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Importing character and animation from maya to virtools 5.0

(5 posts) (2 voices)

  1. excurtionist

    new member
    Joined: May '13
    Posts: 6

    Hello,
    I have to export two things into virtools: The first is a rigged character and the second is a blendshape based animation of that character. I have both in maya 2011 working very well.

    When I export just the character (without any animation), I can access the blendshapes weights and modify them but when I export the character with blendshape animation, I do not have access to the blendshapes anymore. Also the blendshape animation does not play.

    I tried exporting just the animation and adding to the character but it didn't work either. I spent a lot of time playing with the export options but still couldn't get the morph/blendshape animation on virtools. I am using virtools 5.0.

    Could anyone please help me here? Any input will be appreciated.

    Posted 9 months ago #

  2. excurtionist

    new member
    Joined: May '13
    Posts: 6

    I figured out the solution to the blendshape problem. To export a character with blendshapes from maya to virtools, this is what I did:
    I created the blendshape targets, applied them on the main mesh, selected and exported the character joint root and mesh with the following options:

    Export Options
    Export as character (checked)
    character root name (optional) (left this blank)
    character name: write name
    Animation name: write animation name
    export animation only: (unchecked)
    export bones only: (unchecked)
    export: lights and camera (didn't export either)
    export helpers: (checked)
    export curves: (unchecked)
    export sets as groups: (checked)
    export selection hierarchy: (checked)
    force single sided objects: (checked)
    Transparent instead of mask: (unchecked)
    export blend shapes: (checked)

    Animation Options
    enable animation: (checked)
    force linear anim: (checked)
    set your animation start and end frames
    sample animations: (checked)
    force keyframe creation: (unchecked)
    sampling step: 1
    sampling animation type: linear

    Morph animation
    Morph animation
    export morph (checked) with normals (checked)
    morph sampling step 1
    all the rest were unchecked.
    The key thing is this: DO NOT DELETE YOUR MORPH TARGETS AFTER APPLYING THEM. Hopefully this will help someone.

    I still haven't figured out the solution to the rest of the problems though: I can't import the blendshape animation yet.

    Posted 9 months ago #

  3. soniab

    Studio/Virtools Guru
    Joined: Aug '09
    Posts: 97

    Best Answer

    Hi,

    From 3DVIA Virtools 5.0, characters can have both Skin and Morph animation, ie a skeletton and morph targets.

    Morph targets are now natively handled inside a 3D entities setup and can be modified using the "Set Blend Shape Weight by Name" and "Set Blend Shape Weight by Index"

    Export from Maya
    1.Create your character's mesh.
    2.Duplicate your mesh (one copy for each morph target) and add the needed modfications.
    3.Select all morph target, and the original mesh, then open the Menu "Create Deformer > BlendShape".
    4.Edit the Blend Shape settings as needed and press Apply (the Blendshape should appear in your mesh channel editor).
    5.Create the skeletton and attach it to your mesh.
    6.Animate your skeletton as needed.
    7.Export your character (without selecting the morph targets);
    8.In the exporter settings, be sure to check the boxes "Export as Character" and "Export Blend Shapes".
    Note : Do not delete the morph targets after applying the BlendShape Deformer or they won't be exported.

    I hope this will help you!

    Posted 9 months ago #

  4. excurtionist

    new member
    Joined: May '13
    Posts: 6

    Thank you for your post. Do you know whether it is possible to get blendshape animation that was created in maya onto virtools? I already got the blendshapes on virtools but I cannot get the maya blendshape animation on virtools?
    Thank you again

    Posted 9 months ago #

  5. excurtionist

    new member
    Joined: May '13
    Posts: 6

    So if I understand it right, virtools can only create blendshape animation. It cannot load a blendshape animation that was created in some other program like Maya or FaceFX, right?

    Posted 1 month ago #

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