Hey folks,

we are proud to announce the new FEDG File Format. FEDG stands for “Fabric Engine Dependency Graph” and can be used to save / load complete Fabric Engine based applications or parts of applications to / from a file in Python and C++. FEDG also exposes input and output channels of applications. Input channels represent the parameters and data driving the application, while output channel represent the results of the computation (if any). FEDG stores:

• Version Information
• Registered Types definitions as well as source code
• DGOperators with source code
• DGEvents
• DGEventHandlers
• DGNodes
• All members on all core containers
• Member data for non-array members
• DGEvent connections
• DGEventHandler connections
• DGEventHandler scopes
• DGNode dependencies
• Input channels
• Output channels

FEDG files contain just standard JSON, so they can be inspected and authored using any JSON capable editor. You can find a nice and free tool to inspect JSON files here: http://jsonviewer.codeplex.com/

Creation Platform starting at version 1.0.30 will ship with a FEDG Parser for Python as well as C++. The libraries allow to create portable applications and move application logic between Python and C++, as well as all supported platforms including Linux, Windows and Mac. The FEDG Parser for C++ is implemented purely using our new CAPI (please find more information about CAPI here).

The FEDG file format is a fully working persistence scheme, but you may also use the C++ and Python FEDGParser as a source code sample to build your own persistence, if that applies.

Here’s a video utilizing FEDG to implement a procedural tree generator within Creation Platform in Python as well as C++ inside of Autodesk Softimage, Maya and SolidAngle’s Arnold renderer. Please visit our Vimeo group for more videos showing the FEDG file format in action.

We are very excited about this unique and new way of persisting portable applications, and we are looking forward to your feedback!

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