maya to blender - short animation - bit complex

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1

Hello, I was wondering what file type format(s) to use to get my animation data from Maya to blender. I have a somewhat basic scene with two characters, some props and a shot camera. I understand that I might have to use a combination of formats to get it to blender- but I am interested in getting it all to blender, so I do my dynamics, compositing and rendering in blender.

So what I have in the maya scene and want to get in blender:

1.armature skinned to a mesh - two animated characters contain keyframes
2. An aim and up camera, parented to a locator- contains keyframes
3. blendparent node (keyframe parent constraint) between a character and a number of props. - keyframes on props
4. Might have blendshapes in the future, but will use a joint base facial rig if that would simplify it.
5. The placement of all the background elements- props, etc

So what’s the cleanest way of importing all this to blender? To what extend is it possible and is there somewhere a clear video explonation as to how to transfer data from maya to blender. I understand its a somewhat complex task, but I really want to use cycles instead of mental ray or maya’s software renderer

Thanks in advance.

btw here is a diary of the project:


it’s called Soda Trip

2

It is not so hard.You need to export characters as .obj formats and .mdd files. For cameras I use Collada.
I have a page in my blog with an example of what you need, have a look:


Hope that helps.

3

hi, I will try it. Thank you so much for writing a howto on your blog. I have to use both blender and maya in my pipeline and this is very useful.

I am having trouble running the script from creative clash

import fx_mdd_obj_exporterfx_mdd_obj_exporter.runUI()

Error: invalid syntax

my bad, instead of just copying code blindly from the blog, I should have used my brain :smiley:

import fx_mdd_obj_exporter
fx_mdd_obj_exporter.runUI()

4

No problem, glad to help.