Maya 2017 and 2018 How to export a type animation to fbx for Unity

[tobias.thomsch]

Hello,

I have the problem that I have created a type animation using the animation settings directly under typemesh. So every character is animated fine and it looks great, but how can I export this via FBX to use it in Unity for example?

I can't bake this animation in any way.

I have tried, creating a MASH animation and bake this MASH animation, but this is not working too.

I'm using Maya 2017 and 2018, no luck with it ...

Thank you very much!

Hi @tobias.thomsch your title 'How to export a type animation to FBX' was edited for clarity by @sean.heasley

[sean.heasley]

Hi @tobias.thomsch and welcome to the community!

Generally when exporting, animations especially to Unity, it's best not to bake it in Maya. The better approach is to simply save the Maya file in your project folder (do not bake the animation in the Maya file, just animate with IK as normal) and then choose to bake animations in the Unity import settings. Unity will automatically convert the file into FBX and then into Unity's data format in the background.

While it may take a little while to import, this should be the easiest way for you to get the animation into Unity!

I also found some documentation on Unitys website for importing animation that may help you out!

Let me know if this helps solve your issue or if you need any more information/assistance!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[tobias.thomsch]

Hey Sean, many thx for your reply.

I know that Unity is working with the ma file as well, but Unity (we are using 4.12 at the moment) is not finding the animation in the ma or fbx file at all!
The problem is with the type animation thing only!

typemesh - animation - set keys ...

Many thanks!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @tobias.thomsch

This is interesting. I believe it may something with it being a type animation and Unity having trouble recognizing it.

When you get a chance, would you mind zipping the project folder and attaching it here or via dropbox/google drive or another file sharing program so I can take a look at it?

Let me know if anything changes!

[tobias.thomsch]

Hey sean,

sure, not a problem, but its very easy to reproduce it by just create a type tool mesh and animate it.

attached you find the file (its maya 2018 now) which I want to export via fbx.

many thanks!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @tobias.thomsch

I took a look at your scene file and it's a bit hard to tell how you animated it however I think I know what the issue is.

I didn't see any keys on your timeline so it looks like you animated straight through the tool which while it will function in Maya, it wont appear in Unity.

I believe your best bet is to manually move and key each letter instead of using the animate function in the type tool.

Let me know if this makes sense or if you need any more information on the animation process!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[tobias.thomsch]

Hey Sean,

this is not an option for us, because this text we want to animate will be changing afterwards. So the only way to do it that way is to animate it directly via the text type tool, because this allows us to change each letter afterwards, without changing the animation again!

When you create a key'ed animation like you said, you have to animate it over and over again with every changing letter/word.

Do you know if I can bake it with the MASH animation tool? I have tried it, but maya 2018 is always crashing when i try to export the baked animation.

Many thanks for your help!

regards,

tobi

[sean.heasley]

Hi @tobias.thomsch

I'm not an expert on MASH to Unity workflows but I did some testing and it can be done. However the animation needs to be done with MASH and not with the Type tool.

Here are some basic steps that should help:

1. Create text via type tool

2. Separate objects

3. Create MASH network with all letters selected

4. Animate via MASH

5. Select the MASH waiter and go to MASH->Utilities->Switch MASH Geometry Type

6.Go to MASH->Utilities->Bake Instancer to Objects

This should bake your animation then you can export all as an fbx and import it into Unity.

This is an article on the Bake Instancer Tool that may help you!

I also found this video that may be of use to you on animating with MASH Text!

Please let me know if this information is helpful or if you still can't properly export to Unity and I'll be happy to troubleshoot further!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[tobias.thomsch]

Hey Sean,

I tried your workaround and I like animating with MASH itself. But still the problem is the last step, how o bake it?

It seams that at the end, its the same problem like with the Type animate. I only get a single frame and no animation at all.

This could be so easy if every single letter would be bake able at the end...

[sean.heasley · Accepted solution]

Hi @tobias.thomsch

I went ahead and made a quick video showing how I bake the animation and prepare to export to Unity.

Let me know if it helps with your issue or if you need more assistance!

[tobias.thomsch]

Its working, many many thanks!

Maybe the problem was that I have not deleted the history before adding the MASH network and I don't added every character to a single group.

But this seams to work now and I have the Instancer Objects successfully exported and load it into Unity.

Thank you very much Sean!

You are very welcome.

Greetings from Austria

Edit: I just tried it again and it seams the "problem" is, that you have to clear the history before adding the MASH network to the text.

[tobias.thomsch]

Hey Sean,

well ... I have tested your workaround now and it works. BUT, the idea of animating every letter individually is not working anymore.

When you want to create a offset animation with a Falloff_MASH_Offset, its only affecting the complete group of text and not every single individual letter.

Any idea how to fix this now?

So by animating every single letter, i mean something like this: https://vimeo.com/69886927

Maybe there is an option I'm missing within MASH?

Many thanks!

[sean.heasley · Accepted solution]

Hi @tobias.thomsch

I did some testing in MASH and managed to get something similar to what was in your original scene. While it's not exactly how your scene was, I showed all the tools I used to get to it and you should easily be able to recreate the animation you want with some tweaks to the position and rotation keys!

Please let me know if this helps solve your issue or if you need any more assistance!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @tobias.thomsch

I'm just checking in again to see if you need more help with setting up the MASH animation to go to Unity. Did the video I provided on Friday help solve your issue?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[tobias.thomsch]

Hey sean,

thank you very much again for you help!

I wasn't at work the last two days, sorry for the delay.

And yes, this delay seams to work very well and looks close to the animation i wanted to have.

Big THANK YOU from austria! 😉

Regards,

Tobi