topic Re: How can I export the pivots' information from my modular kit to Unity? in Maya Modeling Forum

How can I export the pivots' information from my modular kit to Unity?

valentina_marques8EYMQ — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 01:25:11 GMT

I'm sorry if the title may be a little hard to come, English is not my first language, but I'll explain what's my problem...

I've done a modular kit for a Unity project, therefore each piece's pivot have been moved to the corner.
Using the Game Exporter as my teacher recommended, I've made sure to uncheck all the options that could potentially reset the pivots, but when exported, every module has their pivot reset back to the center.

Maybe it's not a Maya problem, but an Unity one (as I've seen people being told that some game engines do not pick up the pivot's information), yet I've come here to check if maybe is there some setting that I've forgotten either during modeling or exporting. 😞

Thank you for your time! Have a nice day. ❤️

Re: How can I export the pivots' information from my modular kit to Unity?

baez_isaac — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 18:31:30 GMT

Hello valentina_marques8EYMQ,

I'm not a Unity user, but I work with Unreal a lot. One important step before exporting any mesh or model is making sure it's properly set up in the Maya scene.

I've uploaded some screenshots to show what I mean. When exporting models, it's crucial that the corner of each model is positioned at the center of the Maya grid—specifically at coordinates (0,0). In the images, you'll see two identical models in Maya. Both have their pivots placed at the corners, but only one has its corner aligned with the grid center.

When I import them into Unreal, the model whose corner was centered in Maya has its pivot exactly where I want it. The other one doesn't—because game engines like Unreal don’t recognize pivot adjustments made in your 3D software. Instead, they rely on the model’s position relative to the grid center (0,0).

To fix this, I recommend creating a separate layer for each model in your modular kit. This makes it easier to hide and export them individually. Then, for each model, align its corner to Maya’s grid center as shown in the screenshots. That should resolve the pivot issue you're seeing in Unreal.

Hopefully this helps you got

Good luck!

Re: How can I export the pivots' information from my modular kit to Unity?

merdascal — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 19:04:01 GMT

in game exporter you need to select "Export Multiple Files" and mark the option "move to Origin".
Also you can use from the bonus tools the "keep pìvot offset and zero local values" script. With this is not necesary to move by hand the piece to the 0,0,0 and freeze