- UMotion - Animation Editor
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Questions
Export humanoid animations as multiple FBX and combine clips additively
Hello,
First, I want to say how great and enjoyable using UMotion has been so far. I finally took the time today to really dig into when I ran intoo some basic retargetting issues (clipping is my biggest pet peeve), and I must say I am impressed and really glad I purchased this. Definitely wish I started sooner!
Onto my questions though, I have 2 that I tried searching for but wasn't able to find anything specific.
1. Can we export humanoid animations into multiple single clip FBX? For organization purposes, I much prefer if each animation is a separate FBX (I also use the FBX curves and masks, so not being a clip makes this much easier) but attempting to do so gives a warning that it's not recommended for Humanoid Animations, and if you do so anyways, attempting to copy the avatar leads to errors about conflicting bones even though it should be the same model and rig.
I was able to export and update the existing FBX, but beyond just exporting a single clip at a time and constantly duplicating the FBX, I'm not sure ift this is possible?
2. This is just a brainstorming thing, are we able to take a clip using it as a base layer, and then apply another clip ontop of it additively? For example, something I was thinking about is how Mixamo usually has a male and female run animation, and what I'd like to do is take one of those as a base, but then apply all of the keyframes of the other and use the resulting animation. The idea is for to help easily create a more unique animation.
I am currently using UMotion Pro 1.28p04 if that matters to the above.
Thanks!
Will
Answer
Hi,
thank you very much for your support request. I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying working with UMotion so far.
1. Can we export humanoid animations into multiple single clip FBX? For organization purposes, I much prefer if each animation is a separate FBX (I also use the FBX curves and masks, so not being a clip makes this much easier) but attempting to do so gives a warning that it's not recommended for Humanoid Animations, and if you do so anyways, attempting to copy the avatar leads to errors about conflicting bones even though it should be the same model and rig.
Exporting into a separate FBX is going to add the bones exactly as they are in your UMotion project to the FBX. If you get errors regarding conflicting bones when copying the avatar, then there might be differences between the rig that's in your original character's FBX and the prefab you have assigned to the pose editor (reason can be that Unity modified the imported FBX or that something was added/removed in the prefab). I would recommend that you use a 3D modelling application to compare the original and the exported FBX files to further debug this.
I was able to export and update the existing FBX, but beyond just exporting a single clip at a time and constantly duplicating the FBX, I'm not sure ift this is possible?
There is currently no built in way to do this, but you can use the UMotion API to write your custom export procedure (if you know a bit of C# coding in Unity). Here is the link to the documentation: https://www.soxware.com/umotion-manual/UMotionAPI.html
Your custom script could automatically duplicate the original FBX file etc.
2. This is just a brainstorming thing, are we able to take a clip using it as a base layer, and then apply another clip ontop of it additively? For example, something I was thinking about is how Mixamo usually has a male and female run animation, and what I'd like to do is take one of those as a base, but then apply all of the keyframes of the other and use the resulting animation. The idea is for to help easily create a more unique animation.
UMotion does support additive and override layers. Here is the link to the documentation: https://www.soxware.com/umotion-manual/Layers.html
And here is a video tutorial that uses additive layers to adjust the look and feel of an existing animation:
Please let me know in case you have any follow-up questions.
Best regards,
Peter
Appreciate the info! By my second quesiton, I meant are we able to import another clip to use as an additive layer (and all of its keys) instead of just the original clip we have and making manual key changes on the additional layers?
An additive layer does mathematically act as an addition. If you for example add the same animation that is on the base layer to the additive layer, everything would be rotated twice as much. So whenever you would add a regular animation as additive layer, you would just get weird looking results. Additive layers are for adding offsets to the original animation.
I think what you're looking for is using an override layer that contains your second animation. It allows you to selectively override the poses of certain bones and with the layer weight you can define how much the look and feel of that overriding animation should contribute to the final result.
Please let me know if that answers your question.
Best regards,
Peter
Customer support service by UserEcho
Hi,
thank you very much for your support request. I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying working with UMotion so far.
Exporting into a separate FBX is going to add the bones exactly as they are in your UMotion project to the FBX. If you get errors regarding conflicting bones when copying the avatar, then there might be differences between the rig that's in your original character's FBX and the prefab you have assigned to the pose editor (reason can be that Unity modified the imported FBX or that something was added/removed in the prefab). I would recommend that you use a 3D modelling application to compare the original and the exported FBX files to further debug this.
There is currently no built in way to do this, but you can use the UMotion API to write your custom export procedure (if you know a bit of C# coding in Unity). Here is the link to the documentation: https://www.soxware.com/umotion-manual/UMotionAPI.html
Your custom script could automatically duplicate the original FBX file etc.
UMotion does support additive and override layers. Here is the link to the documentation: https://www.soxware.com/umotion-manual/Layers.html
And here is a video tutorial that uses additive layers to adjust the look and feel of an existing animation:
Please let me know in case you have any follow-up questions.
Best regards,
Peter