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

[Lina Halper]

>> Yes, I think this could help.

I’ll add this to the list.

>>However, issue with not importing at all Null node would be that, since it has all Blender's armature transform/object-level-anim, this would be lost in UE4.

Yes that would be problem. We can probably reconstruct their transform in that new space, but when you import back to your blender, it will be lost.

>> Don't you support at all parenting of bones' hierarchy?

Do you mean an object that all bone is based on? We used to have some transform data built in the mesh that we could have used it for this case in UE3, but we found that data was a lot confusing and also was very hacky, so removed it.

I think one solution for this particular issue with root motion is that we’re going to support extracting root motion from any bone transform.
This is still months away, but eventually you should be able to extract root track from any bone, which can solve this problem. I think we can make this to be import option as well.

Meanwhile, I’ll add the option to the list, so that it ignores null node bone when importing. Hopefully that will be temporary workaround until root motion is supported better.

Thanks,

--Lina,


From: bf-gamedev-bounces at blender.org [mailto:bf-gamedev-bounces at blender.org] On Behalf Of Bastien Montagne
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 1:46 PM
To: bf-gamedev at blender.org
Subject: Re: [Bf-gamedev] FBX Exporter to UE4 and Root Motion

Hi Lina,

Yes, I think this could help.

Indeed, in our WIP FBX branch, I just added support to import FBX bones hierarchy when they do not have a root 'Null' model. This is still rather experimental (and not easy/nice in code, since we have to create two different things out of a single FBX node), but it seems to work from a few basic tests, needs more though.

However, issue with not importing at all Null node would be that, since it has all Blender's armature transform/object-level-anim, this would be lost in UE4. Don't you support at all parenting of bones' hierarchy?

(I realize ways how armatures/skeletons are handled differ quite drastically between applications, which makes their exchange especially complex :/ ).

Bastien
Le 07/07/2014 19:37, Lina Halper a écrit :
Hello,

>> 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.


We import empty node as a bone, but I think we can support that as an option, would that help this case?
We have an option of “bImportMeshesInBoneHierarchy”, which specifies if you’d like to import mesh as a part of bone hierarchy, but along with that, we can have an option to “bImportNullNodeInBoneHierarchy”. If you have it off, we won’t import null node.

However, exporting would be problem if we do. Since we don’t have that info, it won’t export, but I suppose Blender will create Amateur if it doesn’t exist on root?

Thanks,

--Lina,


From: bf-gamedev-bounces at blender.org<mailto:bf-gamedev-bounces at blender.org> [mailto:bf-gamedev-bounces at blender.org] On Behalf Of Bastien Montagne
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2014 10:28 AM
To: bf-gamedev at blender.org<mailto:bf-gamedev at blender.org>
Subject: Re: [Bf-gamedev] FBX Exporter to UE4 and Root Motion

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 écrit :
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/ )

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/

[Atajrubah Facebook page]
https://www.facebook.com/Atajrubah





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