Export Action Editor Shape Keys to Unity | Blender 3.0 + Tutorial

[@mascarademermelada8746]

Jesus christ I didn't know this could work in Unity... The options are now limitless, THANK YOU!

[@remghoost]

This is such a strange workaround. I searched for the answer to this problem for about 6 hours last night before I gave up. Found this video today. It's so odd that shapekeys can't be animated through the action editor. Thank you for this video. You are my favorite person today.

[@Polyfable]

I am happy that I could help you out.

[@PrimerBlobs]

This is great. I was a bit distraught that there wasn't a way to put shape keys into an action, but this does it. Thanks so much! (The import also works for Godot 4 btw)

[@Polyfable]

Aye, this method should work in most cases. I am very happy that I could help in but my small way.

[@Polyfable]

Any other topics in regards to blender and godot/unity I could do for the future?

[@PrimerBlobs]

@@Polyfable I don't have any specific ideas, currently. I'm currently working with a rigged model that someone else made, and I'm confused about how the animations are stored and linked to different objects. For instance, I currently have an action selected in the action editor, and the bone keyframes only show up when I have the mesh object selected, but not when I have the armature selected. And when I tried to make a new action, the properties I keyframed had their keyframes deleted in a different existing action. I think I just need to learn from scratch and will peruse your channel. :)

[@PrimerBlobs]

After a bit more playing around and reading, I now understand better how animation data blocks work are assigned to objects, and crucially for me, how keyframes are only shown in the action editor if the bones are selected, and that you can only select multiple bones in pose mode. I think! Anyway, the fact that UI behavior is highly sensitive to context feels non-intuitive to a blender outsider, and it has been a barrier to learning through experimentation, which is usually my first approach since tutorials are rarely showing exactly the thing I need to know at the time (though this one was!). Not sure if that's helpful to you, but thought I'd follow up.

[@BurzowySzczurek]

What the heck? Are you kidding me? This trick also work's in unreal engine 4/5. You can't tell how excited I am. Bro huge thanks. That's insane.

[@DVergeDev]

This is accurately solved my problem with shape keys that cannot exist in action editor with rig, thank you very much

[@Polyfable]

Happy I could help.

[@DVergeDev]

@@Polyfable yeah, unity without animated blendshape is horrifying

[@tiranito2834]

I owe you a big one, you god damn genius.

[@tjorloski1961]

super helpful! you are one of the good tutorial makers, I appreciate how in depth you go and the context you provide , cheers

[@bartoszrozmus1585]

I just animated the whole character directly in unity because I thought it couldn't be done in blender. Thanks!

[@sysnico8691]

THANK YOU You are a true life saver i could not find any documentation or tutorial of any kind for the use of drivers in this manner thank and thank you again

[@Polyfable]

Very very welcome! Aye, getting unity any blender to play nice is pretty neat, but not too many docs on it. I have another video detailing getting the models in without any funny rotations. And plan to launch more down the road on my platform. If you have any other ideas for blender - unity content, let me know.

[@Yumenoki99]

​@@Polyfable First of all: THANK YOU! I loved the warning about only adding shape keys when done modeling and having applied all modifiers except maybe an armature. Now, I might have a blender/unity question if you do not have a video on it already, which is: What do I have to look out for when adding new animations to my model in Blender if the character has already got it's own prefab? I remember sneakily overwriting a model's fbx file in my unity assets and stuff began to break - which might have been because of changes to the rig at the time. This could maybe even be extended to model updates in general, like extra geometry or an added bone for items. Anything like this would make me more confident in updating my models with new ideas, knowing what is and what is not possible. Sorry if this sounds a bit vague. Just currently scared of starting to model and implement and later trying to fix an imperfection and breaking everything lol

[@coolboygfx]

Awesome Awesome Awesome. I love this Blender + Unity tutorial. Keep them coming :) and also the fbx export detail, you could expand on it a bit.

[@christopherlee513]

Thank you so much! This was EXACTLY what i was looking for! *thumbs up!*

[@Kenji_195]

4:30 That stupid little note was the origin of the struggle I've been fighting against for many hours -_- I don't like the idea of applying modifiers but oh well, gotta do what gotta do Well, thank you very much for highlighting such an important detail

[@Polyfable]

Haha... yes... I know your pain!!!

[@formarjoram]

Really excellent explanation, thank you!

[@TJTVChannel]

Another great tutorial!

[@yoppyzx]

More unity to blender is always good

[@pianomusicarchive7620]

6:12 saved my life. I searched it almost 5-6 hours sir. thank you for your video, I appreciate it

[@fnunnari]

Very clear explanation. Thanks. You saved my week.

[@Caden_Burleson]

Excellent! Just what I was looking for and pleasant to digest. Thank you! :D

[@Totally_not_sain]

as of rn i cant get this to work at all im using blender 4.2 and it was working for 4.1

[@gabrielzim212]

Dude, thank you so much !

[@Lynx-cm5dz]

Cool video, even though I m bad in English. Thank you. Create more videos about connecting blender and unity. I also want to see video about your export settings. You re good one!

[@sunalharbi]

Great,, Many thanks

[@madmanga64]

Thanks!

[@nischaljain7765]

what to do when you have to deal with multiple shape keys, that you need to control with single armature?

[@Polyfable]

Multiple drivers and/or multiple bones for said drivers. You could technically use, one, bone. But it wouldn't be very artist friendly.

[@nischaljain7765]

thank you, is there any way to make one shape keys out of multiple shapes? For example, there is a character with expressions, I need to make a smile and angry expression using various shape keys that let us modify eyes blink, mouth open or close (separate shape key for each movement), I need to make an expression out of it and then can we create a single shape key and apply driver to it and the bone? Like can we combine separate shape keys into single shapekeys?

[@Polyfable]

@@nischaljain7765 You can combine multiple shape keys into one... But you would lose individual control over them. If you wanted functionality like that, you can have a separate bone that controls all the individual shape keys. Or better yet, another bone that controls the shape keys bones. It is pretty open what you can do. But it is a puzzle that only you know the answer to.

[@nischaljain7765]

@@Polyfable can we modify bones in a way that y and x axis affects different shapekeys? Like when we change location of the bone on y axis it changes different blendshape value and when on x axis different!

[@Polyfable]

@@nischaljain7765 Yes

[@veereshrao4509]

can please tell me how can i add shape keys from blender to the unity with the "armature modifier"

[@Polyfable]

I don't quite understand what you mean. So shape keys are part of the data in the FBX - or whatever file format you are using. . In regards to getting shape keys to fire on an action - this video outlines the basic methodology - there is a lot more to it. What are you trying to do?

[@jacobkapfelman1836]

Awesome video! Creating a video game character and want to animate using shape keys. Any idea how to use more than one shape key on a single bone?

[@Polyfable]

Same process you just link it to a different direction or action that makes sense via drivers

[@thecasualfriday8770]

this is good info to know for future reference! regrettably the information i needed was how to export a shape key animation which is not tied to an armature. I have a blink animation i made using only shape keys and the actions don't seem to want to export to an fbx for unity...

[@Polyfable]

Do you have any other modifers on the model? Shape keys won't be exported if so - You can still (Or should be able to ) export shape key data for manipulation in the engine via code - (I personally use it for face variations)

[@thecasualfriday8770]

@@Polyfable tysm! I'll have to do some research on this before attempting in the future. Previously I just got fed up and ended up doing the animation in Unity.

[@alcoranstudio]

can i make a lot of shape keys animation into one armature as driver?

[@mehdiali8187]

Thank you

[@phil3291]

Thanks, great tutorial. Sadly for some reason in my context menu there is no option to add a driver, i tried in different blender versions but the UI doesn't show the "Add Driver". Anyone has an idea on that?

[@BlazingPhoenixArcher]

Probably a bit late on this, but in order to get the 'add driver' you need to right click on the shape key number value.

[@peesukarhu_OFFICIAL]

@@BlazingPhoenixArcher You are not late, I'm having the same issue, I only am able to right click (or ALT + D)and add it to the min and max value, not the value itself.

[@Wippipippi]

Do you have any experience with this in UE4, this is just not working for me, please help I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[@voidling2632]

how do you manage to use the drivers editor while being in pose mode?? my driver editor is empty when switching to pose. And how does this magic trick work with changing the graph? I can only use the handles and change it's curvature. Nevermind the second one, I used a generator modifier in driver editor to move the graph.

[@TiagoAlves85]

I am having the exact same problem! Did you find out how to do it?

[@Nekotico]

@@TiagoAlves85 shift click, u probably working with an old version like me

[@zarodgaming1844]

hope to not make a mistake, but you didn't clarify enough DRIVERS work only for " BAKED " animations .... FBX does not support drivers

[@Polyfable]

That is right, but FBX bakes your animations in order to store them. So it technically wouldn't matter. But perhaps I am misinterpreting what you are saying?

[@zarodgaming1844]

@@Polyfable u understand me correctly 👍 i was referring to fbx baking animation by default ... thing that in some cases is NOT what you want. If needed, you can bake animations at runtime in unity which is quite useful, allowing that breathing animation to even be customized (in a character creator) and STILL be baked and efficient.

[@zarodgaming1844]

@@Polyfable woi woi woi .. lemme check real quick

[@zarodgaming1844]

@@Polyfable thanks for prompting me to double check what i know, but I've done a quick test and indeed DRIVERS are not imported by Unity ... might be that FBX actaully supports them, but for optimization they are not included in game engines ( cuz, as I said before, you can NOT use them, use a more optimized method AND sabing memory and complexity)

[@Polyfable]

@@zarodgaming1844 I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying. FBX does not and cannot support drivers - but it bakes the animations. (That is how animation data is stored). Ultimately that is a moot point as the goal is the movement. You can then use procedural animations or IK's in unity to make changes. In terms of saving memory that is a whole other topic - but some quick things that you can do is; 1 - interpolate the curves (Either in Unity or Blender (But the blender way will require more setup) ) What are you trying to accomplish?

