Plugin to export .FBX from Maya with animation "takes"?
Hey guys!
So I'm working as a tech artist on a student team creating a 3D game written in XNA/C#, and right now I'm trying to set up an import pipeline for our artists.
Now, here's the thing: I'm trying to use the pre-supplied XNA .fbx skinned model importer as a jumping-off point ( http://creators.xna.com/en-US/sample/skinnedmodel ), but it parses animation in terms of FBX "takes" only -- and only Motionbuilder seems to make it easy to add separate takes; Maya's FBX exporter (and everyone else's too) just shoves everything into one take.
The problem is, since this is a student project, a lot of our artists don't own and have never used Motionbuilder, and I'm trying to keep the pipeline as simple as possible for them -- which means that I can't force them to learn Motionbuilder and have them split their animations into separate takes.
So, what I'm looking for, and what I'm hoping you guys might know more about than Google, is one of the following things:
-A Maya .FBX export plugin where you specify frame numbers and it splits those up into separate takes for you
-A code sample for XNA .FBX import where you pass in a .XML (or whatever format) file with frame numbers and uses that to create multiple animation clips
Or, really, please suggest anything that can solve this issue that doesn't involve me trying to force Motionbuilder on the artists (or, worse yet, having to go into Motionbuilder to split every single animated asset I get myself). If none of you guys have heard of any solution to this, I might just end up writing my own Maya plugin to add takes to FBX exports and put it up here if there's enough interest.
Thanks for your time!
So I'm working as a tech artist on a student team creating a 3D game written in XNA/C#, and right now I'm trying to set up an import pipeline for our artists.
Now, here's the thing: I'm trying to use the pre-supplied XNA .fbx skinned model importer as a jumping-off point ( http://creators.xna.com/en-US/sample/skinnedmodel ), but it parses animation in terms of FBX "takes" only -- and only Motionbuilder seems to make it easy to add separate takes; Maya's FBX exporter (and everyone else's too) just shoves everything into one take.
The problem is, since this is a student project, a lot of our artists don't own and have never used Motionbuilder, and I'm trying to keep the pipeline as simple as possible for them -- which means that I can't force them to learn Motionbuilder and have them split their animations into separate takes.
So, what I'm looking for, and what I'm hoping you guys might know more about than Google, is one of the following things:
-A Maya .FBX export plugin where you specify frame numbers and it splits those up into separate takes for you
-A code sample for XNA .FBX import where you pass in a .XML (or whatever format) file with frame numbers and uses that to create multiple animation clips
Or, really, please suggest anything that can solve this issue that doesn't involve me trying to force Motionbuilder on the artists (or, worse yet, having to go into Motionbuilder to split every single animated asset I get myself). If none of you guys have heard of any solution to this, I might just end up writing my own Maya plugin to add takes to FBX exports and put it up here if there's enough interest.
Thanks for your time!