Keyframe animations for objects

Hi,

How can I import a group of objects with keyframe animations? let´s say I have a mecanical model with several parts animated, how would I import that into Unreal Engine to be playable? As far as I know the only way is to attach an object with a bone to have animation but if I have 50 animated objects on my 3D scene is going to be a pain in the *** to add 50 bones for each one just to make it work.

I have special interest in a workflow for Blender but any tip is always welcome.

Thanks.

I doubt it can be done. Or done easily anyways.

Edit: So I’m wrong xD epic impress me again with their updates

Yes, you can animate objects like normal and import them as a single skeletal mesh, just make sure that they all have a common root object–like you can link them all to a dummy object and animate them. When you import, make sure to check the box for Rigid Bodies.

You can import objects like this into UE4 by simply checking the “Import Rigid Mesh” option under the FBX Import Options, Advanced section. Be sure you have Skeletal Mesh selected on the FBX import screen. This will create a rigid weighted bone per object and maintain the hierarchy. It will use the object’s pivot for the bone location.

You will need to make sure all objects are nested under one parent.

Hope this helps!

Jay Hosfelt
Lead Animator
Epic Games
@HosFross

I´m breaking my head trying to find out a way to make it work in Blender but I cannot. Here´s a link with the files I´m using in case someone could have a look:

It´s a very simple example of translation, rotation and scaling but I cannot make it work in Unreal. Any Blender users here that can show me what settings I need for both packages to make it work?

Thanks in advance.

Tried dloading it and looking at it for you… I use max on import the fbx all im seeing is 3 cubes and a dummy object… Is this correct? and there’s no animation there… If thats now what im supposed to be seeing there may be an issue there…

Hi lordevilpoptart,

Thanks for testing the file for me. That file has 3 cubes , each cube has a different animation, one cube translates, another one rotates and the last one scales. If you open the blend file (the original file) you will see clearly, the problem is how to export from Blender into UE and how to import the file in UE. I tried different combinations of settings but I never got anything close to the original file.

ya i dont have blender so i tired the fbx into max and got some errors and no animation… do you have the newest fbx exporter for blender?