Bad idea - warning about transition animation keys not supported

All people which use 3D MAX Character Studio to make animations or animated characters for Unity even once was asked about warning messages people got when importing asset to Unity. Something like this one:

"50% of all animations seem not to be reusable on common Unity Characters like Mixamo or UMA.

MuscleClip 'xxx'conversion warning: 'Bip01/Bip01 Pelvis/Bip01 Spine' has translation animation. It is not supported.
MuscleClip 'xxx'conversion warning: 'Bip01/Bip01 Pelvis/Bip01 Spine/Bip01 Spine1' has translation animation. It is not supported.
conversion error?

Could tell me how to use them or fix them?"

I am sure that even after I gave explanation, customer will not change bad rating and review he left:
Here my explanation:

"This warnings means 2 things only:
1. Bone have transition animation. Its true and sometime its impossible to make good animation without moving character. And sometimes there is only key with zero value.
2. Unity Mecanim don't want to take responsibility for these keys. But it is only warnings. Transition keys don't make any harm to animations.

I am sure that everyone who make animated character already tied from these stupid warnings and explanation they need to give to everyone when they get bad reviews because of it.

Personally I gave such explanations about 30 or 40 times.
As I know characters which supplied with Unity 4 also had these warnings."

Is it possible to do something with these?

Thanks.

 

I've used character studio for approximately 10 animated characters to be used in Unity and have never received these warnings.

Translating a bone in a bone chain isn't the best animation practice.
Bones in a bone chain should be rotated not translated.

Translation (not rotation) keyframes set on bones within a bone chain should be deleted before exporting to fbx format, excluding the root bone (bip).

 

If you used Character Studio you maybe know that using it there is impossible to move bone which can't be moved.
Only root bone and additional bones can be moved during animations. So even I wanted to use "isn't best animated practice" I wasn't been able to do it.

But there is impossible to make good animation if you don't move root bone. Actually it is impossible to make almost any kind of animation if you don't animate root bone moving.


P.S. Try to convert you character rig into Mecanim humanoid rig type. And I am almost sure you will see those warnings for your Character Studio based characters.

 

Those warning are for the Humanoid Rig only, and Humanoid rig has the advantage that it can reuse any motion made for any other Humanoid. To do that we use our own animation format called muscle space, this special solving space doesn't support translation on human bone. You can always switch to a generic rig if you want to translate your bone.

Take a look a this blog post for more detail about humanoid rig
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/05/26/mecanim-humanoids/

 

I know it. But I am speaking about case when I am selling animations.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/12141
So it must use "humanoid" rig.

And as I wrote before I am using Character Studio which don't give to animator to move bones. You only can rotate them, except main "bip_01" bone which must be moved more or less for most animations, because in controls pelvis position relatively to feet.

 

Here the common obvious case when root bone must be moved. Almost in every root bone must be moved more or less.

 

The root bone translation isn't the original issue mentioned. There shouldn't be anything wrong with setting translation keyframes for the root bone. This is how "use root motion" is used, I'm sure you know.

The statement in the original post was the spine bones having translation keys.

This is partially true. You 'can' move the spine bones and head bones and they will move but only rotation. I can't remember if it sets a rotation or translation key on the timeline but you can rotate the spine bones and head/neck bones with the move tool.
ALSO you can right click on the timeline and set any type key. This sets a translation, rotation and scale key on the bone even if you didn't move it. This is important - uncheck translate on the dialogue box when right click to set keyframe.

Also all IK limbs can have translation keys placed on them. This shouldn't be a problem though - getting warning errors on translated IK bones - so I don't think it matters here. But non-IK bones should not have translation keyframes.

The characters I mentioned above were all humanoid mecanim characters except 1.

Hope this helps

 

@mr_Necturus
I have not performed an 'official' export like this before so results may vary, but you may want to attempt an export with 'in place' mode turned on.

I recently worked on a non bipedal character where the locomotion was controlled by code so root motion was not needed.

As you stated certain animations need root motion in order to look good.
I created animations in the past with root motion - then before export deleted the transformation keys and fixed up the IK keys.
I tested an animation export with root motion but with biped set 'in place' and the coder said it was perfect in game (no root motion exported).
This was not on a humanoid rig though so its only partially related to your issue.

 

No, you can't use translation tool with spine or had bones. Only with IK chains bones like hands and feet.

Generally when you are working with Character Studio you have special animation controller type. There is not possible to divide it on move/rotate/scale.
It have only one parameter for all "transform" parameter which includes all transformations. It is impossible to use another controller with Character Studio bones.
So timeline filters don't work in this case.

You think I did not try?

And I really thinks almost all humanoid animations must have root moving keys. Because even when your character just simple stay on place his pelvis are slightly moving when he change base leg.

 

There is no issue in moving the hips bone in a humanoid rig, this is supported, the problem arise only if you have translation key on any other human bone, unfortunately Biped do this in some case and there is nothing you can do except manually delete the translation curve on the spine bone.

I don't know if you already did it but there is two option in biped that can help you to be more Mecanim friendly.

Triangle Pelvis must be uncheck. Un check this option to make your leg a child of the hips bone rather than the first spine bone
Triangle Neck must be checked. Check this option to make your shoulder a child of the last spine bone rather than the neck bone.

 

My apologies - it's not the spine and neck bones. But you can use the translation tool on FK set legs and arms, though they only rotate. Select the thigh with the move tool and move the bone. When set in FK it will rotate and set a key.

I agree with everything you say except this. Translation keys can be set using the move tool. The bones may not move but a translation key is still set. Of course we both know this is not how to animate using character studio but the fact still remains if the move tool is active and a bone is selected and click dragged, a translation key will be set on that bone.

The bip translation should not be causing any warnings. I've never seen those before, but I've never used UMA or any mixamo characters beyond what Unity provides.

Additional information would be helpful to figure out a solution. Which asset are being complained about not working correctly?
What UMA or Mixamo characters are being used to retarget your animations to?
I bet the answer relies in those answers, since you seem to have a solid grasp of your workflow process and using character studio proficiently.

Was also going to suggest this but assumed this is a normal workflow for anybody using biped with mecanim humanoid.

 

You would be surprise to see how many support report we get with not supported biped hierarchy.

 

Thank you for help guys!

 

@mr_Necturus
So we did a little meeting this morning with the Animation Team and we took the decision to remove all those warning related to translation animation from the console, this will allow most biped user to start to create animation for asset store more easily.

ETA is 5.2 but could change is something goes wrong.

Those warning will still be show in the Inspector warning foldout but at least it won't stop you to submit new asset on the asset store.

 

Thank you, Mecanim.Dev. It really nice. Of course I was keeping to create new assets in any case. But it will reduce number of my customers asking me about those warnings every time the see it for first time.

I found it is almost impossible to clean moving tracks for Character Studio characters. Because Character Studio have one key for all transforms (moving, rotation, scale). And after FBX was created moving keys became part of animation after baking. Don't know why actually. So if I just delete moving track it affect animation.

So Thanks again!

 

If anyone is still getting these warnings for animations made with 3ds max's biped, you can get rid of them by using export's key reducer.

In 3ds max's FBX Export, under 'Constant Key Reducer' Tab, enable Constant Key Reducer. And on Translation Precision, anything above 0,01 will remove negligible translation. It's so small it wont affect your animation, will take care of translation such as the kind Biped sneaks into your animations.

 

Nice to know. Thank you for information!
I will check this option tomorrow.