MODO and FBX animation import crash

Development Character & Animation
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1

Hi Everyone!

I’m new to MODO and UE4 so bare with me. I have just finished creating a character and some simple animations using the MODO ACS kit. Now I’d like to import them into UE4 and start hooking them up to controls, so that I can move the character around the scene.

With ACS you need to bake your animations and rigged characters to a standard MODO hierarchy before you can export them as FBX.

With that in mind, this is my current process for getting them into UE4:

  1. Bake the resting pose and save as FBX 2010 format from MODO. (It doesn’t look like MODO supports FBX 2013 yet).
  2. Import this into UE4 and let it create the SkeletalMesh and Skeleton associated with the character. Aside from a warning about the FBX version being out-of-date this works fine and I can preview the character using Persona.
  3. Now I bake out each animation separately from ACS and save them as different FBX files (i.e. SimpleCharacter_Walk_Anim.fbx, SimpleCharacter_Idle_Anim.fbx etc).
  4. I then try to import them into UE4 by using the Animation mode on the FBX import dialog. I select the previously imported skeleton and use the default settings.
  5. Then boom UE4 crashes! I have already sent a crash report for this issue.

So I have a few questions:

  • Has anyone managed to get ACS characters and their animations from MODO into UE4? If so, what did you do differently?
  • Is my approach OK? Or am I doing something newbie?

Any help with this issue would be appreciated!

UPDATE:

So MODO 701 SP2 does have some support for FBX 2013, although in the release notes they mention that there are some known issues with it. I tried the same process above using the 2013 format; however, I get the same problem.

I also tried importing the entire SkeletalMesh again but this time with the animation. This works; however, the animation is completely messed up.

2

So I managed to get it working eventually. The process I use now is the same as above except rather than importing an animation-only FBX I import the whole skeletal mesh again but this time tick the “Import Animation” box and re-use the skeleton that was imported with the rest pose. I also found that I needed to use FBX 2010 format to get the animations to work correctly after import. This might be a bug with MODO FBX 2013 support.

This does create an extra SkeletalMesh that I don’t need and delete. Since both animations are imported for the same skeleton it doesn’t seem to matter. In Persona I can play both animations for the original skeletal mesh that was imported.

3

Do you mind attaching the FBX that you used for mesh/animation?

It should still be able to import using animation only fine, and not sure why it would crash?

Thanks,

–Lina,

4

I have been having the same issue too. There is no error displayed. Just exits to desktop. I tired many combinations of the settings. Importing it as a static mesh works. I’m using Modo 701 Sp1 which only supports fbx 2010 and 2006 so I’ll get the update and try that.

5

If anybody could provide FBX, I can look into why it’s crashing. It can be any FBX that crashes. (sample assets from Modo that you can export as FBX)?

Thanks,

–Lina,

6

Hi Lina,

Apologies for my late reply. I have uploaded a sample FBX to the wiki. Included are the two FBX files I was using. The base file, which has no animations just a model setup in a rest pose and a star-jump animation.

Don’t mind my crappy art. I’ve just started learning how to do characters! Also the model has no UVs or textures at this stage. I was just using it as a prototype character model to get into the game with some rough animations.

Hope this helps!

– Elliot