Votes
0
Product:
Character Creator 4
Version:
4.31
Status:
Released in 4.4
Issue 10701
_Motion.fbx files don't contain any blend shapes when exporting iTalk files.
When exporting an FBX for Unity where "Export Mesh and Motion Individually" is chosen, the animations in the _Motion.fbx file won't contain any blend shapes.

This is easy to reproduce on a stock character. Here are the steps:
- New CC4 project, add the CC4 Kevin to scene.
- File -> Export -> FBX -> Clothed Character
- Target Toolset Preset = Unity. FBX Options = Mesh and Motion. The other options are shown in the screenshot.

For the Include Motion -> Custom section, I've included a few iTalk files from C:\Users\Public\Documents\Reallusion\Reallusion Templates\Animation\Expression\Expression_Loop\All (Though yours may be installed somewhere else). When exporting, you'll see some dialogs warning about the iTalk files. Choose "ExPlus".

Now drop the files into Unity, and inspect the animations under the _Motion.fbx file. Notice that none of the animations contain any blend shapes. If "Export Mesh and Motion Individually" is not checked, so that a single, unified FBX is imported, that FBX will contain blend shapes, as expected. This is only an issue for the separated _Motion.fbx file.
OS: Windows 11
Attachment:
  • cc4 Export.png
  •  2
  •  317
BugPipeline (Export/Import)
Submitted bydan.goyette Aug 4, 2023
1
COMMENTS (2)
dan.goyette Dec 3, 2023 
jake_696875: The only option I know of, currently, is to export the combined character. However, I perform an extra step to avoid needing to have a huge "Mesh and Motion" FBX. This is my process currently, until they fix this issue:
 - Export just the "Mesh" FBX. This is the character I will include in my actual project, and it's the FBX that gets included in builds. 
 - Also export a "Mesh and Motion" FBX. This one is just for creating animations.
 - In Unity, import both of the FBX files, and run them through the CC/IC Character Importer to ensure everything gets set up correctly.
 - The important detail here is that the CC/IC Character Importer will extract copies of all of the animation clips in the "Mesh and Motion" FBX, into a Baked folder. After it's done that, you no longer need the "Mesh and Motion" FBX, and you can technically delete it. Those Baked animation clips will work properly against your "Mesh" FBX.

The advantage of this approach is that you don't need to ship the "Mesh and Motion" FBX with your project, which can be huge depending on how many Animation clips it contains.
jake_696875 Dec 3, 2023 
Still able to reproduce this bug in 4.33. Was wondering if there was any workaround for just exporting facial animations to unity. For now do I have to do the combined "Mesh and Motion" Character export?
1