Makehuman --> FBX --> UE4

[Neutronux]

@Engurrand;366352

Sounds like they’re at least very similar?

A-Pose differs and twist-bones are missing. But If you use your own animations you should be fine.

Just made a quick test:
makehuman-unstable-20150827-win32.zip:
Exported mesh with “Game engine” skeleton (and a pretty impressive hat) from MH as dae (edit: export size should be centimeter).

Blender 2.75a: Imported into blender 2.75a (scene settings metric and scaled 0.01) and made a test anim:

Blender 2.75a: Exported with this settings twice (test_guy.fbx and test_guy_anim.fbx) - Edit: Z up - Y forward seems to fit better for UE4 (even if it seems to work with default settings as well)

UE4 4.8.3: Imported test_guy.fbx and disabled “Import animations”
UE4 4.8.3: Imported test_guy_anim.fbx and enabled “Import animations” but disabled import mesh. Choosed test_guy_Skeleton as skeleton.

Anim working:

Did some retargetting of free Anim Starter Pack:
Opened retargeting manager in Skeleton tab of persona and choosed “Humanoid” rig.
Clicked on “Show advanced options” back in Skeleton tab of persona (at skeleton tree).
Right clicked on “test” on top in skeleton tree and choosed “Recursively Set Translation Retargeting to Skeleton” (so all bones are Skeleton at Translation Retargeting now)
Changed “root” bone via pulldown in skeleton tree back to “Animation”
Changed “pelvis” bone via pulldown in skeleton tree to “Animation scaled”
Choosed some animation of the free anims of the Animation Starter Pack named: Walk_Fwd_Rifle_Ironsights and retargeted it via right mouse click (if you don’t see any skeleton to retarget you have to set the UE4 mannequin skeleton in retarget manager to humanoid as well first)

Got this:

As expected the arms does not match 100% and fingers are turned a bit strange (this is caused by the different A-Pose). The left lowerarm could be twisted a bit better if there would be a twist bone. It’s not that bad at all. I’ve seen worse already - but if you would tweak it you have to change the A-Pose and save it in retarget manager or change it in blender and save as rest pose to look more like the A-Pose of the UE4 mannequin. This would fix arm and fingers. And add some twist bones and repaint the weighting at least for upperarm and lowerarm. This would fix the missing twist at left arm.

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

Will this rigid body within skeletal mesh handle Unity to Unreal Engine 4?

It’s weird that Visual Basic Studio 2015 could open .fbx files?

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

This male model base for male character is for (1999/2000) by not for EarthBound 2 Beta(1999).

[anonymous_user_031cb25c]

@Neutronux;366593

A-Pose differs and twist-bones are missing. But If you use your own animations you should be fine.

Just made a quick test… etc

Thank you for the thorough reply. I managed to get just about exactly that far last night before logging off (in the early AM), and planned to post my process here. You’ve saved me the trouble, and have my gratitude.
It’s nice to be able to use the starter pack animations without too much fuss. It makes prototyping easier!

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

I have fancy to restore your memories about Hp1 PC,jj3d and Rayman 2 PC(using blender only).

[anonymous_user_031cb25c]

@Neutronux;366593

As expected the arms does not match 100% and fingers are turned a bit strange (this is caused by the different A-Pose). The left lowerarm could be twisted a bit better if there would be a twist bone. It’s not that bad at all. I’ve seen worse already - but if you would tweak it you have to change the A-Pose and save it in retarget manager or change it in blender and save as rest pose to look more like the A-Pose of the UE4 mannequin. This would fix arm and fingers. And add some twist bones and repaint the weighting at least for upperarm and lowerarm. This would fix the missing twist at left arm.

Followup: I am getting a persistent scaling issue when applying the re-targeted animations, which I see evidence of in your posted images. I’m following the same course of actions as you describe (addendum: on export from blender, alignment should be Y forward Z up), and the skeletal-mesh appears without trouble. The animations seem to include a scale factor of .1 - when you run the animations, the character ends up scaled to about 1/10th. I haven’t quite sorted out what to do with that. The scale of the mesh/rig on export from MH, import into blender, export from blender, or even on import into UE4 do not seem to be affecting this.

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

So how can I open these Maya files in blender?
http://krystalarchive.com/3d/

[Neutronux]

@Engurrand;366984

the character ends up scaled to about 1/10th. I haven’t quite sorted out what to do with that. The scale of the mesh/rig on export from MH, import into blender, export from blender, or even on import into UE4 do not seem to be affecting this.

You are right. I’ve changed the export size in makehuman to centimeter (and did the same as above again). Now it’s all same size. If I drag and drop the skeleton of both guys into the szene in UE4 both got the same size but it differs at animations (cm export of MH and Anim starter pack anim are same size in 1D blendspace now).

Edit: Did not notice any difference regarding the alignment of export in blender.

