Hi,
Using Rigify in legacy mode (the non-legacy mode is much worse when used in Playcanvas)
I animate a head rotating left and right but when imported into PC, the hip and legs rotate as well.
When I use the non-legacy mode of Rigify in Blender, the tip of nose is stuck (as if nailed to one position only) as the head rotates.
Just enable the RIGGED objects in the PC editor and you’ll see what I mean:
In the BLENDER FILE SOURCE folder you can get the associated .blend file to see what’s going on
Wait, do .blend files work in playcanvas?
I don’t think it is a good idea to import the whole rig system to PlayCanvas.
Basically, you need a file with mesh, bones, morhs and animations, nothing more. Otherwise, prepare for some glitches, because your model is much more complicated.
I’ve recently learned a pro workflow where you actually create a second rig with no parenting, ik or else and then do a “copy transform” from each old = master bone to the new “transform bones”. Then you change all the master bones to “no deform” (via "Pose -> Bone Settings -> Transform) and all the new bones to Transform (should be default). If you then export the armature you can only export “Transform Bones” (via fbx-export-settings) and then you should have no problems.
It sounds a bit tedious (it’s actually not if you properly use bone layers in blender) but it insures a clean export, even if you do all kinds of weird stuff with your master bones.
I’ve added the folder IMPORT_EXPORT AGAIN in PC
Animation comes out different but not what it shows in Blender
I uploaded it just in case someone wanted to download the .blend file.
Hey, I spent about 2 hours trying your solution.
Unfortunately it didn’t work.
The only difference that I made between your solution and what I did is that the “copy transform” is for each old DEF version of the old rig because that is the only bone that actually moves according to the ik
Anyway, you can see what happens, I’ve placed it in the PC model object called “RIGIFY-ADDON DUPLICATED RIG VIA TRANSFORM”
I tried exporting & importing your files. But I don’t had no luck either.
I deactivated deform on all bone-layers except the last 3, which seem to be the main deform bones and also reassigned the armature modifier with automatic weights.
The animation looks good in blender but after exporting and importing the vertex groups seem broken. I think that it’s more a blender export problem than a pc issue, as I had never any similar issue with my own (simpler rigs).
Unfortunately I can’t help you with the rigify armature, as I don’t use it.
But maybe you could take a look at some tutorials on how to use rigify rig in unreal engine / unity, as this workflow should work for playcanvas as well.
Thanks for attempting to figure it out.
I would have used a simpler rig as well but I’m trying to learn Rigify because know that there is a new workflow for UE from Blender the guys came up with last year. So I thought the easier way to learn Rigify would be to test it out on PC as a trail run thinking it would be easier this way.
But it seems I’ll have to learn the Blender to UE4 workflow for Rigify before I can use it on a Blender to PC workflow. That’s a shame but I’ll do that, thanks.
What file format do you export from Blender?
In my experience, it is difficult to work with .fbx in Blender. It could be easier to export a .glb file and load it to PC with a native .glb loader.
I’ve tried both fbx and glb
Hey Rechi,
Unfortunately the UE4 to PlayCanavas .fbx export results in rigging issues.
This export was done right after the installation of UE4 on my computer, and the creation of the 3rd Person project. I havn’t even attampted to use the Blender-addon for UE4 yet. I just wanted to test out whatever UE4 already has in it’s asset of characters to see if it can be exported to PC and it doesn’t seem to work perfectly as it should for Production-Level
For a person using PC as a hobby, this would be an acceptable glitch but I’m actually using PC and UE4 for professional release.
When exporting from UE4 I first attempted the default 2013 fbx export standard, but then I also tried the 2020 fbx export standard via the selection box of the UE4 exporter window. None seem to make a difference.
I then tried importing into PC using the old way and the new way (selecting checkbox of ‘Import as glb’ in the asset task of the settings section)
This was the first step I attempted to pass before I test the Blender-addon workflow for UE4, but this simple first attempt failed. I’m sorry to say but UE4 has a high standard in making sure rigging/skeleton/mesh/weight etc are testing extensively so that companies using the UE4 engine wont have these sort of issue as I have seen in PC. I believe PC needs to fix this issue if it is claiming to be Production-level game creation tool.
I havn’t used PC in close to 1 and a half years now, has any major thing changed since then? (rigging/animation/mesh/weights etc) This is a big issue for companies using PC for Professional release.
Could we place this bug as a higher priority in the stack of bugs?
Would it be possible to have a new project with just the assets that are affected on it’s own please and also a GIF/image/video of what you are expecting it too look like?
That way we can have it posted as a github issue and have it triaged.
We have been working on an Animation State Graph editor and engine support and is very close to be released to beta users. I don’t think much has changed with the current animation system.
Thanks for providing a standard use case, seems the pro’s are already on it.
It’s really strange as I recently had a similar workflow (importing some animations as a test to pc before using them in unity) with a medium complex rig, but maybe that’s related to the amount of bones / vertex group or else.
Hey there!
I am new here. I am interested in Rigify so I set up google alerts for the keyword and that’s how I found this discussion.
At the moment, I am working on youtube videos that attempt to solve these annoying issues between Blender and Game engines. Not sure if @Rechi was talking about my videos but the workflow sounds very similar to what I do.
I am not familiar with Playcanvas but I did tweak your blend file with my workflow. Here it is:
I managed to import the FBX into the engine and test the character. The results are very predictable.
If you want to know my workflow here is the YT playlist
Next week I’ll upload a new video that is specifically for Rigify but the existing videos already show the general process. For rigify you just need to fix a few minor things here and there.
By the way, old rigify or new rigify doesn’t really matter. Both are not suitable for games out of the box but adapting them for that purpose is not that difficult.
Thanks for the video and the testing!
