Votes
0
Product:
iClone 8
Version:
8.0
Status:
Released in 8.01
Issue 8480
Export animated Props in .FBX doesn't export the animation.
Even the simplest kind of animation for a Prop is not exported in .FBX. To reproduce it:

- Start a new Project
- Create a Box
- Move the Box later on the Timeline
- File -> Export -> Export .FBX, with range set to "All"
- Import the file in 3DS Max, the Box is there, with no animation. The timeline is filled with keyframes, it's just they are all 0, position and rotation in all axes.

Exporting an animated character with some motion clips applied to it works so, it seem only an issue with animated Props. Tried both "All" or with an actual range, no difference. Tried exporting with different frame rates, same problem. The same procedure works perfectly fine in IC7.

The only thing that seems to work to export a Prop in Max, is to use Alembic, that keeps the animation.
OS: Windows 10
  •  1
  •  1351
Pipeline (Export/Import)
Submitted byvirtuali May 17, 2022
1
COMMENTS (1)
virtuali May 19, 2022 
Some further information that might help RL finding the problem. I found that I could manage to export animated props in .FBX, by opening the exported .FBX in IClone 7, and then exporting it again in .FBX to Max. It's really weird that IC7 could read the animation from the .FBX file, but Max couldn't. And no, it's not Max, because the .FBX exported from IC8 doesn't have any keys on Blender as well.

I noticed that, when exporting an animated Prop from IC7, even if it's not parented to anything, the resulting .FBX has a double hierarchy of a dummy node, which contains another dummy node, which contains the actual prop mesh. The proper translation/rotation/scale keys are in the 2nd dummy.

Instead, the .FBX from the same scene, exported from IC8, has just the actual mesh. However, for some reason, IC7 can still read the animation from it, while both Max and Blender don't. Is as if it was exported using a non-standard controller, something only IC7 could read, which is strange, considering .FBX is an Autodesk format, and Max DOES recognize the object has an animation ( it shows the take name in the import dialog ), but it cannot read the keys. From IC8 only.

In both cases, I export in .FBX a single selected object.

While the workaround of passing through IC7 to export has allowed me to continue my work, this should be really looked at, because it's a serious bug, the program is not very useful if it cannot export.

Just to make it clear, this affects ONLY animated Props with Translation/Rotation keys on their Timeline. Animated characters export fine from IC8.
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