I made a simple anim to test the face bones on my char. It only moves the Jaw and opens the mouth.
In this specific Import Preview window, it is working correctly.
Now if I select either the anim in the fbx or a duplicate version of the anim, I get very minimal movement in the preview. Note that I’m trying this after any changes were applied to the character fbx.
The result from these previews is that the preview now only shows part of the chin move instead of the mouth/jaw opening.
Unfortunately this is the behavior I’m getting in-game as well.
I’ve started new projects to troubleshoot this and it happens there too.
My main project is 2021.3.10f1 URP, but this problem is also happening in 2022.3.5f1 HDRP.
Things I’ve tried to fix this:
-trying different Blender export settings
-changing Unity bone limit to custom numbers, something absurd like 80 or 100
-separating the character mesh to reduce total verts (this was an issue for me previously where there’s some hidden max vertex limit in one object? and it caused the animation to play incorrectly)
-tried disabling any animation optimizing on import
Please note that my character in my real project is working quite well with all other kind of movement animation, layers, shapekey expressions, yadda yadda. I just don’t understand why the addition of face bones are giving me trouble.
My doubt is whether all other animation files are using avatar of source model fbx file ?
Ur model file has the face bones setup
but the other animations files probably don’t have it so they maybe using their model avatar
instead of the source model avatar.
As long as the animation file is in the project, it shouldn’t matter as long as the animation is compatible with humanoid, correct? I can easily duplicate the animation and make it a separate file and use that, but it doesn’t fix the issue.
Most recent session was deleting all geometry except her head and using a completely new animator with only this animation active to rule out any blending issues.
Same result. Preview of the Jaw moving works fine inside Unity importer, but in-game only the bottom of the chin slightly moves.
Edit: Some further details. I’ve tried animating the eye controller and that works, but the eyelids/surrounding areas also have no influence.
I believe I figured out the issue.
Similar to the problem with having too many verts on the mesh.
I had to separate the character’s head into a separate object and delete all the non-face vertex groups (excluding head/spine) in blender. (Likewise it probably makes sense to delete all the face groups from the body as well.)
Really frustrating wasting so much time, but oh well. Hope this helps someone else.
Testing the face bones on a character is a crucial step in ensuring that facial animations look natural and believable in a game or animation project. The movement of the jaw and mouth, in particular, can greatly affect the expressiveness and realism of a character.
The way to handle both humanoid animations and face animations is the following:
Setup humanoid animations and layers normally
For face animations, set the character rig to generic and apply
In this state, expand the character file so you can see the animations
Duplicate the animations that are face anims
You can then return the import rig back to humanoid
Now the duplicated animations are generic and can be used as face animations properly
