I export my skeletal mesh from 3ds max as a 2014/15 fbx that contains a hand pose with a socket (a dummy using the prefix SOCKET_) specifically made for that hand pose.
In my scene I have various other hand poses, but for which I have to create a socket within UE4 and manually place or snap my desired object to. I want to avoid doing that by creating a dummy that has the same orientation as my object so that when I attach my mesh to the socket it automatically fits without me having to go through any manual placement.
The problem is the dummy gets imported as a bone and because the original skeletal mesh doesn’t have that bone, it gets discarded and I can’t convert it into a socket (see attached image).
Ignore the generic name, I tried various ones and this is the example from the documentation (yes I got that desperate). Tried using the same name as the associated mesh of the skeletal mesh (SOCKET_‘meshname’_01) and nothing still
I also tried unticking the fbx option ‘convert deforming dummies to bones’.
Is there any solution to this problem other than having to go back to the original skeletal mesh and creating this bone so that I can later import and convert it into a socket. I hope you can understand how that can cause issues, for example I could maybe need a couple of new sockets that I didn’t need before thus having to create each new bone in my 3D software.
The reason behind this method is the precision you get from parenting you object to your dummy and not having to input the translation/rotation data each time on your socket.
I hope I have presented the problem clearly.
Thanks in advance