Send to Unreal - Support exporting non-skinned object animations

[HeCorr]

• Addon: Send to Unreal

Description

Currently it is not possible (from what I know) to directly export animated objects (without an armature) using this addon, although it is possible to do so by manually exporting/importing an .FBX file. The objects get imported as static meshes instead.

I'm looking into migrating my animation pipeline to render in Unreal instead of in Blender (faster than Cycles, higher quality than Eevee) and I would like to easily export all my animations through, which frequently include object interaction (using ChildOf constraint).

I could create one armature for each interacted object and animate the root bone instead, but that just creates more work, which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid by using this addon.

Here's a video demonstrating the difference between exporting with the plugin and manually with an .FBX file:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/75134774/160865871-79a0ef32-8de3-4d39-af49-753dda11577e.mp4

And here's an example animation with object interaction which was animated in Blender and manually exported (with .FBX files) to Unreal for rendering:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/75134774/160866567-83179d2f-eb59-45fb-89ff-9d381db5b5d4.mp4

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/75134774/160866579-0e7886d3-f3eb-49f4-b39b-782679887689.mp4

Due to how UE handles .FBX imports, I had to individually export and import the objects (rig, cube, camera) into separate .FBX files, so being able to export everything at once would be very helpful to me. Thanks!

[james-baber]

Gotcha, so are you proposing that any mesh that has a keyframed action should automatically be imported as a skeletal mesh?

[HeCorr]

Yes, and if possible make it optional in case someone doesn't want to export animated meshes.