiple UV sets (tags) will not be supported.