What are the steps to send animations that use morphs to UE5?

kaotkbliss

I've been fighting with this for a while now but can't seem to get animations that use morphs sent over to UE5 (such as breathing morphs or expression morphs)

I've used the fbx 2014 ascii and binary options (maybe I need to use an earlier fbx option?) included all morphs as well as tried just the appropriate moprhs in both the skeletal mesh export as well as the animation export but no matter what I try, only bone movements are sent over.

I'm on the latest DS (4.20.0.17)

the latest DS to UE Bridge (2.0.15.2)

The latest UE5 (5.0.2)

 

Any help would be wonderful!

danielbui78

kaotkbliss said:

I've been fighting with this for a while now but can't seem to get animations that use morphs sent over to UE5 (such as breathing morphs or expression morphs)

I've used the fbx 2014 ascii and binary options (maybe I need to use an earlier fbx option?) included all morphs as well as tried just the appropriate moprhs in both the skeletal mesh export as well as the animation export but no matter what I try, only bone movements are sent over.

I'm on the latest DS (4.20.0.17)

the latest DS to UE Bridge (2.0.15.2)

The latest UE5 (5.0.2)

 

Any help would be wonderful!

Sorry you are having problems.  Try enabling the Fbx Options checkbox in the Advanced Settings Section, and then double-checking that both Animations and Morphs are checked and that all your desired morphs are appearing in the Fbx Options Window during the export process.  The version of DazToUnreal that you are using should correctly transfer both animations and morphs in the Fbx that is generated, but it's possible that there may be an issue in the Unreal plugin that's preventing both things from being imported together. 

Please let me know this information so I can try to reproduce your issues and find where the bugs are:

1. Daz Figure being used
2. Exact Animations and Morphs being used
3. Screenshots of DazToUnreal window
4. Screenshots of Morph Selection window
5. Screenshots of Fbx Options window
6. Screenshots of Unreal windows that are not showing morphs

Also, this may not help in your case, but the latest bugfixes for DazToUnreal are posted here: https://github.com/daz3d/DazToUnreal/releases and can be installed manually.

 

EDIT:

Here is a workaround that may work for you:

1. Load your Figure with desired animations and animated morphs
2. Import "Skeletal Mesh" with morphs enabled using Send To Unreal
3. Import "Animation" with morphs enabled using Send To Unreal
4. In Unreal, create an empty folder in the Content Browser
5. Open File Explorer to your "Documents\DazToUnreal\<asset name>" folder
6. Drag the <asset name>.fbx file into the Unreal Content Browser
7. The FbxImport window should open: select the same Skeleton that is being used for the asset from step 2
8. Make sure Import Animations and Import Morph Targets are checked
9. Click Import, then click Yes whenever it asks to regenerate skeleton
10. You should now have a new animation that displays the morph target animation curves in the animation editor

kaotkbliss

For simplicity (less morphs to deal with, faster transfering, reduced chance of messing up main UE5 character, etc.) I've switched over to attempting this with the free alien egg off sharecg (which shows the same issues of morphs not showing in animations. (Alien Egg (final version) - Poser - ShareCG)

If you expand the stem down to the egg bone, there are morphs that bend (open and close) the egg. I just moved the sliders a bit to create an opening/closing animation to send to UE for testing.

keyFrame0: 

lap Parts1 bend = -24

lap Parts 2 bend = 0

lap Parts 3 bend = 0

keyFrame15:

lap Parts 1 bend = 30

lap Parts 2 bend = -30

lap Parts 3 bend = -30

keyFrame15:

lap Parts1 bend = -24

lap Parts 2 bend = 0

lap Parts 3 bend = 0

 

So when I went to get a screenshot of my export settngs, I noticed that the available morph names didn't match the names of the morphs I was using (which I also noticed just changes the bend values on all 4 flaps of the opening at once) Which is strange that those bone changes didn't get transfered with the animation. When I set those back to zero and changed just the bones, the animation went over.

