Blender FBX: Why are only some actions being imported/exported?

As far as I have understood it is not a Unity problem, but the problem is caused by Blender.

When you make some animations, you can set keys to deform and non-deform bones. e.g. an IK-Target or a pole for non-deform and the head rotation for a deform bone.

Plese try the following (which I highly recommend anyway forexporting animations in blender):

At the beginning of an animation, select all bones set a rotation and location key (Keybord–> I Menupoint → LocRot). Do this for every single animation in your list and retry to export again.

Please let me know if it helps (this normally gets you out of the issue of strange starting poses of your animation).

1 Like

now done. This did not affect the problem, most animations are still missing. I found that quite a few of my anims didn’t have data on frame zero, but putting a keyframe there in all channels hasn’t changed anything
i am using some deform bones, and some not, i export with only deform bones checked. I’m using a ton of IK bones and such

now running blender 2.74 RC2
missing animations are still not showing up ;-;

If you post Blend maybe I can sort it out. I’m using FBX 6.1 exporter in Blender and not 7.4, 6.1 is more reliable at the moment in my opinion.

Fab4 messaged me, here’s a relevant excerpt

I would pass this example also to the Blender devs. They can just fix what they know of.

is it perhaps possible to use NLA strips in unity? (not that i know what they are yet)

At least FBX 6.1 works for me with these settings:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2988574/NanakoSettings.PNG
For some reason Sprint doesn’t appear at all if I export using FBX 7.4.
You have two scripts in your Blend file, are they part of some add on or what? They might interfere with the export process. I suggest you get rid of them unless you need them.

-You are using decimater modifier to cut down vertex count, hate to break it to you but thats not optimal solution. Optimal would be doing a low poly using retopo tools and baking normal maps. Chech out tutorial for that from blendercookie.com or somewhere else.
-I would apply mirror modifier before skinning the character, but thats just me.
-your UI layout is bit diffucult to use, here is my layout suggestion: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2988574/My%20UI.png

i didnt consciously add any scripts. Do you have any idea what they are? maybe i can remove them

re decimate: I’m a perfectionist and i have no idea when to call the model done, for now he’s not really finished. decimate gives me a quick way to export a low poly copy for testing, without any kind of finalizing procedure
what do you mean skinning? Again, model isn’t finished, so applying mirror seems like a bad idea

also, does that imply that you managed to get jog and walk exported?

Always apply all modifiers, and always apply all rotations, transforms and scales before exporting.

no, that’s dumb and destructive to workflow.
That’s what this checkbox at the bottom is for:

I agree that its bad for Workflow but sometimes this realy helps
The armature modifier should stay unapplied

it doesn’t apply the armature modifier. just all others

As per Fab4’s recommendation, i’ve tried recreating the apparently bugged walk/jog/sprint animations. Here’s what i’ve found:

Manually copying, pasting and keyframing poses into a new action:
works. and the result exports successfully.

Selecting all keyframes, copying them, creating a new action, keyframing all channels in frame 0, and then pasting all keyframes:
Works, and the result exports successfully (this is pretty quick and easy)

Pressing the + button to create a new action which is a copy of the current one:
does NOT work properly. If i do that with an action, and then keep it selected/active on the armature while exporting, then that one, and only that one, will export fine. But the other two (of walk/jog/sprint) treated with this method will not export properly if they aren’t the currently selected action.

Looking at this, the obvious conclusion is that there’s something screwed up about my actions, and whatever that is, it’s carried over when copying the action wholesale, but not when copying its keyframe content (which suggests it’s not the keyframe data which is at fault)

Does anyone have any thoughts or speculation on this? could someone replicate my results to confirm?

Yes, I ended up in a same conclusion. Your sprint action is corrupted in some way, that corruption only appears if you use 7.4 exporter. Using 6.1 exporter it works.

Just use 6.1 exporter for the time being, it way more predictable and stable. The 7.4 is a bit rough around the edges, you get more problems along the line if you stick with the 7.4.
(Blender FBX 7.4 exporter is improving rapidly but its not there yet for stable production.)

Create a clean Blend file, disable all the add-ons that you don’t need and append you character there to get rid of the unnessary scripts.

6.1 had problems too./ Notably the 1% scaling issue, and also the issue of my hammer not animating, which i’ve yet to really investigate. when both states are bugged it makes more sense imo, to try to focus on the newest version. but i could try 6.1 again

do you have any thoughts on the hammer issue?

In my export setting I use scale 100, that fixes the scaling issue. With these setting the hammer animation works too as far as I can tell. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2988574/NanakoSettings.PNG

EDIT: If you use “Mechanim Human” make sure you have all bones checked from animation > animation masks.

this really, really annoys me. I have a problem with doing this on principle.

I’ve gotten 7.4 working now, by copying and pasting the keyframe data of those animations which didn’t work, For now i plan/hope to just continue like this, i’m loathe to go back to an older version of the exporter, especially since it’s proven to be less than perfect

if 6.1 was utterly perfect and stable in every way, then i’d probably use it as long as it fitted my needs featurewise. But if it has one problem, it might have more. And if it’s not the newest version, it’s probably not recieving updates or fixes.

True, but there is few small problems related to 7.4, even if you use the current release candidate of Blender 2.74. You have been warned. :slight_smile: