How to work around animations made for none character models

[PeakyBuilds]

Hello all! I’ve modelled a claw machine yesterday for my project, and I already made an animation in blender, without knowing that it can’t be imported, although I think it can’t.

Because of my mesh being a none character/humanoid, how would I go around solving my animating issue? I tried seeing if I could animate it in roblox,but it seems that roblox is only user friendly for humanoid rigs, which I can’t necessarily place a character rig on a claw machine.

I want it to simulate a claw picking up the object and dropping it out into the hole on a claw machine, but, How would I achieve that, the animation looked so perfect in blender, but considering it won’t allow me to import the animation.

I’m in a pickle, I’ve tried many plug-ins in roblox and blender to try and get my animations across to my asset in roblox, I know that apparently there is a way around it by scripting it, which I don’t necessarily want to have my scripter spend to much time on trying to script an animation, its chaotic, isn’t there a loophole around getting an animation into roblox on an inanimate object?

Here is the animation I made in Blender https://www.dropbox.com/s/h5w08ptg4nmgvq9/ETMBDAkXqC.mp4?dl=0

Thanks in advance.

[ItsKoiske (Koiske)]

I believe that you either need to make it a humanoid-like rig or simply script the movement.

[PeakyBuilds]

Thanks for the reply! Also, I’m not entirely sure how I’d actually do that though with the humanoid rig thing, I’m not an animator personally, I specialise in 3D modelling and level designing, This is the asset in-game(Mind the colours) How would I sort the humanoid rig out for it? Our last resort is scripting it, but, were getting more important mechanics set up first via scripting, so we’d sort of have to leave it till last minute but we need this to be able to script a certain thing we were planning.

We only need the crane itself rigging.

[vibrantkoffing]

Easy. Firstly, there’s a plugin for that. Read this. Steps on how to do this:

1. Group all the parts you’re using into one model
2. Insert a Humanoid
3. Create the joints you need to create

You can easily manipulate the joints with this plugin. Watch this for a tutorial on the plugin and how to complete the steps listed.

Hope this helped,

[PeakyBuilds]

I mean, it definitely put things into perspective, but the part that I want to actually be the main base, won’t select for some strange reason.

[PeakyBuilds]

Wait, false alarm, thats worked, thanks a ton man! honestly, wouldn’t of been able to get it set up w/o your help, thanks a lot!

[PeakyBuilds]

Its not actually working on me, if I try and move the root part, as I need my whole claw to move at first, if I go to another frame, and then drag the root bone, it just bounces straight back to its original position, but adds in keys.

[T0ny (Tophat)]

The new avatar importer should be able to handle this… granted you set it up properly. Only you probably wouldn’t be able to pick up different objects without a whole other animation, including the picked up object also being rigged properly.

Afterwards you can simply spawn any object you want for the reward after it drops. The Avatar Importer can be used to import non humanoid characters. Just delete the “Humanoid” in the model after its imported. Keep the “HumanoidRootPart” however. But feel free to rename it if you wish. Add a Animation Controller, and then you are free to play the animations on it as you wish. I’m not really sure about the importing animations from Blender part. I read something about it here.

Introducing Avatar Importer to Studio

Hi Developers, We are excited to release a new feature that enables you to import avatars using the rig data inside of FBX files. You can author these files using tools like Maya or Blender and bring your characters to life inside of Roblox Studio. Here’s a quick walk through of the features of the Avatar Importer: Start by creating or downloading a FBX file suitable for importing. You can find out more about upload requirements here. [image] You can access the Avatar Importer under the …

But it doesn’t really pertain to me as I planned on animating in Studio using the Animation Editor. For instance, I made a shark.

Sure it can be considered a character. My next non humanoid will be a treasure chest.

[Fennecpaw (Fennec)]

I don’t know much about scripting, though I usually animate the object with the Humanoid inside of it. And then, I believe my scripter uses this:
https://developer.roblox.com/api-reference/class/AnimationController

Also, remember not to have a “Head” or “Torso” in the object, and always leave the HRP anchored.

[WeBuiltOurOwnWorld (jei)]

Use the AnimationController it was made for these type of situations

[vibrantkoffing]

I think you’re animating wrong. Believe me, animations can be a pain at first. Make sure to use the Roblox animation editor plugin made by the ROBLOX account.

[PeakyBuilds]

Oh damn! I honestly didn’t know this, thats brill, I’ll definitely be using this! how could I have missed that feature, and to everyone else, I sorted it eventually, just not got around turning this to resolved, but, some guy showed me a plugin that allows for making joints etc. in roblox.