When I export any of the default UE4 SK Mannequin animations to Maya or MotionBuilder the arms and joints are dislocated. How do I fix that? I have asked on Answerhub as well.
Here is exact step by step of the problem
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]1) Add AnimStarterPack to your Project
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]2) Navigate to the AnimStarterPack and double click Rifle_Reload_Hip
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]3) In the Skeleton Tree, enable “Show Advanced Options”
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]4) Note that Root and Pelvis are set to Animation, everything else is set to Skeleton", ignore the settings for the extra IK controls for now (e.g. Ik_foot_root, etc)
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]5) Find the Asset Browser in this window, to your right, select “Reload_Rifle_Hip” - not in the Content Browser, inside the Asset Browser.
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]6)Right-Click and select “Export to FBX”
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]7)When asked if you would like to export the current skeletal mesh with the animations, click yes.
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]8)Load into the 3D Application of your choice (I´m using and MotionBuilder to test this, anything from 2014-2016 will do)
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]9)Inside your 3D package, note that the skeletal mesh looks off, squashed arms, twist bones way off, ball joints off.
[FONT=Helvetica Neue]How do I fix this?
Well for MotionBuilder you need to export or have access to Epics default rig in either the A-pose position or T-Pose depending which version the animations are authored in.
You can then do a file > motion file import on the root of the loaded rig of any animations exported from UE4
Looks like its due to the animation having weird locations for the twist joints. If you check the skinning in Maya you can see that the twist joints have skin weights applied, and since those joints in the animation are not located on top of the clavicle joints as it is in the A-pose, then several of the joints gets dislocated.
The reason it looks ok in ue4 is because the animation has been retargeted (check you advanced settings).
Now one quick’n dirty workaround for this, is to record your animation in ue4. That will create a version of the animation, that you can then export to whatever app you like. I have a video somewhere on youtube showing this process if you still need to see the workflow. Just let me know and i’ll see if i can find that link. Otherwise i hope that made sense.
If so I need to thank you for all the videos you have on motionbuilder and ue4.
I have recently found your videos and have been watching a lot of them.
And yes the recording worked for me but I was hoping there was a clean way of exporting the animation.
I exported the character and animation from the ue4 shootergame and all is good.
I was hoping some ue4 guy would post and say click this and it will fix it lol
I wonder if the ue4 folks intended there animations to be like that , or did they do something wrong?
looked into this a bit and see that the mannequin in 4.10 may be part of the problem. He’s got a bunch of questions for you, but it’s hard to track bugs from here, so can you make an answerhub bug report for this? I’ll assign it over to him so he can follow up with you.
I know it is a relatively old thread, but this post has somewhat solved the issue. It is absolutely due to retargeted animations.
I simply went into the animation as, hit the little red record button, chose save location, recorded then stopped recording immediately. Exported the animation, imported to Maya, and voila, no problemo.
Hi MountainDew, great video on how you fixed it. Great find! And i also hope they fix it. Im sure for some people it’s quick to do what you just did, but for a lot of users, this causes so much confusion and frustration. Thanks again for sharing this!
Oh and yes, aloneball was my gamer tag which i used in the beginning, so yes, those old videos were my first big series of videos
Thanks Jonas, I appreciate your comments. It seems so easy now that I pointed it out, and Im shocked I over looked this for so long but when it could have been one of 1000 different things it seems impossible to figure out, but so easy now Thats cool about your youtube, good stuff.
