i’m struggling with baking an animated Object using Mospline, PoseMorph and some Xpresso.
The aim is to import the animation in Unity3D. A partner agency will then make an AR App with these models/animations.
I’ve tried several approaches:
1. baking object via timeline, then exporting as FBX
2. baking and exporting as alembic
3. exporting as FBX
4. saving via cineware
Results:
1. deformer and Mospline is ignored, plain geometry is loaded into unity3d
2. imported successfully, best result for simple animation (moving) and models, but no MoSpline and Xpresso is converted
3. only first frame is exported/imported, no deformer, Xpresso, MoSpline
4. Imported the cineware saved file via the Unity3D-Cineware-Plugin ... animation and models are semi-good imported, no MoSpline, Xpresso
Long story short: the “problem” seems to be the use of MoSpline and Xpresso for animation in terms of baking.
Has any of you guys an idea how to solve this issue?
Many thanks in advance and sunny regards,
Tom
P.S. I’m working on Mac, R23, latest Unity release
BTW: maybe I’m blind but I see no possibility for me to change or edit my User-Profile ... I guess I have to contact maxon with this. BTW: I just saw that there is another post recently posted with a quite similar Topic (Baking) and the author’s name is “info”, too. Just like mine, but the post is not from me.
Thanks for the file and for using Dropbox. Sorry to have taken the upload link down, but reading about ransomware assaults all over the place, I have to keep it tight here.
Sounds neurotic, but better safe than sorry. I share too many files here to take any risks.
When you use File> Merge Files…, make sure to have Vertex Cache to PLA on.
What I did to get there;
I placed an Object Manager> Tags> Rigging Tags> Point Cache to the Object.
Cached it, and then switched off: Deformer and PoseMorph (otherwise, the information is added again!)
Then I called up the Main Menu> Animate> Cappucino, and record the PLA information. (PLA Point Level Animation)
With this information stored now as PLA information, you can write out the FBX file, keep an eye on the PLA to Vertex Cache (check on!)
thanks for the PLA-Data. But something seems still not right. I’ve checked in C4D, Unreal and Unity and there are no animations imported. I’ve also double-checked the settings. The other agency (which builds the AR-App) has the same issue.
I’m not a Unity expert, far from that, so you might check in the Unity Forum. However, the manual and the app are certainly not in synch.
I tried to find something this whole afternoon, well it is already close to 10 pm. Not happy with my progress, to tell the truth.
I wish the Joint and PLA import options would have some more love in UNITY. Perhaps I miss something.
In my memory, several plug-ins support Vertex animation import. Unfortunately, I do not have them.
Vertex Animation Tools, is on of them, but $45, which is not a lot for a studio, but to just for testing, that might be over the top. I hope that is a reasonable answer.
I will add a gif to showcase that it is working in Unity. If I do not miss something, one can’t (?) add timeline entries for many objects (joints) at once. Am I wrong with that?) Well, I leave that to the AR/VR/XR pros to figure out.
It’s warm here, but I love heat, and I certainly do not run an AC here. It feels just wrong and unhealthy to sit in a fridge
So, sunny greetings from from a sun-lover.
In a nutshell, the abc file has a vertex animation. This is pulled into the project.
Then it is dragged into the Hierarchy. Which puts it into the scene.
No Animation so far.
Dragging the parent of the abc file into the animation window allows setting a Property.
This property allows them to set the time (sec)
As I mentioned, I’m not a pro in Unity. However, my understanding is that it follows a different concept than Cinema 4D.
In Unity, most of the parts need a special invitation to be part of the game. All of that to keep the load as low as possible.
Of course, that animation is the simplest form of it. In the Animator, you have a “node” system that works based on trigger and code elements; hence it is, after all, a game engine. Everything is based on reduction and triggers to allow for interactive options.
The suggested solution with joints and fbx works perfectly. Thank you very much!
But I have one question regarding the joints setup: how do you manage that there is no distortion in the mesh when it’s bended? Especially the screw holes.
The point is: now, with the joints-setup, the final diameter of the collar is smaller than with the mospline when bended (don’t ask me why) ... but it must have a specific diameter at the end. To compensate this I just scaled/“streched” the mesh including the joints a few percent and binded them again. This works but a distortion of the screw holes appears. In your model there is no distortion. I’ve tried with weighting but then the screw holes doesn’t even move. And as I could see in your example there is no weighting applied.
Any joint will have an influence on the mesh based on the weighting. Which means, if you have points in the mesh that have several joints “working” on them, then things can be distorted. This is often a wanted effect, as our skin works more like rubber than paper.
In your case, the elements are metal-based and would stretch when the “Manschette” bends into shape. This means, only one joint should have control over that group of points.
Since the joints do not stretch on their own typically, I might think that previous set up had a flaw, is that fair to say?
As you can see, when the weight is set to 100% from one joint only, then the shape “snaps back” into its shape.
BTW, I used a spline to create all the Joints via conversion. I harvest that spline from a polygon.
Most parts of the object should bend a little bit more roundish, but the elements bent 90º inwards would stabilize the shape, so the most bend is where the tin is just “2 Dimensional”, or flat. This is exactly where two joints meet, and the weight should ideally be 50%/50%. After that, a slight smoothing based on the Weight-Manager should do the trick.