Bone and Animation Importing Issues

tehhax · June 19, 2016, 4:59am

Hey everyone! I’m very new to animations and bones and I need some guidance. I have created a bone system in 3ds Max and am getting strange results importing it into UE4. I am also re-targeting mocap data (created with Pro Body 2) using WebAnimate to create an animation that I am completely failing to apply to the skeleton in UE4.

Here is my model in Max. It’s very basic because I only want to figure out the workflow. Each mesh only has one bone because I don’t need deformation. They are attached using the skin modifier.

Here is the model hierarchy in Max. I have the bones separate from the mesh but everything is connected to the root at 0,0,0. Do the bones need to have the mesh as children or is it fine that I am separating them like this? Is this what the hierarchy should look like?

Here is the skeletal mesh imported into UE4. It looks very strange and extra bones have seemingly been added for the mesh components even though they are not bones. Notice “Char_FootLeft” is a bone when it should just be a mesh.

Importing the animation and attaching it to the mesh I get one of two errors. The first is “Failed to merge bones” stating that the hierarchies don’t match. I think this is because UE4 has added some extra bones. For some reason now I completely cannot import the animation with the error: “Error Failed to find any bone hierarchy. Try disabling the “Import As Skeletal” option to import as a rigid mesh.”. I tried exporting from WebAnimate in a different setting but this is the error I’m stuck with now. I’m hoping someone can take a look at the fbx and tell me what looks off

Here are my fbx export settings in Max:

Here are the links to the character fbx (created in 3ds max) and animation fbx (exported from WebAnimate):
Character
Character Anim

I can’t seem to import the animation FBX into UE4 at all now because it can’t find any bone hierarchy. I used to be getting “failed to merge bones” but after playing with settings I seem to have buggered something up and it refuses to import.

I really hope that this is something that one of you animation/skeletal mesh experts can pick out. Thank you so much in advance for your help :).

Steve_T · June 20, 2016, 1:17pm

Try exporting with a previous version of FBX, 2014/15 usually works. I have had issues with the newer versions of the exporter with more than just UE4.

EDIT, nevermind I was looking at the top of the window not the dropdown at the bottom oops.

tehhax · June 21, 2016, 7:57am

Thanks so much for the response! The FBX export from Max is 2014/15 like you just noticed in the edit. I don’t think anything is really wrong on the exporting side in max. The model and skeleton comes in correctly for the most part - just that the polygon mesh body parts are being converted to bones in UE4. I can remove them from the hierarchy in UE4 so I guess it isn’t really an issue. I’m not even sure if I should remove them in the UE4 skeletal mesh editor. They don’t really seem to be doing any harm.

I have managed to get the animation importing now from WebAnimate (hooray!). The import worked on the animation in UE4 when I used these settings in WebAnimate:
No-auto anim key
No-export polygons
Yes-Export Grandad
Export Settings: UnrealEngine

That will hopefully help someone else having this issue using WebAnimate. It started working once I unchecked the “Export Polygons” setting. It is great software although a little buggy from time to time because it doesn’t like my 3440x1440 resolution.

I also changed the hierarchy after exporting the UE4 mannequin and taking a look. Now it looks like this:

Now I suppose my only question is: are the mesh body parts being added to the bone hierarchy an issue? Is this normal? Should I remove them in UE4 or is this intended?