Blendshapes support in Unity

Maybe most or some of you already know this, but i never check the online docs and when i do i find something interesting
It's in http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Components/class-Mesh.html


Blendshapes
Unity has support for BlendShapes (also called morph-targets or vertex level animation). Unity can import BlendShapes from .FBX (BlendShapes and controlling aninimation) and .dae (only BlendShapes) exported 3D files. Unity BlendShapes support vertex level animation on vertices, normals and tangents. Mesh can be affected by skin and BlendShapes at the same time. All meshes imported with BlendShapes will use SkinnedMeshRenderer (no mater if it does have skin or not). BlendShape animation is imported as part of regular animation - it simply animates BlendShape weigts on SkinnedMeshRenderer.


Seriously guys, this is like major feature and this is not even mentioned in release notes....???
this is real right, is there any of you that already tried this?

 

weird! This feature exits in unity?

 

There's a few asset store packages that use blendshapes for animation, iirc. I don't think it's a new feature.

 

Strange, I knew it was a planned feature but I was never told it is already implemented. Have to try this out sometime soon

 

This has been brought up before and a Unity developer has said that it is an error in the docs, it was a feature they hoped to add but dropped, he said it may appear sometime but dont hold your breath. Until then you will need one of the systems on the asset store if you need blend shape support.

 

Well,
If I remember correctly, the butterfly demo used blend shapes. And it was mentioned that this technology will come to unity at some point. Someone who works at unity could perhaps clarify if this works or not.

 

It was discovered a little more than a month ago:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/17...plicitly-mentioned-in-the-Docs!BUT-FBX-FAILED

 

Blend shapes should have been included from the start! No one really want to use bone driven morphs, when they can just model the expressions they want at any time...

 

Ah okay....well bummer

 

Exactly what I needed

 

Will Belndshapes from Blender work in Unity 4.3?

 

Try it. I will today too!

 

Yes.

 

Thanks! I will try today with Blender Blendshapes.

 

And we released a faceshift plugin for unity yesterday, so now you can even easily animate those blendshapes: http://www.faceshift.com/unity/

 

I can even easily animate these without shelling out $800/year

 

I have tested it, with the iClone Pipeline

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48415327/affeFacialTest/affeFacialTest.html

 

Hi Vidi,


Today I tried to do the blendshapes to unity from Maya with a regular procedure as FBX with blendshapes on in fbx exporter and I animated those blendshapes in maya.When I import the fbx to Unity,I can see the animations playing but the blendshape animations are not.Could yoou pls help me with the procedure.

 

I don't use Maya. I do all my animation task with the iClone Pipeline Bundle That backed all animation keys and clips in a special motion plus file .

Maybe in Maya is a Morph Option that must be select for the export, or another backed function ?

I don't know

 

Here ya go Chkalyan!

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/210412-Using-Blend-Shapes-in-4-3?p=1417904&viewfull=1#post1417904

Cheers

-Steven

 

May i ask you to share the method (or the project) that how you created this little example, Vidi? I am trying to achieve the exact same thing with iClone pipeline, but i am too noobish

 

Sorry I have not seen this thread earlier

What exactly is your problem with the iClone Pipeline ?
For more help, maybe you should start a tread in the Realusion Forum ?

 

For completeness... In Blender they call em ShapeKeys. If these are supported it opens a new world of animation that I previously had to abandon!

 

Hi,

Is there anything special I need to do in order for blend shape animations to work?
I have a simple cube model in blender, with animation clip that animates both a simple skeleton and shape keys.

When importing to Unity (either as FBX or the source .blend file), I can see the skeleton animation, and I can see the BlendShapes properties in the inspector, but the shape keys are not animated.

Here is the blend file if anyone is in a generous helping mood.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5253945/unity-forum/cube1.blend

 

Lol sorry I was answering for some previous posts until I saw they were mostly old.

You animate your shapekeys inside of Unity using the animations window of the Unity editor. You can't export shapekey animations directly from Blender.

 

It should be noted that if you're using the new Blender 2.71 that the Shape Keys aren't exported with the FBX exporter in Binary mode... they rewrote the exporter and support will be included in 2.72. Otherwise you can use the Legacy ASCII exporter.

 

I've a .blend with 250 blendshape keys. Any way to get that animation into Unity? I only see empty blendshape keys in Unity.
Thanks

 

I'm trying also to find how to use this. So far I have found some videos about using Maya.

Is there anything showing how to get a model from Blender into Unity with blendshapes ?

Presumably the blendshapes must be done in the modelling program ?

Or if I already have the separate morph targets can I load them into Unity one by one or something ?

Thanks

 

I heard in Blender's next release (2.72) they will make it easier to export blend shapes. The process right now is pretty clunky / difficult, but maybe I was just doing it wrong ..

 

I found a video showing how to do it :

Haven't tried it yet, but that looks pretty simple. He just exports the .blend file and then imports that into Unity.

I've already made my morph targets as separate models, so I don't know yet how I can do that method.

 

As I seem to remember, the export process is pretty easy, until you want to also export an armature on your model. Then things get messy.

 

I got this method working fine. I did everything he said in the video and barring a problem with the import it works.

So the problem was that something somewhere broke the importer. But I found this topic that replaces the old python34.dll with a new one.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/blender-2-71-blend-to-unity-broken.254632/#post-1700044

After I applied that fix, everything worked as expected and I could morph my cube in Unity

Now I just need to work out how to get my already made morph targets into Blender.

 

Correct. The main issue is that they're using a new FBX exporter that was rewritten from the ground up. The exporter in 2.71 does not support exporting blendshapes and they've said this is on the roadmap for 2.72.

 

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=fnbp1k&s=8#.VBcEmK237Nw

Any ideas on how to get this wave animation nicely into Unity? Sure blendshape keys are there but not animated.

 

Yes, export it to FBX from Blender 2.68 would be the easiest... or use the .blend file directly without FBX export. Just make sure you've saved in Object mode (not edit mode) before importing into Unity.

 

Yea that's what I do for ~2 weeks. Put the blend (object mode saved) into assets, then set animation to legacy. I see
all 250 shape keyframes but not animated.- I see also a default take animation but it doesn't move a bit...
Do I need Blender 2.68? I've tried with 2.61 and 2.71. Thanks for help

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/blend-shape-script.267367/
All blendshape keys are there but all are 0.
Many thanks

 

A huge thanks to the Blender devs as I just got my animation working perfectly after fbx exporting from Blender 2.72beta.

 

Ahhh yeah! Been using blendshapes fine from both Daz Studio and Max for a while now

One big feature request which arises from my use of the excellent Krabl mesh tools is exposing the blendshape data, which apparently isnt exposed, so krabl can decimate it properly along with everything else

This would be an absolutely great move for systems borne from makehuman or daz which do use quite complex base meshes but would look great at all number of LODS and yeah, would pretty much set a skinned mesh very nicely for multiplatform consideration (I'm genuinely thinking of a span between mid level mobile to dx11 of incredibly expressive models)

If this has been fixed, tell Krabl!

 

Thanks for the heads up Mike4 - my blendshapes are now working with FBX