Exporting Complex Animations.

Exporting advanced animations as part of 3D model files into Plattar. Unity experience and model with existing animations required.

Clark Lavery avatar
Written by Clark Lavery
Updated over a week ago

3D animations are a great way to bring your scenes to life. Our FBX importer currently supports key-framed pivot animations which work well for robotic/mechanical objects but for more organic objects like people and animals, using skinned meshes and blend-weights will give a better looking result. These animations will need to be made
ahead of time by a 3D artist in an external modeling program.

We have created a process using the Unity3D game engine to export most common animation styles into the correct form for Plattar. Please follow the setup instructions from this help page before continuing here.

This process will not export animation logic from Unity's Animation Controller, but is meant to be used with single one-off animations.

Model Settings

Select your model in the Projector Inspector window to open up it's import settings. In the model tab, make sure your settings such as 'Import Blendshapes' are set if you intend to use them.

Next go the 'Rig' tab and make sure the 'Animation Type' is set to 'Legacy'.

Next go to the 'Animations' tab to make sure your animation is working as expected. Select the 'Import Animation' check-box and preview your animation in the bottom window to see if it plays properly. We currently don't support multiple animation clips in a single file so remove any animations you do not want to be added.

Exporting

Next, download our Exporter unitypackage from https://github.com/Plattar/Unity-glTF-Exporter/releases and double click it to import it into your project.

In the Project window you will see a folder called Plattar Environments. This contains 'scene' files that are set up to duplicate the lighting available to you in your Plattar scene settings.

Go to Tools > Export to Plattar. This will open the Plattar Exporter window.
Select the object you want to export in the 'Hierarchy' window. Make sure the 'Export Animation' box is ticked.
Click the big export button and you will be asked where to save the zip file. This file is then ready to upload to the Plattar CMS

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