[Bf-gamedev] FBX Exporter to UE4 and Root Motion

Fri Jul 4 17:21:39 CEST 2014

Hi there Bastien.

> That?s the second time this issues shows up with UE4? So I guess I?ll
> have to provide an option not to export that armature parent inFBX
> (which means I?ll also have to bake armature animation into each root
> bones :/).
I'm terribly sorry for the trouble(something the guys who developed fbx 
haven't said though I'm sure ;) ), it would be awesome if that's 
remotely possible :)

> Note that armature is **not** added as an additional root bone, though,
> but as an 'empty' (Null FBX Model type), which implies usual
> object-parenting relationship. Unity seems to support this rather
> nicely, while UE4 fails at it.
Thank you for clarifying this for me. The while asset import pipeline is 
something that I miss about Unity, being able to access everything 
simply by including the folder is something that UE4 could do with. 
Granted asset import and handling has improved dramatically since the 
UDK days.

> Also implies I?ll have to update my import armature code, to handle
> cases were bones have no root 'Null' object (wonder how to distinguish
> armatures then, probably just assuming each root bone makes an armature.).
FBX sounds crazy painful to work on. Wasn't there a big hooha about 
Alembic  some time ago? I've been out of the vfx loop for a while , the 
last I heard someone was talking about possibly getting it integrated 
into blender.(though I may be mistaken).

Jason - I feel your pain man , having grown up in Africa and currently living in the Middle East I've had my fair share of heat exhaustion. Its Friday now however :) I must apologize for the delay in replying though , I've been bogged down implementing features in the game. I'm a bit prison campish with myself when it comes to getting work done :3

On 2014/07/02 06:27 PM, bf-gamedev-request at blender.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
>     1. FBX Exporter to UE4 and Root Motion (Alan Robinson)
>     2. Re: FBX Exporter to UE4 and Root Motion (Bastien Montagne)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 17:57:39 +0400
> From: Alan Robinson <alanwilliamrobinson at nexymedia.com>
> Subject: [Bf-gamedev] FBX Exporter to UE4 and Root Motion
> To: bf-gamedev at blender.org
> Message-ID: <53B40FD3.9050801 at nexymedia.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hey there folks,
>
> I'm developing a game called "Atajrubah" , using Unreal Engine 4 and
> Blender for modelling,rigging and animation. Part of the technical setup
> is implementing root motion in our characters. I've been working with
> Jeremy (he worked on Sintel and Tears of Steel previously) and he's
> really on the ball with his rig and a great animator.
>
> We've got everything parented to a root bone but the fbx exporter keeps
> adding the rig object as an additional static bone, killing the motion
> of the root bone we've set up. UE4 doesn't have the option of selecting
> which bone that you want to inherit root motion from, so it defaults to
> the first bone in the hierarchy.
>
> I've been wrestling with the FBX exporter for a while now and have tried
> redbeard's solution , trying to stop the exporter from exporting the rig
> object as an additional parent bone. However the script fails to export
> with the modifications that I've made (granted that my experience is
> with c++ and the UE4 code base , so no surprise there I guess ).
>
> *[Redbeard's exporter work around]*
> (http://krisredbeard.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/blender-baking-fbxexport/
> <http://krisredbeard.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/blender-baking-fbxexport/>)
>
> ideasman42 from the IRC channel recommended I get in touch with mont29
> for further support. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated :)
>
> You can find more information about the game at the links below, please
> do let me know your thoughts on this.
>
> - MrNexy
>
> *[Atajrubah IndieDB page]*
> http://www.indiedb.com/games/atajrubah/
> <http://www.indiedb.com/games/atajrubah/>
>
> *[Atajrubah Facebook page]*
> https://www.facebook.com/Atajrubah <https://www.facebook.com/Atajrubah>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 16:27:45 +0200
> From: Bastien Montagne <montagne29 at wanadoo.fr>
> Subject: Re: [Bf-gamedev] FBX Exporter to UE4 and Root Motion
> To: bf-gamedev at blender.org
> Message-ID: <53B416E1.3020309 at wanadoo.fr>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hi Alan,
>
> That?s the second time this issues shows up with UE4? So I guess I?ll
> have to provide an option not to export that armature parent inFBX
> (which means I?ll also have to bake armature animation into each root
> bones :/).
>
> Note that armature is **not** added as an additional root bone, though,
> but as an 'empty' (Null FBX Model type), which implies usual
> object-parenting relationship. Unity seems to support this rather
> nicely, while UE4 fails at it.
>
> Also implies I?ll have to update my import armature code, to handle
> cases were bones have no root 'Null' object (wonder how to distinguish
> armatures then, probably just assuming each root bone makes an armature.).
>
> Le 02/07/2014 15:57, Alan Robinson a ?crit :
>> Hey there folks,
>>
>> I'm developing a game called "Atajrubah" , using Unreal Engine 4 and
>> Blender for modelling,rigging and animation. Part of the technical
>> setup is implementing root motion in our characters. I've been working
>> with Jeremy (he worked on Sintel and Tears of Steel previously) and
>> he's really on the ball with his rig and a great animator.
>>
>> We've got everything parented to a root bone but the fbx exporter
>> keeps adding the rig object as an additional static bone, killing the
>> motion of the root bone we've set up. UE4 doesn't have the option of
>> selecting which bone that you want to inherit root motion from, so it
>> defaults to the first bone in the hierarchy.
>>
>> I've been wrestling with the FBX exporter for a while now and have
>> tried redbeard's solution , trying to stop the exporter from exporting
>> the rig object as an additional parent bone. However the script fails
>> to export with the modifications that I've made (granted that my
>> experience is with c++ and the UE4 code base , so no surprise there I
>> guess ).
>>
>> *[Redbeard's exporter work around]*
>> (http://krisredbeard.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/blender-baking-fbxexport/ <http://krisredbeard.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/blender-baking-fbxexport/>)
>>
>> ideasman42 from the IRC channel recommended I get in touch with mont29
>> for further support. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated :)
>>
>> You can find more information about the game at the links below,
>> please do let me know your thoughts on this.
>>
>> - MrNexy
>>
>> *[Atajrubah IndieDB page]*
>> http://www.indiedb.com/games/atajrubah/
>> <http://www.indiedb.com/games/atajrubah/>
>>
>> *[Atajrubah Facebook page]*
>> https://www.facebook.com/Atajrubah <https://www.facebook.com/Atajrubah>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bf-gamedev mailing list
>> Bf-gamedev at blender.org
>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-gamedev
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