Hello again
Thank you so much again for taking the time to clearly explain to me what is going on with the model and rig pose. The reason why we wanted to be able to rig our character in the model pose was to match the rig-pose of another character (which is not in T-pose and has a different skeleton) in order to better re-target the animations in UE4. It’s a little bit of a weird situation, but another way of going about this was to do just as you suggested, is to just manually re-pose the character to the pose we want it to be in after we build the controls. Definitely not a huge deal, but it sure helps to know the reasoning behind it! I will now stop bothering you with my questions!! 
Yeah, I would definitely avoid a reinstall for as long as possible. That’s never fun
Have you tried backing up your prefs folder, and deleting it to let maya recreate it with defaults? Just wondering if there is something else you may have going on that is conflicting or causing issues.
Let me know what else I can do to help you out.
No worries at all! Feel free to ask questions any time. I’ll do my best to reply in a timely fashion
So, you might be able to retarget these anims using UE4’s re targeting tool, and then export out the new FBXs from the engine, if you don’t have access to a tool like Motion Builder.
Which character are you trying to retarget to and from? I might be able to whip up a script to help you.
Thanks!
it is located in the proper scripts folder(not the 2014/2015 ones) but like i said it wont load up the toolkit for 2015 should i try replacing it with a possible more recent version since it was using the one from 4.3 and now its 4.6? Also is there a way to use the rigs without having to use the unreal interface like switching between IK/FK etc?
Never mind about not getting it to work i went and looked back at the installation instructions and i was setting the folder to the wrong scripts folder. I was setting it to the actual maya scripts folder instead of the folder located in the unreal engine folder.
Im now getting fatal errors when doing the skeleton setup whenever i add leafs or any other kind of extension joint. doesn’t happen when i just build a skeleton normally without them.
Hey , I will be replying to you through your epic email, as I think my situation is too specific for the forums.
Crashes straight to desktop I take it? Those are the worst, because they provide no information at all. That’s an odd place for it to crash given it’s just a UI action. Do you have the latest from the Dropbox (apologies if you’ve already answered that).
Aside from that, I might have to take a look at this over a google hangout or something since I cannot reproduce it.
I get a Maya fatal error then is closes i’ll try to reproduce it and give you the mel lines that come up, and yes i did get the latest from dropbox.
update it’s not the leaf joints that do it i’m trying to add a single toe joint on both feet thats what is making it crash.
update it seems to just be adding toe joints that is causing the crash, at least when only adding 1 toe joint. i even did it fro all toes incase there was just some kind of problem adding just 1 toe joint so its the toes.
Update confirmed it is indeed added toe joints no matter the amount that is giving me the fatal error.
Update it is only in the right leg when adding toe joints that the fatal error occurs. The left leg is unaffected when adding toe joints and not adding anything on the right leg.
New update, it seems its only a bug that happens on my machine, as i did the same process on another machine and it worked fine so it seems to be an isolated incident. Annoying as that is.
Success! I’m guessing that one of the plugins I’ve been exploring did some damage in the prefs folder. Thanks much!
Using file -type “mayaAscii”; will allow you to save if you desire to work in an ascii format. You will get the annoying pop-up when ever opening the file warning about unknown nodes. Which nodes are the unregistered node?
At this point in my ART learning I’ve got two questions / issues that are causing some difficulty. If anyone can shed some light I’d be very grateful.
Now that my prefs have been reset and ART is working again beyond the thumbnail camera feature - I’m finding it impossible to create an ART skeleton with less than three spine joints. Type in ‘2’ and it is replaced by 3. This happens if I start with a fresh skeleton or a saved skeleton configuration.
I’m also wondering how to get my ART skeletons into UE4. This may be more of a problem with my skeleton configurations or the UE4 FBX import process than ART. In general my ART skeletons are very basic bipeds. No twist joints, 1 neck joint, 2 or 3 spine joints, no toes but do have toe base / ball joints.
There can be zero or more keys / animation frames in the FBX I’m importing. Orientation can be Z up and Y- forward or not. The FBX can actually contain the HeroTPP skeleton, or an ART skeleton or something from Fuse.
I start the import from the Content Browser and get this FBX import options dialog that displays a confusing refresh / paint problem in the window behind the dialog. Seems like this dialog is some strange System Modal effort that will cause other apps like Internet Explorer 11 to not refresh if they are directly behind the Import Options dialog. Simply expand and contract some of the sections on this dialog to cause it to grow and shrink to see the problems. Anything that creates the impression of there being multiple action / cancel buttons is rather annoying.
Notice that the importer has detected a skeletal mesh and is giving me the option to import animation. If I wanted UE4 to create a new skeleton I’m supposed to leave the skeleton set to NONE. But notice that this won’t actually work because the IMPORT buttons (two buttons and six ghost buttons) are disabled. There are also several options missing under the Mesh section.
Attempting to resolve this issue, I’ve also installed the latest 4.7 preview. But I get the exact same behavior. I’m running Windows 7 with all the latest patches.
Did you try opening the FBX in Maya to see if everything is in order? It sounds like the file doesn’t contain any mesh data, which UE4 interprets as animation only. If that’s indeed the case, make sure your mesh doesn’t have any history (except the skinCluster and tweaks) when you export it from Maya, otherwise the FXB exporter won’t be able to handle it.
Opening the FBX in Maya shows the mesh to be missing. History was deleted prior to export and I’ve tried eliminating all skin bindings that have joint influences set to 1 since that seems to be the way rigid binding is established in Maya 2015. So everything is smooth bindings.
The ART export screen doesn’t present any export options. Is this export using a set of canned parameters or would it be using any of the options selected on a previous ‘manual’ export from the Maya File menu? If so then maybe I have something set wrong but I’ve yet to find it. The only warning I get on export is about the Joint Mover.
