If by helpers you mean Dummy or Point Objects, then yes; Unity import animation from helpers. If by helpers you mean something else, then the answer is still probably yes. If you can export it from 3ds Max and re-import it, then more than likely Unity will import it as well.
I don't know what you mean by collapse. Do you mean bake the keys from the Position/Rotation/Scale controllers? Or do you mean collapse the modifier stack? Neither type of collapse should be necessary.
The only thing I noticed is that you can't use modifiers from max, something like stretch and push stuff. Looks cool on viewport but Unity can't understand them. There's still a tool/plugin to solve this, though.
On the other hand, you can export helpers and also IK Animations, as long as you bake the animations to FK ones, as that's the only ones Unity understand. (Notice: This is based on my tries and on the 3.5 version, things might have changed on version 4 with mecanim.)
It still won't import IK animation - you'll need to bake it on export.
With Mecanim it'll find and bind the bones of a (roughly) human skeleton and then let you perform IK on those in-game (although I think the IK might be a Pro-only thing? I've not played with Mecanim yet).
Replies
I don't know what you mean by collapse. Do you mean bake the keys from the Position/Rotation/Scale controllers? Or do you mean collapse the modifier stack? Neither type of collapse should be necessary.
I am a noob at unity and I don't know all of its capabilities.
On the other hand, you can export helpers and also IK Animations, as long as you bake the animations to FK ones, as that's the only ones Unity understand. (Notice: This is based on my tries and on the 3.5 version, things might have changed on version 4 with mecanim.)
With Mecanim it'll find and bind the bones of a (roughly) human skeleton and then let you perform IK on those in-game (although I think the IK might be a Pro-only thing? I've not played with Mecanim yet).