Import Maya skeleton into Blender

Community Forums/General Help/Import Maya skeleton into Blender

ubergeek (Posted 2009) [#1]

Hi, I wasn't sure where else to post this... I need to get a skeleton from Maya into Blender. I've tried numerous file formats (.X, .FBX, .DAE, and a bunch of others) to export from Maya, but when importing into Blender I get nothing. Any ideas? Thanks!

mtnhome3d (Posted 2009) [#2]

i'v always had trouble with bones and animation from maya to blender. which version of maya do you have?

ubergeek (Posted 2009) [#3]

I don't know. An artist has a skeleton that we need to get into Blender (I don't have Maya) - I'll ask him and get back to you.

mtnhome3d (Posted 2009) [#4]

ok

ubergeek (Posted 2009) [#5]

I just heard back from him - he's using Maya 2008, but can export using 2009 or 8.5 if necessary.

mtnhome3d (Posted 2009) [#6]

8.5 is what i use. i don't know how to get skeletons in blender though. what is the model going to be used for? if its for b3d, there was a .b3d exporter in the content creation section, with animation support.

ubergeek (Posted 2009) [#7]

It's an XNA project - we need to get a rig into Blender so that others in the community (who may not have Maya) can use the rig. You can read about it here.

mtnhome3d (Posted 2009) [#8]

i don't know how blender works on the inside so i don't know how it handles bones and such but i can try. can you give me the maya 8.5 file??

ubergeek (Posted 2009) [#9]

Thanks! Unfortunately the XNA forums are down today for scheduled maintenance so I can't get the link for the file - I'll try contacting the artist directly and see if I can get it that way.

ubergeek (Posted 2009) [#10]

I got the Maya 8.5 file from the artist - he mentioned something about a MEL script so that any version of Maya should be able to build the skeleton, but all I got was a .mb file, so I don't know if it's in there or not (I have no idea whatsoever how Maya works!). Here's the file Thanks again!! [edit]: Fixed the link

ubergeek (Posted 2009) [#11]

I got the MEL file: link

mtnhome3d (Posted 2009) [#12]

hey sorry i forgot about this, been busy lately. will check that out.

ubergeek (Posted 2009) [#13]

We got it in!! Very indirectly, but we did it. We ended up writing a C# app that takes the bone data and generates a Blender script to recreate the skeleton. Now we just need to get Blender animations back into the XNA game... I hate this process of "asset roulette" or "how much of this model will be left by the time it reaches the game engine". Thanks for trying though!

mtnhome3d (Posted 2009) [#14]

Congratulation, i was having no luck on exporting to blender. it doesn't natively support .fbx which is a pain.