When animating, having the environment in the background is often useful. Rumba v1.0 handles alembic files, so you can export your set from your favorite 3D modeling software and import it directly into Rumba via the Referencing system (File -> Reference Node).
However, since alembic files are not meant to transfer your shading information from one software to another, your imported set will have the default gray shader. This won’t be a problem anymore when Rumba introduces its USD support.
In the meantime, you can still export sets with basic shading and textures using the mtorba plugin for Maya. For that, you will need to have Autodesk® Maya® and Rumba installed.
First, to prepare your set for export, make sure the geometries composing your set are in the same group and that it is the only group present in your scene.
Then, make sure all the geometries have either a lambert or a blinn material associated with them. Note that you can have multiple materials assigned to one model, as long as they are associated with different face sets. You can also have a File node controlling the colors, but avoid ramps, as it is not a node that is transferable (see the list of supported nodes here).
For your images, the relative paths are resolved and written as absolute paths, meaning that if you change computer and your images are in a different path, they will not be loaded.
So now that you have your basic shading prepared (with or without textures), all you need to do is click on the Export to Rumba button and select where you want to save your file.
Now, you can open Rumba, create a new animation or load an existing one, click on File -> Reference Node and load your exported rumbanode file.
Happy animation!