FBX Issue Inside Unity3D

Bartalon

I just noticed an issue with imported Skinned Mesh Renderer objects in Unity3D. All of the meshes' pivot points default to 0,0,0 (origin) despite the pivot points being properly set inside Maya.

This problem ONLY happens if the object is a Skinned Mesh Renderer. If I export an FBX of just the mesh objects, the pivot points in Unity are in the proper location.

I also tried re-exporting my skinned model from Max and the pivots are positioned properly, which pretty much narrows the problem down to the Maya export. I've tried a bunch of different settings for the FBX and even matched the export settings to Max, but nothing seems to work.

Has anyone encountered this problem before or know exactly what the issue is?

Here are my FBX export settings for Maya, which doesn't seem to work, and Max, which worked:



Thanks in advance.

AlecMoody

Based on the description this sounds unlikely but have you checked the pivot settings in unity?

Also, what happens if you load your incorrect pivot file into 3dsmax? Is the pivot still wrong?

Bartalon

Yeah we checked that; it's not an issue with the Pivot/Center toggle. Pivots are in the correct position in Unity if exported from Max but are at origin when exported from Maya. We can't just use the Center setting either because transformation data is based on the pivot point stored in the FBX so objects won't rotate properly.

Bartalon

AlecMoody wrote: »

Also, what happens if you load your incorrect pivot file into 3dsmax? Is the pivot still wrong?

If I take the FBX from the Unity project folder and import it back into Max/Maya, the pivot points are in the proper locations, which is why I don't understand the problem I'm getting.

AlecMoody

what version of maya? if you want you can send me an fbx and I will re-export from maya 2013 and 2012 and see if it does it with both of them.

alecmoody@gmail.com

Bartalon

Thanks for the offer but unfortunately I'm not allowed to share these specific files. However, I think I solved my problem! You might be able to test the issue yourself on your own model if you're curious (I'd be interested to know whether it's an isolated issue). I'm using Max/Maya 2013 by the way.

The difference between Max & Maya is that Max sets an object's translation data to world space on export while Maya keeps whatever is in the channel box. The issue was caused by freezing transformations in Maya, so even though an object was at, say, 50, 10, 50 world space, Maya's channel box would read 0,0,0. I guess that relationship has something to do with Skinned Mesh Renderers in Unity.

After resetting the object positions and making sure the channel box reflected their world space coordinates (and re-skinning the meshes), everything imported just fine into Unity.