Animation works in 3ds Max, breaks on export

[mathis_kotsch]

Hello everyone,

I’m reaching out for some assistance as I’m an absolute beginner in §D modeling and animation, and I’ve hit a bit of a wall.

Here’s the situation: We ordered custom 3D animations of bees for a project, and we need to export them as .glb or .gltf files with the animations intact. When I open the .max file, everything looks perfect, and the animation plays correctly in the timeline. However, I’ve encountered some issues during the export process.

1. Exporting as .fbx: I first tried exporting the animation as a .fbx file. Unfortunately, when I view it in FBX Review, the bee's body remains stationary while only the eyes and wings move.

2. Using the Babylon File Exporter: Next, I attempted to export it as a .glb using the Babylon File Exporter. While this method allows the bee to animate correctly, the wings are now not correctly attached to the rest of the body.

The supplier of the animation insists that there’s nothing wrong with the files they provided, and they believe the issue lies with our export process. As someone who is not familiar at all with 3ds Max or similar programs, I’m at a loss for how to resolve this.
I am providing you with one example .max file, as well as 2 screenshots of broken exports.

I’ve tried various combinations of export options, but I keep ending up with broken animations. If anyone has tips, advice, or experience with this kind of problem, I would greatly appreciate your help!

Thank you so much for your time and assistance!

[A娘]

the file use many controller only valid in max , when you export , you must enabled bake animation

[mathis_kotsch]

Thank you, but whenever I tried it with baked animation, I get the same result. Are there any other export settings that might cause this?

[MartinBeh · Accepted solution]

This took me a while to figure out:

The Skin modifier that drives the legs using bones is using the Dual Quaternion skinning option. Apparently that is (silently) not supported by FBX Review (and possibly also your FBX import tool).

If you turn DQ skinning off for all Skin modifiers and enable the "Bake Animation" option in FBX export, you get the attached result.

This looks like a limitation in the FBX format, or rather an FBX feature unsupported by "normal" FBX importers... 

[mathis_kotsch]

Thank you so much for this, now i can also successfully export a working FBX file. Do you have any ideas, how i can also get a working .glb? Using the Babylon Exporter, I still get the same Result with incorrectly attached wings. I tried some FBX to glb converters, also importing and exporting it again in Blender, but it always ends up with a corrupted result.

[MartinBeh]

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@mathis_kotsch wrote:

Thank you so much for this, now i can also successfully export a working FBX file. 

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Please consider using the "Accept solution" button if this solves your problem.

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@mathis_kotsch wrote:

Do you have any ideas, how i can also get a working .glb? Using the Babylon Exporter, I still get the same Result with incorrectly attached wings. I tried some FBX to glb converters, also importing and exporting it again in Blender, but it always ends up with a corrupted result.

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Sorry, I don't know much about gltf, but you probably also have to bake the Layer controller animation; and you probably need to find a way to convert the Skin modifier deformations into vertex/point-based cached animation (but maybe that is covered by gltf exporters...?)

This does not sound like Skin modifier (or pointcache) is supported in babylon.js...

[MartinBeh]

(on a side note: it is a bit unfortunate that Skin modifier was used for a mostly rigid deformation of an insect; maybe you can directly use the bone animation to simply transform the individual insect segments? With that you avoid having to deal with Skin, which is mostly about non-rigid mesh deformations)

[mathis_kotsch]

Since I didn't create the Models/Animation, I have no control over how it was created. I also am not capable of changing/editing anything there myself. But I will let the creator know about this.
Thank you for your help and input.

[MartinBeh]

Just a brief follow-up regarding gtlf: Have you seen this thread? maybe @spacefrog_ can help?

This page sounds like skinned animation is supported after all?