How to import a pose from a different file?

Question

I have a rigged "house cat" model created for me by an actual 3D artist, and sent to me as an .fbx. It contains the mesh and the armature in a rest pose (A). Later, the artist sent me a second .fbx containing the same armature, but in a different rest pose (B). I need to import pose B from the second file into the first file for armature A.

I have appended the second file to the first (so it now has both armatures), gone into pose mode for B, selected all bones, pressed Ctrl-C, chosen "copy pose", gone into pose mode for A, and pressed Ctrl-V. Nothing happened. Just for good measure I selected all bones and tried Ctrl-V again, but with the same results.

I have linked the animation data between the two armatures, and attempted to use B's animations, actions, pose libraries, and poses on A, also to no effect. I have attempted to use a "Copy Transforms" constraint, but end up with the entire armature A constrained to the size of B's hip bone, and still in the wrong pose.

I am using Blender 2.90.1 on Windows. I have spent four days searching blender.stackexchange.com and the web in general looking for a way to do this, but cannot find a method that works. I could use any hints, tips, suggestions, pointers, or anything at all that could help me get this to work. There shall be many more poses over time for amature A, so I'm really hoping there's a solution easier than trying to manually position A overtop B, especially since I, myself, don't have an artistic bone in my body (horrible pun intended and regretted).

Thank you, Bryon M. Elliott

Answer 1

Please contact your artist and require export (.fbx) again the amature pose B must include the mesh too.

I just found out today that export the amature alone (not contain mesh) will auto apply the pose transform, which all the bone rotation had been reset value at the new pose.

You can check it by import the file B.fbx , then select the amature and hit tab to go in Edit mode. If it change the pose to base pose (first time rigging), then it can be adopt other mesh to auto change the mesh pose. But I'm surely that your amature B when in edit mode won't change the pose.

(Note that: before set new parent to a mesh, make sure you cleared old parent of the mesh first. Select the mesh, hit Alt+P, select Clear Parent. Then Select the mesh FIRST and (shift) select new amature, hit Ctrl+P, hit I or select Set Parent To > Amature deform > With Automatic Weight)

I've tried to export the amature alone with different setting but all of them will auto apply the new pose as default pose (overwrite base pose) But when export the amature with its adopted mesh, the default pose will be keeped.

The issue even happen when you append amature from other blend file too!!! So, In case you want to sell the amature .fbx only and keep back the mesh, just replace the mesh with a Cube, set parent of the cube and export both amature and its mesh.

I hope that there will be a better solution or advanced export setting in future.

Aaaahh, also, when importing the FBX file, please check enable these options to prevent wrong scale (avoid bone go outside the mesh):

• Import User Properties
• Import Enums As Strings
• Ignore Leaf Bones
• Automatic Bone Orientation

sure, FBX is really tricky (and it's even more when importing in different game development platforms)

Answer 2

You have to parent the armature to the mesh, select the mesh, and then select the object, and then do crtl+p and then parent with automatic weights.