Another thing I noticed while messing with another character that while the morphs didn't apply to the animation sent over to UE, they were available in UE that I could re-apply to the animation timeline.

 

 

 

Ellessarr

hmmm for what i know, indeed you can't export a "morph used for animation", for exemple, you make a animation with a "sad morph" expresssion in daz then try to export it as animation it will not really work, what you can do to "fix that" is do a little extra work, by enabling the morph to be used during the animation,, let's say you create a generic idle animation, then export the morph you want to in this case let's say the sad face, then  inside now inside unreal you can set it to use this morph during the animation, here is a good tutorial about how use morphs during a animation

another way is animate direct inside unreal using control rig

 

the issue about export animation and morph is a little more complicated for what i see, the issue is because it means "apply the morph 2 times, like for exemple you have the "body size morph, or you "apply it to the character and export the character with the morph applied or you export the character to apply the morph "later", you can't do "both" or you use the morph to edit the character "before" or use it later you can't do both.

danielbui78

Thanks very much for your replies and detailed information.  Please try the work-around that I posted above and let me know if that is the result you are looking for.  If it is, then I will try to coordinate with David V to figure out how to tweak the bridge to produce that result automatically.

 

Ellessarr

danielbui78 said:

Thanks very much for your replies and detailed information.  Please try the work-around that I posted above and let me know if that is the result you are looking for.  If it is, then I will try to coordinate with David V to figure out how to tweak the bridge to produce that result automatically.

 

good replay, that would be the way, the problem is which "morphs" are tecnically "not animations, even if you allow then to be played in daz and even in unreal they "still morphs", that is the trick, then when you export to unreal it not gonna get recognized as a "animation" but as a morph, you will be able to "export the animation" however the "morph" part will need to be added sepparated because it's again is not a animation, this is one of the reasons it not work. 

ezrhk

It used to work on an older version of the dzunrealbridge.dll. Not sure what happened or what the reason was to remove that functionality from animation files. I can't use any of the newer updated plugin versions because it's a really labouress task to manually add all morph curves in the UE5 animation file. If I go back to the older version I backed up, all the morph curves are always included and available at exactly the pose I set originally in DAZ by simply enabling the morph tickbox on export.

danielbui78

ezrhk said:

It used to work on an older version of the dzunrealbridge.dll. Not sure what happened or what the reason was to remove that functionality from animation files. I can't use any of the newer updated plugin versions because it's a really labouress task to manually add all morph curves in the UE5 animation file. If I go back to the older version I backed up, all the morph curves are always included and available at exactly the pose I set originally in DAZ by simply enabling the morph tickbox on export.

I've made a step by step video from start to finish, showing how to import animated morphs into Unreal Engine 5.  Please review the video, try to follow it exactly and let me know what errors or differences you get at each step.  If you have a different process that you are using, please make a video and post it so I can try to reproduce your problems and maybe fix whatever is not working with the bridge for you.  Thank you.

 

ezrhk

Thanks Daniel! The video is private and we can't see it.

danielbui78

ezrhk said:

Thanks Daniel! The video is private and we can't see it.

Try now.

ezrhk

Video worked, cheers.

The only difference between what I'm doing and your instructions, is that I'm not effectively exporting a 30 frame animation. I'm posing my character the way I want as a still frame/pose and export it as an animation file as a single frame.
Previously on the older plugin, whatever morphs I applied (like a smile) would transfer over perfectly into the single frame animation. It doesn't anymore in the updated plugins.

This is what it does (or doesn't do in this case anymore)

And this is what it used to do. It perfectly added the morphs on the animation curve.


Thanks for having a look!

ezrhk

Here's a video of the process. There's a few minutes near the end where it's just waiting to import the file and that's why not much is happening there.

ezrhk

Tried the latest version and I love the improvements and speed. Unfortunately I still have to revert to the much older version, because it still refuses to add the assigned morph curves within an animation file like the examples above. So sad. 

ezrhk

I am able to to confirm it works on a fresh project. Not sure what it is in my existing project that makes it break.