Unreal Engine: Exporting Cached Animation

To bring the animation into Unreal Engine, an Alembic Cache can be used to bake the animation to the actor geometry and import it into the engine. I wrote up a google doc to sen to my group so they can send me their animation without creating extra work for myself by doing it for them.

Caching the Mouse

• Make sure you have referenced in the most recent version of the Mouse model from the server.
• Make sure the Mouse animation is perfect and you are happy with it, it can’t be changed once you cache it out. 
• Import the mouse reference into your scene so you can edit the geometry

• Unlock the mouse geo from the layers menu and select all the mouse geometry from the outliner

• Triangulate the geo

• Now the mesh have been triangulated, select the group the geometry is sitting in (not the geometry nodes themselves)

• Along the top bar, under the Cache tab in the Alembic Cache Menu, click the square next to the ‘Export Selection to Alembic…’

• Inside the menu, select the ‘Start/End’ option and input the frame range of the animation. Scroll down the menu and tick ‘UV Write’ and ‘Write Face Sets’. If your animation uses any changes in visibility also tick the ‘Write Visibility’ Box too.

• Click ‘Export Selection’, name it something that makes sense (Scene#_Mouse) and save 

Caching the Robot

• Make sure you have referenced in the most recent version of the Robot model from the server.
• Make sure the Robot animation is perfect and you are happy with it, it can’t be changed once you cache it out. 
• Import the Robot Reference into the scene.

• Select the group is Robot geometry is sitting in (not the geometry nodes themselves). Note that the robot geometry does not need to be triangulated and that the geo is in 2 different groups. You can select both groups at the same time to export.

• Along the top bar, under the Cache tab in the Alembic Cache Menu, click the square next to the ‘Export Selection to Alembic…’

• Inside the menu, select the ‘Start/End’ option and input the frame range of the animation. Scroll down the menu and tick ‘UV Write’ and ‘Write Face Sets’. If your animation uses any changes in visibility also tick the ‘Write Visibility’ Box too.

• Click ‘Export Selection’, name it something that makes sense (Scene#_Robot) and save 

Exporting Camera Paths 

• Make sure the Camera Movements are perfect and you are happy with it, it can’t be changed once you export it 
• Select the camera you would like to export from the outliner menu. 

• Along the top bar, under the File tab, click the square next to the ‘Export Selection…’ 

• Select ‘FBX export’ from the file type drop down menu and then press the ‘Edit Preset…’ button to open the advanced options. In the new menu choose the 'Autodesk Media & Entertainment' from the 'Current Preset' list. 



• ‘Close’, click ‘Export Selection’, name it something that makes sense (Scene#_Camera) and save 

Exporting Other Animation

• Select the layers with the animation keyed on it.

• Along ‘Key’ on the header menu click ‘Bake Simulation’. 




• Along the top bar, under the File tab, click the square next to the ‘Export Selection…’

• Select ‘FBX export’ from the file type drop down menu and then press the ‘Edit Preset…’ button to open the advanced options. In the new menu tick the ‘Animation’ box and the ‘Bake Animation’ box. Make sure you set the start and end time for the camera too. 



• ‘Save preset’ and give it a name to save the settings, then ‘Close’
• Click ‘Export Selection’, name it something that makes sense (Scene#_Animation) and save