skeletal mesh: importing without a skinned mesh doesn't work, possible to get it to work?

I spent around 20 minutes trying to import a skeletal mesh to find out what the bones would do since im using brekel software for some animations, but unless i skinned it it wouldn’t import, since the skeletal mesh browser offers bone view this should work, is there any chance a future beta could get updated with this feature?

Apologies for the delay in response, Marc. We are waiting on an answer regarding future plans for this.

We support importing animations without a skinned geometry but you must have imported a skeletal mesh first. Importing an animation without an existing skeletal mesh first is something we’ll look into for the future.

AFAIK, we need skinned data(FbxSkin) to get the root of the skeleton from FBX, but I’ll add a bug to investigate this further.

Thanks,

–Lina,

Our skeletal meshes must contain geometry to import and use in the engine. That is how we define a skeletal mesh. Without geometry it wouldn’t be a mesh so we have no support for this right now. What exactly are you hoping to achieve?

Did this every get looked into?
(I know this is about ten years old now, so kinda wishing “yes” but guessing “no”?

I have TONS of mocap data that is just skeletal animation, without mesh.
Have been excited by how much I can now do in UE5.3 without ever having to open Motion Builder to process/retarget data thanks to all the new animation and rigging tools…

… but …

Mobu handles skeletal mocap without meshes like a champ and I’m not aware of being able to import just skeletal animation in UE. I’m soooooo close to finally being able to set Mobu aside if there was “just” be a way of importing non-meshed skeletal animation (it’s only needed for retargeting).

Any ideas for possible work arounds without going to an outside DCC? (I’m fine getting work done in Maya/Mobu if needed, but would really love to do this in-engine these days if possible)

I can see not doing this back before UE had all the anim and retargeting tools that it does now, but would be great to have a means of retargeting non-meshed animations now that so much other anim/mocap can be done in engine.