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

How script might work to Flint from MOTHER 3 or ?

[Neutronux]

@Engurrand;366984

addendum: on export from blender, alignment should be Y forward Z up

I’ve tried to figure out the difference of an export with Y forward and Z up (because it looks like it should fit better to UE4 axis) or the default of -Z forward and Y up (because it worked already well in the past and seems to be the default of the UE4 blender tools and tutorials in youtube) but I did not find any difference in UE4. I could not find any difference in a reimport of this files to blender as well and even no difference in Maya LT. I already thought this buttons are without any function or bugged in blender but finally Visual Studio gave me different axis. Edit: So it’s doing something. If I compare an export of the mannequin from UE4 in Visual Studio then it’s the same as with Y forward and Z up export from blender. Thanks for that hint. I’ve updated the export screenshot above.

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

for persons with 80 iq like me ue4 will always be very difficult.

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

Excuse me.As .fbx files shall it be Blender or Unity?

[anonymous_user_031cb25c]

@Neutronux;367319

You are right. I’ve changed the export size in makehuman to centimeter (and did the same as above again). Now it’s all same size. If I drag and drop the skeleton of both guys into the szene in UE4 both got the same size but it differs at animations (cm export of MH and Anim starter pack anim are same size in 1D blendspace now).

Thank you for that fix. Setting the Make Human export to centimeter scale, setting blender world units to metric at scale 0.01, fbx export scale at 1, & UE import scale at 1, got everything in the correct size.

@Neutronux;367319

Edit: So it’s doing something. If I compare an export of the mannequin from UE4 in Visual Studio then it’s the same as with Y forward and Z up export from blender. Thanks for that hint. I’ve updated the export screenshot above.

Curious. My selections on those dropdown buttons seem to work as they should: selection of various forward and up axis results in the skeletal-rig appearing in UE4 with the selected alignment in 100% of cases. I’m using Blender 2.75a, 64bit on windows 7, with UE4.8.1. Possibly a platform difference? Hardly a critical bug, considering it seemed to work regardless. Thank you once again!

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

So scripting skeletal mesh is easier in unity than Blender?

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

according to mike geig’s book i need to download model with all assets powered by custom animations.So if i make some random model in makehuman do i have to script all animations in FBX(Blender/Unity) to make it work properly in Unreal Engine 4?

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

@arbopa;253560

I did find this:

http://www.makehuman.org/doc/node/alpha_7_creating_a_custom_rig_with_makerig.html

But am really new to all this rigging and animation, will look at it though and see if I can figure any of it out.

add:

Looking at that ‘tutorial’ for making a custom rig, it points to makehuman/data/rigs as where the rig goes… in there is a .json file that contains the data for the rigs. I wonder if just knowing the proper ‘roll’ for some of them can fix the rig?

As an example from that file:

"bones": {
        "Root": {
            "head": "Root____head",
            "parent": null,
            "reference": null,
            "roll": -1.4193105697631836,
            "tail": "Root____tail"
        },
        "ball_l": {
            "head": "ball_l____head",
            "parent": "foot_l",
            "reference": "toe1-1.L"],
            "roll": -0.013643646612763405,
            "weights_reference": "toe1-1.L","toe1-2.L","toe1-3.L","toe2-1.L","toe2-2.L","toe2-3.L","toe3-1.L","toe3-2.L","toe3-3.L","toe4-1.L","toe4-2.L","toe4-3.L","toe5-1.L","toe5-2.L","toe5-3.L"],
            "tail": "ball_l____tail"
        },
        "ball_r": {
            "head": "ball_r____head",
            "parent": "foot_r",
            "reference": "toe1-1.R"],
            "roll": 0.013643646612763405,
            "weights_reference": "toe1-1.R","toe1-2.R","toe1-3.R","toe2-1.R","toe2-2.R","toe2-3.R","toe3-1.R","toe3-2.R","toe3-3.R","toe4-1.R","toe4-2.R","toe4-3.R","toe5-1.R","toe5-2.R","toe5-3.R"],
            "tail": "ball_r____tail"
        },
        "calf_l": {
            "head": "calf_l____head",
            "parent": "thigh_l",
            "reference": "lowerleg01.L","lowerleg02.L"],
            "roll": 0.0,
            "tail": "calf_l____tail"
        },
        "calf_r": {
            "head": "calf_r____head",
            "parent": "thigh_r",
            "reference": "lowerleg01.R","lowerleg02.R"],
            "roll": 0.0,
            "tail": "calf_r____tail"
        },

Do these scripts will work in pyscripter?

[anonymous_user_9d3e4fae]

Is it even possible for n00bs like me?Maybe I’m layman?

[anonymous_user_5d2e5507]

This tutorial video helped me a lot:

Changing the 3rd person character model
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsglWQHm16A&feature=youtu.be

I used it to replace the default 3rd person character with one I made in Makehuman.