3ds Max to Unity : Mechanical FBX Animation?

Hey there all!

I'm used to doing a lot of mechanical animation in Max. These are parts with their pivots in the right places, and with a parent/child hierarchy (and maybe a basic IK solver), but each part is a seperage mesh/object and they do not collectively have a "skin". This is all good as now I am working with a team on a game about robots.

I assume that I don't NEED bones, and that if I animate in Max the animations can come out to Unity using the FBX exporter.

What I guess I don't understand about Max, ( and I've been trying to Google but coming up short) is:

Do I save each animation out as a separate FBX file? That doesn't seem right, as I know that the FBX exporter has a checkbox for "Animations". Or do I chop up the timeline and make frame 1-100 "jump", 101-130 "walk", 131-250 "Meltdown"... ect...

Anyone have experience on (not HOW to animate) but manage your animations in Max so you can cleanly send them out to FBX?

 

I don't use Max, but personally I'd probably create separate animation files, "Walk", "Jump", "Meltdown" etc. rather than one big animation with a bunch of different animations along a timeline.

I think in the long run it would be easier to manage. If you want your character to meltdown when hitting an object, then call the "Meltdown" animation rather than calling, "Animation 'frames 131-250'".

 

I prefer to keep all my animations (especially when using biped or cat) in one Max file and exporting each animation sequence separately.
Logical reason - You will not need to define the animation range in Unity, they will already be defined by each fbx file animation export.
If you have to edit any of the animations - return to Max edit the one animation you want to change - reexport only that animation range.
If you were to keep all the animations in one fbx, you would have to reexport all the animations together, and re define all the animation ranges. Well - I've actually not done this - but I think you have to define all animations down 'timeline' from the one animation you edited.

There are numerous benefits for keeping all the animations together in one Max file, confirmed by several other animators who use Unity regularly and support the asset store with high quality animated characters.

Personally - I think I'd bone/skin the mechanical animation stuff you mentioned especially when using IK for animating - or at least have a parent/child hierarchy with helper objects to control pivot placement and rotation along with IK solvers.