Support Stream – Blender Animation & UE4 – Jan. 13th, 2015

General Announcements
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The stream is in just a few hours, but we’re taking questions before and during. If anyone here has any Blender to UE4 questions, ask away and I’ll give them to Kevin.
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Here is my question,
When exporting either a Skeletal mesh or animation from UE4 as FBX. How can we import this into blender, work with it and then reimport back into UE4.
With my testing, ( Blender 2.73 ) I have found that if you export an FBX from UE4, Open it in blender and export from blender ( Even without making changes ) when you reimport into UE4 there will be errors.

For example, The exported FBX From blender will cause a multiple root bone error for skeletal meshes.
With animations when you re import it will cause an error saying that the skeletal mesh is incorrect.

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[=;205149]
Here is my question,
When exporting either a Skeletal mesh or animation from UE4 as FBX. How can we import this into blender, work with it and then reimport back into UE4.
With my testing, ( Blender 2.73 ) I have found that if you export an FBX from UE4, Open it in blender and export from blender ( Even without making changes ) when you reimport into UE4 there will be errors.

For example, The exported FBX From blender will cause a multiple root bone error for skeletal meshes.
With animations when you re import it will cause an error saying that the skeletal mesh is incorrect.
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That sounds like a bug, can you post a bug report for this to the Answerhub?

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[=;205149]

For example, The exported FBX From blender will cause a multiple root bone error for skeletal meshes.
With animations when you re import it will cause an error saying that the skeletal mesh is incorrect.
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this happens due to the fbx sdk, as standard it adds a bone to the root of the rig, it happens in other programs as well, you just have to remove the very first bone in the rig then things should go easier

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Thanks for the great twitch stream. This cleared up many things. It is much easier to start over with Blender and UE4 which such advices.
The explanations were understandable with little knowledge and Kevins type of explaining things is really interesting. :slight_smile:

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Sorry for the wait, the resources are up. Let me know if there is any problem.

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Excellent stream today, thanks for doing it and for posting the resources.

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I got custom skeletal mesh and animations working:

://i.imgur/XfHxXtc.gif

Very happy! Thanks again for the stream :smiley:

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Snow, that is my new “Haters gonna hate” gif for all occasions, love it

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Haha, that didn’t even occur to me while I was making it. Now excuse me while I Taylor Swift for the next 3 days.

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I suggest making a similar video focused on Normal Maps exporting from Blender, importing into UE4 as well as Lightmass UV’s; what they do exactly and how to export them correctly.

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I suggest making a similar video focused on Normal Maps exporting from Blender, importing into UE4 as well as Lightmass UV’s; what they do exactly and how to export them correctly.
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Good suggestions. We’ll take that into consideration for the next time we do a Blender related livestream.

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For those interested, I’ve figured out how to export Normal Maps and LightMaps from Blender 2.73 to UE4 => here

Feel free to use that as a starting point!

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Well it took a dozen tutorial videos and all day long, but I did it!! Stickman lives!!! :smiley: I couldn’t have done it without that starter .blend file, ty so much!!!

://imgur/1uaeAsy.jpg

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omg … how did I miss this!
I constantly watch for events and I missed the one I needed the most! How Did I Miss This!

I will bury myself in the video upload!

thanks so much for doing this one, wish I had been there!

thanks guys n gals at Unreal for doing this!

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Is it necessary to have all those generated copies of the animations, or is there a way to tell UE4 to use the existing animation assets from a similar model? (Assuming the bones hierarchy is the same.)

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Using the video/example assets at retarget in the editor the animations the arms are out of the shoulders, why ?

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Having the (albeit complex) capability to use Blender in UE4 made me one of your latest customers last week. I believe Unity currently supports .blends, which was a major consideration. I wouldn’t know what it would cost to streamline .blends into your import file options, but you would definitely turn a lot of heads once the news got out. I can see a massive exodus from Unity emerging. haha.

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Thanks for doing this guys. I’d almost given up on being able to re-target animations to my characters from the built-in characters.

It’s working great, with one anomaly. When I use the Blend file you provided, or import from the HeroTPP FBX, it looks fine in Blender. However, when I import into UE, the right foot is turned in. The toes are where they should be - it’s just the foot. I’ve checked the bone rotations and all seem fine. Any ideas what’s going on with that?

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Hello.
First of all, I want to say thanks for creating this video and for posting the images. Great work!
I would like to know if someone could maybe attach here the script that Kevin is talking about here: Rigging: Blender & UE4 | 01 | Live Training | Unreal Engine - YouTube
From what I understand, it is a script that auto-calculates the pole angles when adding IK constraints.

Thanks!

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Hi, it is very interesting. Thank you. I try to import/export this RIG for a while in blender and UE4. I still have a bug despite your explanation. When I export the RIG and the mesh from blender to UE4 or Maya, the right foot is twisted. The rotation of the foot is not good. Do you have an idea of what it is ? Thank you