Blend shapes won't export

[dorjahatlak29]

Hey everyone! I have rigged model with a couple of blend shapes for facial expressions. Works perfectly good in Maya, but when I export fbx (Export All) and reimport to maya again, base shape (face) and blend shapes are not exported, but target shapes are though. In export settings, I have selected Constraints, Skeleton definitions, Skins and Blend shapes, but I doubt export settings are the problem since the same settings are working for another, similar project. Doesn't work in Unity either. I can't figure out what might be the problem, does anyone have idea how to fix this? I've tried to fix this problem for hours and I've run out of ideas. ☹️

[Hans_Redman]

Have you try to bake blendshapes into geometry yet?
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Export-FB...
Hope this helps

[dorjahatlak29 · Accepted solution]

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I want to be able to apply blend shapes in Unity through inspector so I'm not sure if baking would keep that? However I managed to make it work. I think the problem was that blend shapes nodes were created on the rigged and weighted mesh. Here are the steps that helped me, for anyone with similar problem:

1. Duplicate base shape/main mesh  with blend shapes and hide original mesh
2. Unbind from skeleton with delete history selected, and delete history again (Edit -> Delete by type -> Delete hystory)
3. Delete all blend shape deformers from Shape editor.
4. Delete history from all target meshes

5. Create blend shapes again for each target with Pre-deformation selected under Advanced tab in Blend Shape Options

6. Bind mesh to skeleton after all blend shapes nodes are created
7. Unhide original mesh, select it, then select new mesh with blend shapes and go to Skin > Copy Skin weights. Delete or hide original mesh.

🙂

[Hans_Redman]

Thank you for sharing the solution with the community.
Cheers 😄

[hamsterHamster]

Wow, that doing blendshapes over was an overkill to my eye.

I tested out six export scenarios:

#1 selected skinned+blendshaped mesh, target unselected, Anim OFF;

#2 selected same mesh AND the target, Anim OFF;

#3 selected same mesh, target DELETED, Anim OFF.

Upon import there is no difference - all blendshapes work, and targets are re-created, hidden, unless exported in selection.

Then, I repeated same three exports with Animation enabled (set some keys) - still no differenece, all works.

M2019, FBX 2019, ASCII type.

The initial problem rather seems to be elsewhere.