Animation in Unity - FBX Problems and the Alembic Cache Solution [Solved + Links Below]
After a lot of issues (see pictures) when trying to export my animations from Maya as an FBX file and bringing it into Unity I found a way that worked for me.
This is what I wanted to do:
I was trying to create a base model FBX with the joints and blendshapes attached to it but without any animations. I then wanted to create separate animation FBX exports so eventually I would have one textured model and attach those animations to it, which would be smaller file sizes than exporting every model + animations.
The FBX exports were acting weird when I imported them back into Maya, it looked as if random blendshapes and corrective shapes were turned on. I tried a lot of different ways to export the model with the joints/rig but in the end I found out that my rig (made with Advanced Skeleton) was too complex to handle in a game engine. Game engines use single hierarchy rigs and no complex face rigs. I had created a separate face rig with blendshapes that wasn’t a single hierarchy with the body rig. So even if the animation did work in Unity, the “intricate” facial expressions were lost and looked odd.
After trying all the solutions I could find online and failing, I rediscovered the alembic plug-in for Unity. I had seen it before but didn’t try it at that time because the instructions were in Japanese. But since it was the last thing I was going to try I figured it was worth a shot. I luckily found some video tutorials on how to install it and it worked perfectly! The only downside to using alembic caches is that you have to texture every cache you use in Unity (but maybe there’s a script for automating that? I’m not a coder at all). I’m also using this for exporting Maya’s Bifrost liquid simulations into Unity.
ADAM: The Evolution of Alembic Support in Unity
Alembic Cache Plug-in for Unity
How to install/use the Alembic Plug-in for Unity (skip to 03:40 in video)
