When I was trying to create my own animation clips in Maya to work with the skinned animation sample I kept getting issues with the with the following line:

AnimationClip clip = skinningData.AnimationClips["testClip1"];

In maya I designed my animation then selected create clip under the animation tab.  I named my clip "testClip1" and was sure to match the correct frames for the animation.  When I called the line above after loading my model I was thrown an exception that claimed the key provided did not exist.

I have the latest FBX exporter for Maya 8.0.  Has anyone else had this issue or know what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks ahead of time

A good debugging technique any time you're not sure how data is being exported from your modelling tool is to look in the "obj" directory after you build the content.

Typically inside the obj\x86\Debug\Content directory, you will find an XML cache file for each model that you built. Search this XML for the "Animations" element. Inside that you should one or more entries like:

          <Animation Key="Take 001">
            <Duration>PT1.267S</Duration>
            <Channels>
                ...

Whatever you see for the Key element in here is what will end up in the AnimationClips dictionary at runtime.

Okay I found the animation key, and it was named "Take 001" for some reason.  I need to learn how to rename this within maya so my artists can create clips with names that will import into our engine without issue.

Also I can't help but notice that my original 2 keyframes seem to be 20 keyframes now after it was compiled by XNA.  Does XNA bake the keyframes for every frame?

lynch3:

Does XNA bake the keyframes for every frame?

Yes. The animation sample doesn't support any kind of compression or curve expansion, so we just sample the animation data at regular time intervals to ensure a smooth playback.

Yeah, I made my animations linear so that wouldn't be need it but I guess the system does that anyway.  It's no issue really and will probably prevent any future problem :-)

You don't happen to be familiar with Maya to know where I can adjust the name of the "take"?  Maya seems to call them clips and renaming the clip has no affect. 

Thanks for all your help so far. :-)

I don't know Maya at all, sorry!

But I -should- be able to name the keys within the model editor correct?

Reason I ask is because "Take 001" doens't appear to be any sort of Maya default name and it is also seen within the skinning demo.

I would think you'd be able to rename these, but am not sure how.

I think "Take 001" is the default used by the FBX SDK if it can't find an explicit name while it is doing the export.

I'll look into it.  Thanks again for all the replies.  Once I get this working well I'll be sure to write up a tutorial.

Shawn,

What modeler are you using and were you able to get your exporter to export something else than the default "Take 001"?

Sorry about reopening this thread, I just want to use the skinned animation work you did to the fullest and then write something up on how to get it to export correctly from Maya and Max :-)

- Shane

I think our model was actually built in Maya (but that could have been Max) but it was made by a real life artist over in another department: I wasn't involved at all in that.

I know we're pulling through the clip names from the FBX file in our FBX importer, but I don't know how those names get into the FBX from Maya.

If you can't figure this out, please prod me about it again so we can do some more investigation on our end to figure out exactly what is going on.

Sure thing.  I will attempt to look at it extensively this weekend using several modeling programs.  If all else fails I will write a little plugin that will use the clip information from maya and put it into the take information for the FBX file.

*Prods Shawn*   I still was unable to to get takes to export into an FBX file.  It seems no matter what I do It always has the default take, which is the entire timeline of the scene.  Maybe you could ask your artists about it?  I was thinking of making my own sort of hack fix that would use the maya -> fbx exporter then it would automatically modify the file to replace the default take with clips defined in maya.  I'd like to avoid a hack solution if there is a correct way to do this however :-)

Ok, I'll get someone to take a look at this from our end.

Thanks for like the 10th time Shawn!  Hope to hear from you soon :-)

I'll bump this. :)

I posted another thread (http://forums.xna.com/thread/8083.aspx) asking how Microsoft created their skinned models... There is a solution out there somewhere!!

Our skinned model was just built in Maya in the usual way, and then exported to FBX: we didn't do anything special there.

The issue in this thread is how to export the clip names, which it looks like our model is just coming through set to the default. I've opened a work item for us to look into this, but I don't know how long it will be before that gets prioritised to the top of the queue (probably won't be straight away).

This is untapped potential! How dare they not place my request at the front of the queue! Hehe... More seriously thanks for the update so I know it's actually being considered... eventually.  I'll also try to do some research on my end as soon as things calm down at work.  I'm sure there are a lot of things going on your end too right now.

Hrm, seems a little short sighted to make a skinned fbx example without support for defining animation clips....hopefuly it wont take too long to add them, or suggest a work around.

The sample -does- support clips or takes as they call it in the FBX file.  The problem is getting your clips from Maya into FBX.  I've failed attempting to get any sort of defined animation from maya coming out as anything else other than the defualt take, which is just the entire timeline.

Edit:  I think I missread your statement but I will leave this post here for any readers that may need clarification.

Just wanted to poke this threat to see if the investigation is still alive.  What's the good word Shawn?

The bug is in the database, so it will be gotten around to eventually, but I don't know when that will be. Probably not immediately: I imagine we'll do a full pass over all these importer-related issues at some point during the next product cycle.

Is it possible to select the frames of animation we want to run from the skinning example instead of selecting the clip name?  I've been having a similar problem with my animations from maya but if I could just select which keyframes I wanted to run I wouldn't have any problems.

Shawn Hargreaves:

The bug is in the database, so it will be gotten around to eventually, but I don't know when that will be. Probably not immediately: I imagine we'll do a full pass over all these importer-related issues at some point during the next product cycle.

Does this means that for now objects cannot be exported with multiples animations clips in one file alongside its model?

So for now the solution is to put all the animations end to end and have the program call certains frame ranges depending of the animation you want to play...

You can export multiple animations ok, I'm just not sure what the different clip names will come through as.