fbx exporter problem

richkid

im working on some animations for a game, and i used splines as controllers and set the constraints from the bones to them. now, when fbx exports it doesnt keep the constraints, so the bones dont move.

so is there a way to either bake in the animations before i export, or a fix to this problem.

thanks

gavku

What program are you using? Maybe try using point cache?

gamedev

I'm working w/ richkid on this as well.

In Maya, there is a simple 'Bake simulation' option under Edit > Keys. This does what we need, takes the keyframes from the spline controllers and bakes them down to the bones, ready for export to the engine.

The rig is in 3ds Max and the FBX exporter won't exprt the constraints.

Does anyone know of a script that does something similar?

AFIK, point cache in 3ds Max converts animation to vertex animation so the model is no longer bone driven.

Thanks!

Eric Chadwick

Have you tried using File > Save Animation? Try checking Key Per Frame, then re-load the animation, now it should be "baked" into keyframed controller-less animation. You might need to play with Include Constraints, etc.

animeboyz

have you guys solved this problem yet? I am having the same problems as well :-(

I'm using Maya and trying to export to .fbx to get it all into an engine called Beyond Virtual. (pretty much having the same problem :-\, plus my weights aren't exporting correctly either )

gamedev

EricChadwick,

I actually looked at this today w/ no luck. I have selected the bones and helper objects (splines constrained to bones, and IK chains), did a 'Save Animation' then a 'Load Animation'. All key frames are staying on the helpers and being baked to the bones.

Am I missing something?

Thanks again!

gamedev

animeboyz - read my above post. Maya has a built in tool for this kind of stuff.

Eric Chadwick

Never used it, just thought it might be an option. Sorry.

Eric Chadwick

You know, another option might be to select all the bones, then create a keyframe on every frame. You might be able to script this fairly quickly, using the output from the Listener. You could also manually do a couple frames and test the export path just to see if the idea works.

Select all the bones, turn on Listener, rightclick on the time slider bar, make rotation/position keyframes, move to next frame. Select the Listener output, drag to a toolbar, test.

There's probably script out there that does this already.
http://www.scriptspot.com

gamedev

So, the Save Animation and Load Animation tools arent working because there isnt a 1:1 ratio. Meaning, we have IK's, helpers, etc applying animation to bones to save out, but on load, we only want to put animation on the bones and its not baking all animation info down. Since I don't have the IK and other objects selected to apply the loaded animation to (since we can't use this in engine), it just skips them and animation is missing.

I tried setting Rotation, Position, and Scale keys for each frame on all bones. No luck there either. You'd think it would simply take any and all info on the bone and put it in a key frame but it's still relying on the helpers and IK.

Yuck.

animatr

good ole google:

http://www.christopher-thomas.net/pages/...ra_transfer.htm

scoll down or do a ctrl F to find bake animation. there is a link in there for a script. looks like it should definitely work since it's asking you to pick the node to bake, then the node to bake onto.

Eric Chadwick

Ooooh, nice find!

gamedev

[ QUOTE ]
good ole google:

http://www.christopher-thomas.net/pages/...ra_transfer.htm

scoll down or do a ctrl F to find bake animation. there is a link in there for a script. looks like it should definitely work since it's asking you to pick the node to bake, then the node to bake onto.

[/ QUOTE ]

We looked at this a while back. The script is far too tedious for a full rig. We did however find a more complete script and are now just ironing out the bugs to get what we want. This has proved to be a nightmare w/ 3ds max.

I'm really baffled as well, as to why simply keying every frame w/ all bones selected didn't work.

Thanks for the ideas!

Eric Chadwick

Might not help, but one thing we got to work in our own Max exporter was the ability to export any skeleton, no matter what controllers were used or how many keyframes, just by making sure the bones are linked in a regular forward hierarchy.

The controllers can subvert this, at the controller level, for particular needs, but in the end the regular hierarchy is a key requirement to rebuild the skeleton on export.

gamedev

[ QUOTE ]
Might not help, but one thing we got to work in our own Max exporter was the ability to export any skeleton, no matter what controllers were used or how many keyframes, just by making sure the bones are linked in a regular forward hierarchy.

The controllers can subvert this, at the controller level, for particular needs, but in the end the regular hierarchy is a key requirement to rebuild the skeleton on export.

[/ QUOTE ]

this was actually one of the issues we're trying to solve now. The current script does a great job of baking any and all animation down to a duplicate rig. However, the bones are not linked in a hierarchy thus on export it all breaks.

Thanks for the heads up!

I really can't understand how others haven't had this issue. Studios just all write custom tools? They use Maya?

Eric Chadwick

We only use Max So far at least. Support is planned for Maya, etc. in the future.