Maya 2016 Fbx refuses to export animation

[KudouYohji]

I'm trying to export a skeleton and animation from Maya 2016 for use on characters in Unity but I've been having a frustrating time with FBX export.  I'm using Maya 2016 and up until about a month ago I could fbx export a skeleton with animation on it just fine using export selected; now all of the sudden I cannot.

I have a file with a base joint skeleton and animations on the joints*.  I select all the joints on the skeleton and select "Export selection" and I use Filetype: FBX export. I've made sure animation is checked in the export settings, but when I open the exported file, the joints are there and are positioned like the first frame of the animation, but theres no animation on them (and no animation nodes in the outliner) at all. The ONLY way I can export animation right now is export all, which is undesirable for my full rig files because I don't want all the mesh and controllers, just the joints with animation.

I can use this same file to export selected with animation as an FBX in Maya 2014 but it will NOT export animation using export selected in Maya 2016, identical settings. (I have an old student version of 2014 that I tested it on.)

Help, please?

*I tested this with an empty file with only a joint skeleton and animations (rotation, translation) on the joints and nothing else in the file. My full file has a rig on the skeleton and a bound mesh and wasn't working, even though I used to be able to bake animation on the joints and export it, so I made a test file with just the two ingredients (joints an animation) to test and make sure it was the fbx export at fault and not something with the rig/mesh.

[matthew.d]

Hi @KudouYohji,

Welcome to the community!

Sorry to hear about the issue. Have you tried updating Maya 2016 with the latest service pack? Is it only on a specific project?

[KudouYohji]

Hi @matthew.d,

Yes, I updated to Maya 2016 SP2, but it didn't solve the issue. It's not on a speciffic project, it's on any file I try, export selected will not export any animation on any of them.

Thank you for your help!

[Anonymous]

I am having the same issue, but with Maya 2015 SP5.

Everything was litterally working fine - exporting my skeletal animation as FBX two days ago.  Yesterday for some unknow reason things broke.  FBX is no longer including animation even though my process is exactly the same.

- animate in maya, using my complex rig

- bake this animation down to my simplified skeleton

- export simple skeleton & mesh as FBX

Very frustrating.  I'm guessing it is something simple -  some setting that changed.  But I cannot find it and have deadlines to meet.

Thanks in advance.

[matthew.d]

Hi @Anonymous and @KudouYohji,

Very sorry about the issue. Your plug-in may not be activated within Maya. Give this a go.

[Anonymous]

Hello Mathew

My FBX plugin is activated (fbxmaya.mll set to loaded and autoload).  I am able to export my model.  But for some reason no animation is being included.  It was all working fine until about a week ago, animation just refuses to be included in the fbx files.

I'm tempted to remove all of my Maya preferences and let Maya initialize and install all of the defaults as a test.  Maybe this will resolve the issue.  Unless you have any other ideas?

[matthew.d]

Hi @Anonymous,

Yeah, give that a go and let us know how it goes.

[Anonymous]

This solved the problem.  I deleted all of my Maya prefs and let it create a default set on start up.  FBX exports animation perfectly again.

I had to re-install several plugins and copy back some of my custom shelves, icons, etc.  FBX still works great.  Not sure what exactly the problem was, but glad it is fixed!

Thanks!

[Nixellion]

I encountered the same problem. FBX export in maya 2016 works weird.

First it was exactly the same, it was just refusing to export animation. Deleting prefs helped, and everything worked fine for about a month.

But then it started acting weird again. First it stopped exporting animation through scripts.

For example I had a script which selected a bunch of nodes for export and run a "ExportSelection;" command. Simple as that. Opens up regular maya's export selection UI. And when I setup output file and setting and hit "Export" maya hangs on "Exporting geometry..."

When I tried to use my batch-export script, which opens up all files in folder and exports them in fbx using python cmds.file command (it worked before),  it does the same. Hangs on Exporting geometry...

So I went and started exporting animations manually. But encountered another problem. Resample All stopped working too!!! wtf

I don't want to go through the process of deleting prefs and starting to setup everything again, any way to pinpoint the problem to solve it directly? 

[Nixellion]

Well, running FBXResetExport; helped to solve the "Resample All" problem, with it not baking everything correctly. But other problems seem to remain.

[aimdiab]

Well basically, it seems to be a recurring issue in 2014-2016 and Autodesk hasn't done anything about it. I love how I'm literally hemorrhaging hours of work time every few weeks when I run into this issue and forget that it's Maya's broken **** and not something I forgot to check or bake on my end.

Literally another hour spent double checking my work to see why my animations weren't working in engine.

Is this the level of quality we can expect from $3600 software?

Sorry, bit of a rant.

[Nixellion]

Yeah, I actually ran into FBX export problem with 3ds max as well. While Maya mostly just ignores animation or something like that, 3ds max often just crashes during FBX export. First I thought I found the reason, buggy hierarchy, but just when I though it was over, it happened again... and again... Starting to think about digging into FBX api

[Sillyeuropean]

This thread is a bit old by now. But in case it helps anyone else stumbles on to the thread like I did: I am able to export my skeleton with animation when I remove everything but the skeleton from the scene and export all instead of export selection.  Not as smooth, but easier than resetting maya completely

[Ahall.lutzy]

I am using 2017 and have run into this problem as well, the same solution worked for me, but I'm wondering why the problem hasn't been able to be identified or fixed over many versions? 

[Anonymous]

Running 2017 and had this same problem. Glad I ran into this thread. Deleting prefs made everything work again... so frustrating! Lost about an hour. Please fix this!!!!

[Nixellion]

Maya 2018, issue is still there. Occasionally FBX export breaks, resulting in no animation or other major animation bugs in exported files. Deleting prefs fixes export, but deleting all of our carefully setup preferences is not a good fix really.

Game Exporter is not affected by this issue, however.

[joe.mandia]

I am having this issue on 2017 as well. Deleting prefs is a horrible work around. I hope Autodesk resolves this. If anyone else has found a better work around, please post!

[adrianalainportaje]

Hi, I am a student and new to Maya. I have the same problem with exporting to fbx format. I already modelled a diorama with 1 object that has an animation my only problem is when I exporting it to fbx format the animation is not working. Can someone help me what should I do? I am not very familiar with Maya as well.

Thank you

[contact75QQV]

Same thing with maya 2020, I tried resetting the preferences and had no luck. Switched over to maya 2022 and that one's working fine I guess. I really hope they fixed this issue in 2022 because it sucks. I spent two days trying to figure it out and man oh man was it not a fun time.

[contact75QQV]

Same thing with maya 2020, I tried resetting the preferences and had no luck. Switched over to maya 2022 and that one's working fine I guess. I really hope they fixed this issue in 2022 because it sucks. I spent two days trying to figure it out and man oh man was it not a fun time.