I’m asking for advice on how to break into Omniverse. The sheer volume of stuff is bewildering. Perhaps someone can offer some suggestions?
To make my problem specific I will present a specific problem I have. Maybe that will offer enough context that someone can offer useful advice? Here’s a problem:
Load a newly-scanned object. I can present the object as a triangulation, or a convex hull, or a point-cloud, or whatever is needed.
Drop the object onto a pile of such objects - at a ‘location’ of my devising. (I will run my own algorithm to decide where the object should be dropped. I can compute the resting orientation of the object offline also if that is needed.)
Visualize the result.
Repeat at will.
I don’t need collaboration with someone from Singapore. I don’t need multi-layer editing of the result: indeed I don’t need hand-editing of the results at all. I would be happy with very simple materials properties to start, then I will refine them as I go.
Do I need Omniverse? Can I run Kit only? Should I do this in PhysX exclusively? What should be the UI I use to put my cycle together? Help?
Ok, so where to begin is kinda one of those things that is relative to what you need to accomplish and with your specific goals, you dont need very much at all. Create is likely all you will need but id also add nucleus. So, from your explanation you will end up with some kind of mesh, for it to be imported to Create it will need to be either OBJ or FBX unless you happen to be using a tool we have a connector for. I will assume for a scan however that you will just end up with an FBX or OBJ file.
Here is what you will need to install…
Install Launcher
In launcher, go to collaborate and install the Nucleus Collaboration Server. (this is not just useful for collaborating with people but also useful for collaborating with other Omniverse Apps and gives you a localhost location for storing and organizing omniverse data)
In Launcher, select the exchange tab and install Omniverse Create.
Ok, once you have those tools, you can import and convert files. Here is how that is done.
Launch Omniverse Create
In the content browser and within localhost, select a location you wish to import and convert your mesh.
In a blank area in the content browser main window, right click and select “import and convert”
Locate the OBJ/FBX file you wish to convert.
Select “Open” and the file will be first uploaded to your nucleus then will be converted to a USD file.
Open the USD file in create.
At this point you will have a meshin omniverse and ready for materials. There are many ways to attach materials to objects, so, ill give you the most basic method.
In Create, first select the mesh, then select Create > Material > OmniPBR (or whatever material type is most appropriate)
When added, it will automatically apply the material to the selected mesh, you can now look at the stage view and you should see a look folder. In the looks folder select OmniPBR (or whichever template you selected in step 1)
Once selected you can edit the properties of the material. Add textures, adjust roughness, tint, normals, etc.
This should do everything you need but if i missed something feel free to reply and ask additional questions.
I have a tutorial viewing session scheduled for today, Edmar. Thanks for the suggestions. We are relatively sophisticated here, but we tend to be ignorant of external tools, and tend to roll-our-own in our technical ambit (we code our own algorithms in CUDA and compute Maximum Likelihood Estimates without CNNs, for instance), so trusting that external tools will make our lives easier does not come easy to us. I am excited to harness the power of PhysX and the (apparent) visualization tools embedded in Omniverse but, even there, we really need non-rigid body dynamics, so it looks like we’ll need to graft a FEM solver into the pile. :-)
Hi,
non-rigid body dynamics is supported by PhysX SDK, in Omniverse it is not ready yet, we are still working out how the USD schema will look like and what tools will be required.
Regards,
Ales
Ales,
If I understand your comment, the PhysX 5.0 SDK will support non-rigid dynamics; it’s just that the Omniverse UI isn’t integrated with the capability. That is very good news to me! We can work with that!
I apologize for not yet having taken the time to look into the PhysX SDK in depth. I am trying to orchestrate the overall shape of our development environment for the next few years. Omniverse looks very promising, but there are so many aspects to it that I cannot yet be deeply familiar with all the parts. I very much appreciate you taking the time to educate me.
My apologies, but I need more help. I am trying to get something (anything!) to show in the Create Viewport. I am, so far, unable to get anything to open visibly. In case my problem is hardware-related, I should say on this laptop I am running a GeForce GTX1070 (driver version 462.31).
When I initialize Create I receive several warnings regarding lack of raytracing support and disabling DLSS. I get three errors
[gpu.foundation] No device could be created
[omni.kit.window.viewport.plugin] Failed to initialize resource manager
[omni.kit.window.viewport.plugin] Failed to prepare GPU Foundation
Are these fatal? The output console says the system is falling back, but perhaps this is folly? The documentation is unclear. At one point it says GTX2070 is required, but at other points I read that a driver subsequent to 461.NN is sufficient. Help?
If I try to proceed in Create by loading one of my .OBJ files I am able to convert to .USD without error or warning from the system. This is good.
However, if I try to proceed in Create by loading one of the NVIDIA samples (e.g. NVIDIA/samples/marbles/assets/standalone/A_marble/A_marble.usd) I get errors of the form
This is bad. Perhaps this is a RTFM issue? If so, I think the start-up documentation ought to at least offer a way to get something on one of the Viewports.
If I copy an asset directory (e.g. samples/marbles/assets/standalone/A_marble) and then try to load a .usd file from the directory I get the same errors regarding an unknown datasource prefix ‘omniverse’ in a .png file.
If I try to open a .USD file regardless, whether one of mine or one of NVIDIA’s there is no error or warning. The Viewport remains blank. Should this fail because of my hardware? Or for another reason? I am at a loss. Having the system fail silently when I try to open something is quite frustrating.
Can anyone offer quidance? Do I need to upgrade by GPU? Or am I missing some magic incantation to get the Viewport to display something?
I believe so, though it might not meet the recommended specs
As long as its an RTX card and you have a compatible driver installed, technically it should work (though you might run out of Vram pretty fast if its under 6GB…)