Softimage to Unity

Softimage to Unity Working Workflow:

  • Do your own rig.
  • Created several nulls (shadow rig), a null for each character’s bone and put the match as rotation and translation, turn on constraint compensation, constraint pose.
  • Envelope using the shadow rig.
  • Use the controllers of the original rig to make the animation.
  • Middle click shadow rig.
  • Click Select, Select Child Nodes.
  • Tools, Plot, All Transformations.
  • Check box for Enable “Fit plotted values whith an fcurve”. OK.
  • Constraints, Remove All Constraints.
  • Make sure that the pivots are in the right place.
  • Middle click shadow rig and character mesh (select both).
  • Export, FBX, Select Remove Camera and Lights.

=D

There are some posts about it, but rolled all the problems together in a single post to not only solve my problems but also to help others.

I am facing two problems …

1 - Export the char with animation.

For the first problem I kind of figured out how to fix, you simply must do a shadow rig linked to its original rig, to when exporting not have problems with other software.

I found these tutorials on how to do this shadow rig:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiHITFS67-0 (part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nV-2GXGCHU (part 2)

It’s for unreal engine, but the logic is the same…

By the logic goes like this:

I do all the rig with controls and constraints,

Then do the shadow rig, using nulls (read that is better, it is cleaner)

Use constraint match rotation and translation by placing each null in each bone,

Then do the envelope using only the nulls,

Then I do the animation using the controllers of the original rig and it’s just plot the animation to the shadow rig.

I have some questions:

How do I plot the animation in the shadow rig?
Do I put the shadow rig inside the character model and export it all or export it separately but in the same fbx?

I’ve found an workflow posted in another post by blure007:

Here is our current workflow for
characters from Softimage to Unity.
Pulling this from memory so bear with
me

Animate, Create, Character, Biped
Guide Default Settings Align guide to
character Create, Character, Rig from
Biped Guide Shadow Rig Tab select
SI|3D Delete Biped Guide Select
Character Deform, Envelope, Set
Envlope, Yes Pick entire root Shadow
Rig Weightmap and Animate Character
Middle Click Shadow Biped Click
Select, Select Child Nodes Tools,
Plot, All Transformations Check box
for Enable Fit Plotted Values Select
Shadow Rig and Select, Select Child
nodes, Remove constraints on Shadow
Rig Lower spine and next, CRTL+R and
change IK to FK blending Export, FBX,
Select Remove Camera and Lights

2 - When I export to FBX, symmetrical texture map is wrong.

For the second problem, I found a guy who had the same problem, except that he fix it, but he did not share.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/82779-texture-problem-with-softimage-Symmetrical-model

I need when the FBX export, it is arranged with the texture (or the UV OK) and working animation.

OBS: When I import the FBX to the Softimage, the symmetry map is wrong too… So it seems that the problem is in Softimage.

I found a reply to this problem in a post by SKSFennec…

  1. Triangulate the model
  2. FreezeM
  3. Quadragulate the model - Not necessary for import but I like seeing
    my models clean.

Thanks in advance.

yes… I tried and it works, now I’m doing the export animation part, but I’m still re-weighting the char to the nulls… so far so good, when I’m finished i’ll post the results.

yes… I tried and it works, now I’m doing the export animation part, but I’m still re-weighting the char to the nulls… so far so good, when I’m finished i’ll post the results.

The rig did not work :/,

When I export the animation is wrong … the bones are twisted …

Look what i did:

I created several nulls (shadow rig), a null for each character’s bone and put the match as rotation and translation - compensation constraint - constraint pose.

Then I did the envelope using the shadow rig.

Then I used the controllers of the original rig to make the animation.

And then I did:
Middle Click Shadow Biped
Click Select, Select Child Nodes
Tools, Plot, All Transformations
Check box for Enable Fit Values ​​plotted
Rig Shadow Select and Select, Select Child nodes, removes constraints on Shadow Rig

From this part, the tutorial says:
Lower spine and next, Ctrl + R and change blending IK to FK

how so? … Lower spine and next?

And they are nulls, when I press Ctrl + R, nothing happens, but when I do the same thing in the original rig, it show the ik/fk box…

so I put the FK to the original rig before remove all constraints from the shadow rig? I did so and did not work …

please help …

It WORKED!

I import the fbx file to the softimage a saw that the mesh’s pivot was in the wrong position, I open up the scene again, fixed it, exported it, and now IT WORKS :slight_smile:

Before doing that I tried the biped guide method, it didn’t worked, and the fbx file size was 7Mb, doing my way with nulls, the fbx file size is 683Kb, way better…

So here it is the workflow to export without any problem:

  • Do your own rig.
  • Created several nulls (shadow rig), a null for each character’s bone and put the match as rotation and translation, turn on constraint compensation, constraint pose.
  • Envelope using the shadow rig.
  • Use the controllers of the original rig to make the animation.
  • Middle click shadow rig.
  • Click Select, Select Child Nodes.
  • Tools, Plot, All Transformations.
  • Check box for Enable “Fit plotted values whith an fcurve”. OK.
  • Middle click original rig.
  • Click Select, Select Child Nodes.
  • CRTL+R and change IK to FK blending
  • Middle click shadow rig.
  • Click Select, Select Child Nodes.
  • Constraints, Remove All Constraints.
  • Export, FBX, Select Remove Camera and Lights.

=D