I'm somewhat new to animation in blender and still in the learning process. I've just bought an animated model from the unity store to help me learn how to get better animations but I'm having issues loading it into blender. The model and the animation itself are two different fbx files. I can import them separately into the same blender file.The animation has only action data and no armature attached. How would I attach the animation to the armature model? I've tried using action editor under the dope sheet, but the animations are broken up by individual body part (ie animation of Left ear, animation of left paw) and I can't seem to apply each individual animation to each bone in the rig. Hopefully the video below gives you a better idea of what my problem is. Tbh I'm not even sure why the animation is separated from the rigging or what type of object it is. Any help is appreciated. Thanks
1 Answer
Normally, FBX animation data is embedded into the model.
You might try reimporting the FBX and checking the preferences in the import window to include animation.
It looks like the armature is parented to the model, so what you can do is download BVH retargeter and use that to retarget copy the animation data from the animation to the armature in your model.
If that doesn't work, you can export the animation armature as a BVH, and then use BVH retargeter. Usually though, if step 2 doesn't work this won't either. Be sure to make sure there are no transforms on the model, and don't use "apply all transforms" either. Do it manually. So make sure that its location and rotation are set to 0 before retargeting.
The really long way is to use bone constraints. Go into pose mode and select a bone on the armature parented to the model. In bone constraints (blue bone thing second from the bottom) choose "copy all transforms" and select the armature and then the bone. What will happen is the bone will "snap" to the bone on the animation.
You may encounter problems with bone rolls. You shouldn't, given this the animation for that model, but Blender and Unity have different standards for directional information. If you do you will need to go into edit mode and get the bone rolls of the target armature to match the source...so the bone rolls armature parented to the model.
Final thing to try is to delete the armature in the model, put the animation into pose mode, then align the model over the armature and parent using armature deform using automatic weights.
You might find that there are some add-ons to help with the conversion, but usually its from Blender to Unity rather than the other way around. I have imported plenty of Unity models into Blender without problem though.
