Page 1 of 1

Animate facial expressions of character and work as FBX

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 9:11 am
by donnavu
Heya guys!

I'm a Game Dev, and I want to make my character change facial expressions in mid-animation.
Since the character must work in Unity, I also need to export the character as an FBX and have the animation work.

Here's what I tried:
1. I have an image layer for the "neutral" expression of the face, and an image layer for the "hurt" expression.
2. I made an animation that toggles on/off the layer visibility of the image layers, shifting the character's expression back and forth.
3. I check that the animation also works when "FBX Preview Mode" is checked.
4. I export the character with the face change animation out as an FBX, and import it into Unity.
5. For some reason, the animation doesn't work in unity: all image layers of the character are visible, and the keyframes for toggling on/off the layer visibility in the animation is gone.

Does anyone have a better way of doing this? Help is appreciated!

Extra notes:
I am using Moho Pro 12, and am imported .pngs from photoshop to use as image layers

Re: Animate facial expressions of character and work as FBX

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:11 pm
by synthsin75
I'd try a switch layer instead of swapping visibility.

Re: Animate facial expressions of character and work as FBX

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:49 am
by donnavu
synthsin75 wrote:I'd try a switch layer instead of swapping visibility.
I tried using a switch layer and the animation is still broken in unity, unfortunately.
I think the problem may lie with me using bones and images as my main way of animating the character.

In a separate project, I used vector layers inside of a switch layer and exported it out as an FBX. Turns out, the animation works in Unity.
However, I prefer not to use vector layers to animate, so I want to find a solution where I can use smart bones + images.

Re: Animate facial expressions of character and work as FBX

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:54 am
by synthsin75
Use FBX Preview Mode to see what features are compatible.