It’s using a combination of both, as far as I can tell. I would try exporting your character manually to narrow down the problem. Just make sure you’re using the export file and that you have selected both root joint and mesh. 
These settings should work: FBX Skeletal Mesh Pipeline in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.3 Documentation
And while I’m here, a few questions of my own:
1. I create my animations in Maya with 60 FPS and would like to export them with 60 FPS. However, when I choose the 60 FPS setting in the “Export Motion” window, the exporter uses double of what I set as frame range.
For example: I have an animation that’s 40 frames long at 60 FPS. When I export it with the frame range set to “0 to 39” and FPS set to 60, it exports 0 to 78 instead. When I set it to 30 FPS, the exporter sets the timeline to 19.5 but seems to export the whole animation with a key on every other frame. So I end up with an animation that’s once again 78 frames long but only has 39 keyframes.
The workaround I’m currently using is setting the frame range to half of what I want to export and then use the 60 FPS option, but that means I can’t use odd numbers. Am I doing something wrong or is it a bug in the exporter?
2. For some reason I can’t use most of the animation tool features anymore like the IK/FK switches, the pose editor, reset rig to default, et cetera. I’m getting the following error:
# Error: ValueError: file C:/Google Drive/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_animationUI.py line 6317: No object matches name: :ik_upperarm_fk_matcher_l #
or
*# Error: RuntimeError: file C:/Google Drive/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_animationUI.py line 5124: setAttr: No object matches name: :Rig_Settings.lFkArmOrient # *
I’m also getting cycle warnings when I try to change the arms’ orientation space and the settings don’t seem to have any effect:
*# Warning: Cycle on ‘fk_orient_world_loc_l_parentConstraint1.target[0].targetRotate’ may not evaluate as expected. (Use ‘cycleCheck -e off’ to disable this warning.) # *
I recently had to format my PC and reinstall Maya, but even with a clean installation and the latest toolset from your dropbox, the problem persists.
3. The exporter doesn’t allow me to select weapons. According to the documentation they should show up in the dropdown list as long as they have a namespace, which they do.
4. Even with those issues your tools already saved me a huge amount of time, so thanks a lot for all your work! 
I’m wondering if FK Space switching is working as intended on neck and head.
If I set an arm to FK and World Space and rotate the character using offset_anim then the hand stays put in world space. When rotating master_anim the entire character rotates as one piece. So this is working exactly like I’d hope / expect.
The head and neck, however, fail to hold on to world space when offset_anim is moved.
Ideally the head and neck would utilize rotation limits, a stickiness and snap factor to keep the head from twisting too far and killing the character. As character rotation continues the head would reverse rotation and snap to the other extreme when that would put it closer to target.
Some possible ART issues:
- When I Edit Existing Character and select Export File a path on 's machine appears in the script output:
dataStructure -fmt “raw” -as “name=externalContentTable:string=node:string=key:string=upath:uint32=upathcrc:string=rpath:string=roles”;
// Result: externalContentTable //
applyMetadata -fmt “raw” …] "D:/Build/usr//MayaTools/General/Icons/ART/jointMover.tga" 4220072941 "" "sourceImages"
endStream
endChannel
endAssociations
" -scn;
-
fk_clavicle_x_anim_grp with Visibility = ON - control won’t hide with the rig’s Toggle Visibility button (eyeball)
-
CV Scale buttons - when an fk control curve is selected on neck, arm, etc – any attempt to enlarge the control will also move it. Seems to have no effect on finger FK curves
-
The red arrow SETS button above the ? causes the CV Scale dialog to appear
-
Pose Editor:
Seems like it fails to save partial poses because selection drops when the thumbnail framing window is clicked on. I click on this window to allow my SpaceNavigator to control the camera, which drops the selection choices. It is rather odd that the selection list isn’t recorded immediately when the Save Pose (Selection) button is pressed on the main Pose Editor window. The work around is to frame up the camera shot in the Save Pose window - then select the animation controls that should be in your saved partial pose. If necessary, drop the current transformation tool to avoid having manipulators appear in the thumbnail. Only then are you ready to press Save Pose.
Hope some of this is useful.
Thanks Efrye. Finally discovered a variety of problems causing export trouble.
In the export options, Preserve References was ON.
Unlike the export demonstration video, with my character and on Maya 2015 I must select the entire mesh hierarchy rather than just the group.
The character I’m exporting has 59 meshes and only the finger tips, toes and head escaped error messages about bindpose not being found. Before exporting I can clean all this up by unparenting the mesh and exporting it flat and in a group.
Hey guys, I was wondering if anybody had a problem with re-targeting root motion from the ART tool? Here is my problem:
I am trying to re-target animation from one custom skeleton NOT made with ART that has root motion for walk cycles, runs, etc., to a skeleton made with the art tool. All of the animations transfers over with no root motion (so it is as if the root motion check-box is checked on). All bones are rotating correctly, I am just having a problem with the root bone not moving.
I have tried changing the translation re-targeting of the bones (following this document Animation Retargeting in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation) and it didn’t change anything. Checking and un-checking the “enable root motion” box does not change anything either.
Hey all,
just wanted to pop in real quick and say I haven’t forgotten about you guys GDC crunch is in full effect as Epic prepares to blow your minds again in March
As such, I’ll be a bit slower getting to replies. Hoping to get some time in the next couple evenings. Sorry folks. I’ll try to tackle a couple a night, and I promise I’ll get caught up by Sunday.
Well, that’s new. I don’t even know where to start there, except the unfortunate:
1.)backup prefs
2.) delete prefs folder
3.) let maya recreate default prefs and see if that fixes it
If it does, something is dirty in your prefs/environment. If not, I…uh…I have no idea. I’d be happy to look at a file you send over though if the above doesn’t help!