Blender 2.72

Hi Guys,
I was reading on the Blender website that one of the new features that they are working on for the 2.72 release is the ability to finally import .fbx files with armatures and possibility even animations. Just thought you guys might find the news of interest. This has been a longstanding problem with blender that is finally be addressed in the next release. It’s scheduled to hit the streets at the end of August.

Awesome! Thanks :smiley:

Thanks for the heads up :slight_smile:

Blender is getting there!

Really looking forward to Unreal Engine 4 style navigation and stuff.

Work on the import of armature has already begun and already kind of work.
I grabbed a nightly build last week and after making a small modification in the script where it scales the bones, I was able to import a character with armature exported from unreal into blender. So you can already give it a try if you wish :slight_smile:

Thrilled to hear this news! During the UDK days I remember struggling really hard to get a Blender-UDK pipleline working - my ruinous efforts to get the “ExampleSkeleton.fbx” to work in Blender had eventually steered me away from UDK back then.

Anyway, I’m very happy to hear this! And UE style navigational controls will be the icing on the cake!! Also thanks again to Epic for donating to the Blender foundation to make this possible.

Greate news! Finally they will implement this feature :smiley:

just been testing the 4th august build of blender, i imported the HeroTTP no probs, having an issue with a trest anim i exported but it looks really close now

btw still had to scale up by 100 then apply scale/rotation

scale up to 100?

yep when it imports its goes to blenders normal scale, just hit “s” then “100” then return , then “Ctrl+a” the select scale/rotation

So I’m looking at Blender’s 2.72 release notes preview - am I correct in thinking that this build won’t have the UE4 style navigation feature in it?

I hope that will happen down the line as well. That said FBX import is indeed a much awaited feature so I’m very happy about that.

I’ve checked out the new v2.72 of Blender. I was able to export the base HeroTPP Skeletal Mesh from UE4 into Blender with all the armatures intact. :smiley:

a3f444f16afacdacefacb8065f44d30b6980a851.jpeg

Were you able to export it back to Unreal 4 and use the new retarget system to be able use the animations again?

So even if you use metric units 0.01 and still you have to S100?

So even if you use metric units 0.01 and still you have to S100?
[/QUOTE]

if you’ve set the unit scale to 0.01 you should be able to export with scale set to 1 and your mesh should be the correct size still, unless the mesh was scaled down by 100 or they broke something in the new exporter since blender 2.71(well broke it more then it already was;))

What coincidence, I just tried importing an fbx with armature for the first time ever and it was on the 2.72 I just download. But it didn’t work. Here’s how it looks like:

://puu.sh/c1k4T/ccac234e52.jpg

Did the bones importing actually work for any of you?

(this is the Epic Skeleton Template.fbx from the marketplace submission guidelines)

Hey Peeps,

I tried to make it clear to people 3-4 months back that even though Blender couldn’t import .FBX rigged assets you could always run it through the Autodesk FBX conversion tool that’s free and convert to DAE. Been importing rigged characters from all different fbx formats since started using UE4.

So keep in mind yes it’s awesome Blender .fbx rigged import is now getting there, If it ever breaks on you just run it through the converter and turn into DAE format. Worse case your lose the animation on the file but the object and rig will be fine. Actually thinking of it, ive not used the 2.72 builds yet. Does the animated fbx come into blender with the animations attached, or is it just the object and rig? Need to find the time to test the new builds.

Cheers J

Hi, VSZ.

It’s been there for quite some time already. Blender devs just don’t bother to promote such a “minor” feature =)

Shift+F – Unreal-style navigation, mousewheel scrool for speed variation;
TAB – walk mode, V – jump, Space – move to where your aim is pointing.

Just checked 2.72 official release, works fine.

For me personally it’s not wery handy to use UE-style navigation in Blender. Or maybe I’m too used to default Blender navigation. But it’s very helpful to walk around your scene before exporting it to Unreal to check the scale and the overall feel of the scene and props you’re working at.

Cheers.

I readily admit I know next to nothing about blender, but any improvement is welcome. I may be trying out Blender soon as well, as I wanted to evaluate options for 3D assert/animation creation tools.

Wow Blender is stepping it up! I recently started use Maya LT after trying out Blender and getting really confused with it. Might take a second look at though. Saves me spending £25 a month Maya LT

There’s really no reason for using Maya LT if you can use Blender. As far as I know Maya LT doesn’t even support rigging tools Epics provide. Because of the scripting limitations Maya LT has.

Cheers.