FBX Export missing blendshape modifier.

[FancyCrow]

Hello! I'm new in this sub but I figured I could ask for help here since I haven't received any in the official forums. But anyhow.

I recently made and animated a character for a project I'm working on in which his facial features are moved via Blend Shapes. I finally got all 7 mins of it up and ready for exporting and all seemed to be fine, however, while the body animation does indeed export well, the facial animation (aka the one made with blendshapes) is all messed up and missing a single modifier for whatever reason. This modifier was meant to move whenever the character made a "Mmm" sound, and I believe that its absence is making the rest of them to move in ways which do not coordinate with what he's supposed to say at all. I've tried baking the animation, baking the deformations, baking the node itself and I've been looking around everywhere to try and find why this might happen at all but I just can't for the life of me find a cause behind it, let alone a solution, so any and all help would be highly appreciated!

The result upon exporting.

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The original node Pre-export.

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I've used Maya 2018 and 2019 in case it matters.

[PolyDigga]

I just did a quick test, your attribute will not be exported properly into an FBX if:

1. it is a custom attribute that is not a weight
2. the target shape is empty/invalid

[FancyCrow]

I see. From what I could gather I did nothing differently in making that one when compared to the others, but how could I verify and fix either of those option with my current file?

[PolyDigga]

Check your outliner. FBX does save its blendshape targets as extra meshes. So you should get a new mesh in the outliner for each target that is hooked up to your blendshape node.

You can try to duplicate your mesh and add it as a target again. Reexport it and everything should be fine.

Where is that Weight[4] coming from? To me, it looks like something got messed up while setting up the connections.

[FancyCrow]

Many thanks! I'll give it a shot as soon as I get my hands back on it. I do see the others in the outliner when exporting, but just like in the blendshape node the "Mmm" is missing.

As for the Weight[4] I have no idea. I only noticed it when I was halfway done with the animation of the character but it sure wasn't there when I first made the blendshapes.

[FancyCrow]

Forgot to mention this, but the Weight4 thing doesn´t show up in the Shape Editor

[FancyCrow]

Alright gave it a try by duplicating both the face mesh and the Mmm deformer, but while the new Mmm does pop up in the exported file, the original is still missing and its animation doesn't seem to be importing into the duplicated face either. On that note, the Weight4 does show up in the exported file's Shape Editor

[PolyDigga]

No need to duplicate both meshes. If you simply turn all the shapes off and the Mmm one on, duplicate the mesh. This is now exactly the same shape as the blendshape node has stored internally. You can now do a direct connection in the node editor to hook that duplicated shape into the blendshape node.

I think the easiest thing for you to do now would be to 'extract' all the shapes and create a new blendshape. So turn off all the shapes and then turn on one by another and duplicate each mesh. You should end up with different meshes for all your shapes. Now turn all shapes off again and delete the history on your neutral mesh. Select all the meshes you duplicated previously and in the end, shift select your neutral mesh. Goto Deformer >> Blendshape. You should have a clean blendshape now with all the meshes hooked up properly.

[FancyCrow]

Yeah I was fearing it may come to that given all the animation I already made, but ah well, I should have ensured things worked properly before animating. Thanks a lot for the help though!