[@kitbash9879]

Man your animation is so funny

[@markzckrbrengsek87]

Sir, how about sketchfab configuration any particular information for such thing ?

[@Polyfable]

I haven't used Sketchfab in a while. What I would recommend at this time, is testing it via the Babylon.js viewer to see if the info is being exported correctly.

[@markzckrbrengsek87]

@@Polyfable I do a lot of attempts try to export blender shape key animation really really simple to .fbx or .glb most of the time it ended with errors let me know if you have time to try

[@Polyfable]

@@markzckrbrengsek87 Do you have any other modifiers but the armature modifier?

[@markzckrbrengsek87]

@@Polyfable I'm not using armature Sir, I'm using conventional shape key also I'm not using any modifier either

[@Polyfable]

@@markzckrbrengsek87 Hmm... It might be that the main timeline isn't loaded, and it is looking for actions, thus an armature is the way to go.

[@Velociration]

I am getting the outcome I want by following this tutorial, except when I bring the fbx into unity the driver animation doesnt move the mesh like it does in blender. Any ideas?

[@Velociration]

I got it figured out. I had the shape keys set to non-relative but I had to set them to relative and then make sure the "Relative To:" field was pointed at the shape key before it. then used the driver bone the way you instructed, I had to put each shape key on its own segment on the graph editor but i figured it out. thanks for the video this saved me.

[@Polyfable]

@@Velociration Awesome job, happy you figured it out.

[@Katfeathers]

Heck and wobble, so much that I'm *not* trying to do! I just want to fix whatever is borking my shape key on export so something else in unity can use it.

[@Polyfable]

Do you have other modifers?

[@Katfeathers]

No other mods than Armature, however before export I join multiple meshes. Apparently popping in and out of Modeling to reset vertex ids was the fix I needed. So this - after seeming not - was what I needed to learn.

[@lavellimatheus7390]

I´ve been trying to do this for 4 days and just didnt... getting crazy at this point. Basically trying to do one blink animation from blender to unity, in blender its perfect but since exported it doesnt work.. Could someone help me?

[@Polyfable]

What seems to be the issue? Are you using other modifers on your model? How have you set it up?

[@lavellimatheus7390]

@@Polyfable think I know what's the problem but don't whats causing it. All I have on eyelid mesh is armature, tex, shape keys and the driver. I checked on unity and all its there, the bones and blendshapes. But the blendshapes dont work as well as in blender, the eyelid deform but dont move down, it deforms in place

[@lavellimatheus7390]

dont know if I made my self understandable, any doubt u can ask me. Thanks a lot for trying to help '3'

[@Polyfable]

@@lavellimatheus7390 Hmmm... Are all the objects scale set to 1, 1, 1 (Normalized) So it is working, but it isn't moving as expected in unity? Do you have any other shape keys that may be overriding?

[@lavellimatheus7390]

@@Polyfable On blender its all scaled to 1,1,1 but in unity I noticed that eyelid is Y rotated to -180 (just like all the other objects. And I have just basis and the blink shape keys

[@CG_Pigeon]

:D

[@corr2143]

USE THIS > kzbin.info/www/bejne/moenhaVnpM-tpLc The method in this current video is far too cumbersome for projects / models that use hundreds of shapekeys, I have a complicated facerig and many shapekeys on a character of mine, bones would decrease performance in unity quite a bit. Hope this other method helps people that need something a little different.

[@Polyfable]

Personally I wouldn't recommend this. The problem I see with this - while good for some of things. Is it doesn't scale very well - and is quite animator unfriendly. You also end up with arguably more data to deal with in Unity. For example lets say you have 2 walk animations. Each having a different set of shape keys. You would end up with 4 tracks instead of 2 with my method. Also. In regards to your facerig... you are not using rigify I hope? (This is more just for people reading this) But rigify is a bloated mess - Great for getting quick results in Blender. But should not be used for Production under any circumstances. (Unless performance and use case is well defined.) With regards to your bones in your face - I would recommend separating out all control bones and only use them for animating in blender. Then bake the actions to the final rig (So two rigs) That way you have control of what Bones are in Unity and what bones are in Blender. Best of both worlds that way. I see a lot of students at Uni and My own classes that export everything over. And while this is fine in most cases in the edge example you supplied it would absolutely create an issue in performance. I am happy that you are indeed thinking about that! Thank you for supplying an alternative to people!

[@EbonyEcstasyOfficial]

Thank you for this tutorial! Very handy info