A few FBX import/export questions

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Just had a couple of fbx questions regarding maya LT...

1. How do I tell maya LT to set animation length to clip lenght when I import an FBX file. For example - I have mixamo's free "IDLE" animation example that has 200+ keys in it. When i import in maya it defaults to 30 keys only, even though it does load all of them (if I expand the range it will work). But it's annoying because I have to keep going back to the mixamo's site to figure out how many keys there are so I can set the right range...

2. Ok, this one is maybe not so much an FBX import/export but it's a bit related. Basically for my game engine all units will be in meters. But maya defaults to centimeters as a working unit. Now, if I go to preferences I can change that to meters and save, which seems to work OK. And it will work ok during the session. But then if I  close Maya and reopen again it defaults back to centimeters again!??? How can I get it to default to meters ALWAYS.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Oh, and 3.

Is it possible to write your own export plugins in maya lt ? I have a custom game engine with it's own format and have my own converter from FBX to it. What I'd like to do is have some fairly simple plugin that can export and FBX followed by a call to my exe command line tool that does additional conversions. If this is possible can someone give my some pointers on where I can start (sdk/script, etc). Thanks

[remimcgill]

Hi there, Sorry but right now there is no way to write an exporter plugin for Maya LT, or do system calls from script.    

For exporting animation I reccommend using the Game Exporter tool (File/Game Exporter) which will allow you to easily control the clip time range, and also handles default settings so that it will export properly.  You can also launch FBX Review from here after the export so you can check out your export to see if it did it as you expect.

If you choose not to use the game Exporter if you set your animation timeline range to how long you want the clip this will export the full time range.

For the Centimeter/Meter issue, usually what people do is leave the units as centimeters and then the unit conversion is done at import time on the engine side when the engine is in meters.

Please let us know if you have any other questions,

Cheers,

Remi

[Anonymous]

Hi, Remi and thanks for your reply

While it would be nice if I could write some sort of an exporter plugin I think I figured out a workaround - I'll just write a filewatcher service and have it fire off FBX-to-myformat conversion app every time an FBX file changes in the watched folder. That should work fine. 

But as for animation I m still a bit lost. I know I can set clip range when exporting but how can I see what the total lenght of the clip is in the first place. RIght now I have to go up to mixamo's site to figure out the range of the clip, and then modify the playrange to that particular length. 

[remimcgill · Accepted solution]

I think I understand your question about the animation range better now.  A way to figure out the animation range after you import the fbx from Mixamo is first change your animation range in Maya LT to a large number, say 200 frames.  THen select one of the animated bones from the skeleton in your scene.  In the animation range little red vertical lines will show up.  Each of these red lines denotes a key, so where all the red lines stop this is the end of your clip's animation.

Let me know if this works for you,

Remi

[Anonymous]

Yup - that's what I was looking for . Thanks !