I hope I'm posting this in the right place... my apologies if I'm not.  My question is about importing an animated character into Blender.  I can create, animate and import the character without issue... but the animation is stationary in Blender.  So... a walking animation is 'walking on the spot'.  I've been faking my way through it by adding keyframes in Blender and it works fairly well for a character walking in a straight line but wouldn't work for a 'turning walk' animation.  Is there a way for me to import the actual distance between the starting and finishing point?  I'm using the CC3 to Blender add-on in Blender and exporting the FBX as an iMotion (through CC3).  Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi BrotherSeamus, 
   I have a very similar workload for my animations (in all animation done in iClone, import the FBX to blender or the final render). When exporting your FBX from iClone, be sure to select the range option. Of course, select the Blender option for the target system. That alone should do the trick.

   If you haven't done so already, be sure to use the blender plug in for iClone from Soupday. It is a huge help in avoiding alot of mesh and material problems when importing to Blender 


- Jeff
The Adventures of Capt Sanchez
Cybernautic Studios

Thank you!  I'll give this a try today!  I believe that is the Blender plug-in I'm using (from Soupday).

edit: not sure where I would find the 'range' option.  I'm going to post the steps I'm using because there's a good chance I'm missing something.  I just sort of pieced this list together from Youtube comments... hahaha.  I don't mean to take up too much of your time but I'm really stumped here.

1) Create a character in CC3

2) Export it into iClone (as iAvatar)

3) Apply a motion clip to the character (No ARKit… just ‘Set Zero Pose’)

4) Save the motion clip as a *.motionplus file 

  — make sure ‘expression’ is ticked (down arrow of Character in playback UI)

  — ‘right click’ in playback UI (on the track) and ‘select all clips’

  — in ‘content’ window, select ‘animation’ tab

  — select ‘MotionPlus’ in ‘Template’ menu (will be saved to ‘Custom’)

  — hit ‘+’ button at bottom

  — name and save new motion

5) While in the motion+ window in iClone, right click and select "find file" (Should be in Drive ‘E’> CCiC> CCiC Custom Content> Custom> iClone7 Custom> MotionPlus)

6) When the resulting window opens up, copy the address of that folder onto your clipboard

7) Go back to CC3 where your character should still be open, export it as an FBX

8) Select "Blender", Select "Mesh and Motion", set the FPS, under that tick "Custom”, make sure ‘Embed Textures’ is UNTICKED and make sure to tick ‘Delete Hidden Faces’.

9) When you do that a folder icon will light up, allowing you to paste in the address you copied earlier.

10) The Motion+ clip you linked to should appear in the window - Select it

11) Hit "Export" - Open in Blender with NO Physics

11a) Add Cloth Physics to clothing and hair.  Add Collision Physics with clothes and body selected.

12) Only move character in Blender at ‘Frame 1’ or clothes and hair will not work

12a) in Blender, you may have to ‘Rebuild Advanced’ in CC3 tab

I should mention that I don't have the 3DXchange Pipeline... I have to export the motion from iClone to CC3 and then export from CC3 to Blender.

Why not do the animation in iClone (as you are already doing) and export to FBX from iClone? I don't think doing the export from CC3 is helping. If you export from iClone to Blender you will see the "Range" option in the export dialog. That specifies the range of frames you wish to export.

- Jeff
The Adventures of Capt Sanchez
Cybernautic Studios

I can't export an FBX from iClone unless I buy the 3D Xchange pipeline which is quite expensive.  The workaround is to import the iMotion to your character in CC3 and then export the FBX from there.

Ah, my mistake. I didn't realize that was a feature of iclone pipeline.

- Jeff
The Adventures of Capt Sanchez
Cybernautic Studios