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Sharing animations across multiple rigs

Discussion in 'Animation' started by TyrianRed, Oct 9, 2014.

  1. TyrianRed

    TyrianRed

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2014
    Posts:
    4
    I am trying to use a 3D character that is a composite of different parts: legs, torso, arms, and head. I have multiple sets of legs, torsos, etc, and I need to be able to switch the parts out for others. While the legs, arms, and heads all have the same bone structure and use the same animations, they have different proportions, so they can't all be on the same rig. I have accounted for these proportion changes in my setup, so it will not cause the animations themselves to mess up when used. I have also deleted unnecessary bones in some of the rigs in order to save memory. The rigs are all humanoid, but the models are not in a T pose (They were modeled with bent legs), so I'm importing them as "generic". I'm having trouble getting unity to recognize that these rigs are all supposed to use the same animations.

    I was hoping I could import all the rigs from one blend file, but Unity will only import one rig from any given blend file. I tried exporting the rigs and their models to fbx, and importing the animations from a blend file containing one master rig, but then Unity doesn't seem to realize that the animations can also be used for any of the fbx-imported rigs, even the full boned ones. For that reason, I cannot conclude that the problem is that some rigs are missing bones. *None* of them work, even ones that are identical to the master.

    If I try using a bone-light rig in place of the master, the lack of bones for the animation doesn't seem to effect animating the new master rig in unity, but again, none of the fbx-imported rigs will animate, even rigs identical to it. I have a couple questions: 1) Why won't the animations work on my rigs unless they are imported simultaneously? 2) Is the bone difference going to bite me with another problem even if I can fix this one? 3) Is there anything I can do to get these animations to play across multiple rigs?

    Thanks,
    Tyrian
     
  2. TyrianRed

    TyrianRed

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2014
    Posts:
    4
    Followup: I solved my problem by putting all the parts on one rig. I still don't know why the animations have been so finicky, and if you have any ideas, I'd love some input.