Hi, I’m having a few problems regarding my work between motionbuilder and 3ds max design 2009.

I managed to export a low poly character rigged with bones from Max as an FBX (Import/Export - fbx200502_mb75)

I then imported that FBX into MotionBuilder 7.5 Extension 1.

Since its my first time trying out this pipeline, i did a few test animations, rotating and translating pivot points around the body, just see if the characterising and the control worked. they all checked out ok in motionbuilder.

after which, I plotted all my files and I saved out all the animations via ‘File> Save As>.fbx’ (with all the default motionbuilder checks for scene/takes/settings etc)

Now the problem occurs when i import it the fbx back into 3ds. It seems that 3ds doesn’t recognise the fbx’s control rig or bones, so it replaces all the bones with ‘dummy’ helpers, which the skin modifier refers to, so the mesh can still rotate and translate occording to there position. but no animation from the takes follows the fbx what so ever.

its seems that it nearly has imported the animation, considering the timeline changes length, but otherwise the scene stays still.
Initially i was worried that this was a complete noob problem and just required a tick of a box, but it seems that other people have had this simular problem. I’ve tried just importing the animation, then only the model then the animation, i’ve even downloaded the most recent fbx plugin for max, and i keep getting the same errors -

‘The following Link node(s) is/are not part of the BindPose definition.’

I think the obvious solution would be to figure out why the bones and control rig don’t copy back into 3ds from the fbx but i have no ideas. so if anyone can at least point me in the right direction this would be a great help.

would really appreciate some kind of response asap, thanks so much in advanced

Dunno if this will help, but maybe give it a read and a try.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=85&t=627172 <---Link (sorry don’t know how to do hotlinks here)

A little out of date, but not much has changed.  Perhaps I’m not reading your question correctly

Best Regards

Hi,
It seems to me that if you’ve imported your character in MOBu from Max , and it works properly, you should be able to get your animation in Max by plotting the animation on the bones of the character in MObu.(make sure you don’t plot on the rig). Also if you’ve created your bones in max , it shoud not be a problem importing them back in Max.
Let me know , if that worked for you.

Cheers
MC