Publish apex animation

[MustafaJafar]

Changelog Description

This PR is for publishing animation data from packed APEX assets. it was built on top of #371

• Add animation creator
• Add APEX animation validator

A word on APEX Animation

Typically, this PR allows publishing the animation data only so that we can apply them later in different scenes instead of republishing the whole rig asset again OR publishing baked animation.

As long as artists are using APEX Scene Copy Animation node, then everything will be cool.

However, when they add a scene animate node, as soon as they go through animation mode in the scene view, the node will stash the animation data. which means the copy animation nodes can be removed and the animation will just be persistent. this is a result of Houdini using stashing. and, in this sense, I'm afraid loading different animations won't have any effect. and it can be confusing for artists. and this is something not related to AYON/saving animation data as Bgeo.

Additional review information

I made this PR while exploring APEX and AYON, mainly in #366 .
Then to make things cleaner, any needed fixes for publishing APEX were moved to #371 as well as the original requirement for AYON APEX Rigging USD workflow while moving the animation part to this PR.

Demo

Turret Example AYON APEX Workflow.zip

2026-03-04.14-03-56.mp4

Testing notes:

1. Add characters and props
2. Create APEX Animation
3. Publish

Resolve #365

[moonyuet]

EDIT: ignore me my previous comment. Maybe it is more explicit to use tuple instead of list like (node, error) instead of [node, error]?

[MustafaJafar]

Tbh, I don't know I just followed what we already have in

ayon-houdini/client/ayon_houdini/plugins/publish/validate_vdb_output_node.py

Line 130 in d5f849f

return [None, None]

[moonyuet]

I believe it does the same thing?

Suggested change

	if cls.get_invalid(instance) != [output_node]:
	if output_node not in cls.get_invalid(instance):

[MustafaJafar]

It does the same thing I believe.
I picked this way, because this is always a list with one item.
Also, it's the same as here

ayon-houdini/client/ayon_houdini/plugins/publish/validate_primitive_hierarchy_paths.py

Line 147 in d5f849f

if cls.get_invalid(instance) != [output_node]:

[moonyuet]

I published animation successfully. Enclosed with the publish report.

publish-report-260417-17-10.json

Maybe for separate issue. When I tested with the validator(by bypassing the packed folder), it blocks the validation for sure with the sop_node validator. But if I hit select invalid It would give the error below

Action: SelectInvalidAction (094d16b0-5f55-4fff-88bf-a9ff5018a32b)

Error: Action failed.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "D:\ayon-addon_template\ayon-houdini\client\ayon_houdini\plugins\publish\validate_sop_output_node.py", line 80, in get_invalid
    output_node.cook()
  File "C:\PROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.512/houdini/python3.11libs\hou.py", line 19175, in cook
    return _hou.OpNode_cook(self, *args, **kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
hou.OperationFailed: The attempted operation failed.
Error while cooking.

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Kayla\AppData\Local\Ynput\AYON\dependency_packages\ayon_2603121036_windows.zip\dependencies\pyblish\plugin.py", line 528, in __explicit_process
    runner(*args)
  File "D:\ayon-addon_template\ayon-houdini\client\ayon_houdini\api\action.py", line 30, in process
    invalid_nodes = plugin.get_invalid(instance)
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "D:\ayon-addon_template\ayon-houdini\client\ayon_houdini\plugins\publish\validate_sop_output_node.py", line 82, in get_invalid
    raise PublishValidationError(
ayon_core.pipeline.publish.publish_plugins.PublishValidationError: Failed to cook node: /obj/apex_rig/turret_asset.