Importing a DeepMotion .fbx into an Apple Motion 3D animation
Has anyone successfully done this? DeepMotion exports an .fbx file. How to get it into Apple Motion?
And if that's doable, is it also possible to modify the animation within Motion?
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Has anyone successfully done this? DeepMotion exports an .fbx file. How to get it into Apple Motion?
And if that's doable, is it also possible to modify the animation within Motion?
I haven't done it, but from a quick search it appears that you can use Apple's Reality Converter application to convert fbx to usdz.
Motion supports usdz files - but there are, unfortunately, limitations on how they interact with other items in a Motion project (or rather, how they don't interact).
You can, however, move, rotate, scale, etc
So looks like I can't use Reality Converter (I'm on Catalina) unless I upgrade my entire OS (not going to happen anytime soon).
But I found this site: https://products.aspose.app/3d/conversion/fbx-to-usdz
It worked and I got the 3D model in there. I haven't done 3D animation in Motion yet, but yeah doesn't look like I have much control over the model aside from position, scale, and rotation.
Do you know if Motion supports animated 3D files (they come with an animation) - .FBX files support a built-in animation for example.
I haven't done much with them, I just imported a few usdz files into Motion and done simple animations on them. The files themselves were static.
If you have an animated fbx file, and if it converts in the site you mentioned to usdz, you may bring that into Motion and see how it handles (or doesn't) the animation in the file.
As Luis mentioned Motion supports only supports USDZ files for 3D objects. USDZ supports static models as well as animations. Note, results may vary for animations depending on how the animation is done., this is generally true across the 3D landscape as many 3D app developers are still in process of implementing USDZ. In generally I've had good results but occasionally have come across some models where the translation to USDZ produces errors depending on what software it is rendered in.
As for conversion, Reality Converter is one simple way, Blender is another good free option that will import .fbx files. From there you can export as USDZ. Other 3D file formats that will support Animation are the Graphics Language Transmission Format (glTF/.glb) and Alembic (.abc), however, in my experience the later does not tend to work as well. I've found that .fbx and .glb tend two work as two of the better alternative formats if you did not start with USDZ as the export.
Finally, you are correct, there are limits to what can be done with USDZ. Motion is not a 3D animation software that will allow you to texture, rig or manipulate 3D files. Motion is still basically a composting app that can render USDZ. There are really two approaches for integrating 3D Object with USDZ. You can just drop them in, light and render them. This is actually pretty powerful as the rendering is real-time, much faster than in a 3D application. I use this method and you can do some powerful-things. Your could create a 3D character in a 3D app have them walk around, jump, dance, do whatever you need by just dropping the animated file in to your project. If you need to make a correction, you just edit the original in a 3D animation software, re-export to USDZ and drop it in as a replacement, no long render times. The second option is to break a model into pieces and then build a rig system to animate the pieces in Motion. This will work best with hard surface things (a car with spinning wheels, The propellers on a plane, etc.) I've done this with some robot characters and created some pretty cool animations with spinning heads, and articulating bits.
Sounds like you are in the same boat as some other users, where you may have a need to stay on an older OS for your own reasons.. One last option, is if you have enough space on you system and it supports one of the last few new OS's you, you could create a partition to install an OS later than Catalina to be able to take advantage of the USDZ tools that may require it. Food for thought. Cheers.
GFXZen wrote:
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Sounds like you are in the same boat as some other users, where you may have a need to stay on an older OS for your own reasons.. One last option, is if you have enough space on you system and it supports one of the last few new OS's you, you could create a partition to install an OS later than Catalina to be able to take advantage of the USDZ tools that may require it. Food for thought. Cheers.
Or install Monterey on an external SSD.
Importing a DeepMotion .fbx into an Apple Motion 3D animation