My DCC tool of choice is Maya. I am attempting to export the FBX files but am running into problems when I import them into Unity: I’m getting a mesh with 0 verts and 0 tris
Anyone tell me what settings I need to use to export a skinned mesh in FBX format?
You should commit a screen of your scene hierarchy.
Are you asking for the Maya scene or the Unity scene?
I’m exporting by selecting the char_root node.
Parent your model and bone root to the world and delete extra groups.
Finally “select -all” and export selection with FBX.
Does the FBX exporter only take the first nodes? Or does it not handle nulls very well?
To export empty should return empty…
Why do you need those empty nodes?
Also more you ad nodes into the hierarchy, the memory resource at runtime will be affected.
It handles nulls fine. Maya exports the selection, and in your screenshot you only have the root node selected.
Select everything else and that will get exported as well.
You can export the root node and everything under it if you collapse the root node in the Maya Outliner. Then everything below it gets selected as well.
So I’m back. I just got around to trying everyone’s recommendations and none seem to be working. Here’s a snapshot of my export settings
You could try updating your exporter, your version looks very old. Latest version is 2012.2 and you are using 2009.0
That is more about the FBX file fomat settings, choose the very last version from the scroll list.
Oh yeah you are right. His version is 2010.1, it says in the title bar, which is still quite old.
Not saying that this is the problem, it most likely isn’t. But it can help rule it out and can’t hurt. 
Have you tried selecting everything (nodes, bones, mesh, etc) you want exported and then export selection? I have had some issues in the past with exporting if I only select the root node.
Just a thought, hope it helps.
Unity Manual
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-ImportObjectMaya.html
“Unity likes to keep up with the latest FBX where possible so if you have any issues with importing some models, check Autodesk latest version, or for fail-safe install 2011.3”
you can download the fail-save fbx 2011.3.1 version for maya from autodesk:
I set the export version to 2010 and it worked… now I just have to figure out how to export just animation skeletons and still get them to be applied in Unity.
Try the following command and be sure you bake the animations and removed all the rig before :
FBXExportShapes -v 0;
FBXExportAnimationOnly -v 1;
FBXExportBakeComplexAnimation -v 1;
select -r `ls -l -type joint`;
FBXExport -f "C:/test,fbx" -s;