FBX Ascii custom attribute fails

[Nathanieljla]

Hi. I’m doing some animation contract work and was provided a mgear rig and discovered that the game data doesn’t properly export out of maya when the fbx is set to ascii (binary works). The rig was created in Maya 2022 with mgear 4.2.2. I’m exporting out of Maya 2024 and tried all the various fbx versions from 2011-2020.

I was able to track down the issue to a custom attribute labeled “Guide Data” that exists on the top level node of the character. I can’t provide the maya file due to NDA. The value of guide data seems quite large, so I’m not sure if it’s something in the formatting of the data or some string length error, but the export creates a 0 kb file, i.e. the actual writing of the file fails.

I’ve skirted around this issue by remove the string from the referenced scene, but thought I’d mention the bug here.

[chrislesage]

Can you share a screenshot (or at the least the node name) of what top level node you mean?

Are you exporting the entire rig, or just the skeleton?

[Nathanieljla]

Here’s a screenshot. Under this is a geo group and and joint group, which are the two branches of the hierarchy that I’m attempting to export. The control rig branch isn’t included in the export set. I can actually take all the children of the top level Rig group and put them into an alternative group and everything exports (including the control rig section of the hierarchy).

[chrislesage]

Ok thanks. And also how specifically are you exporting? The mGear FBX export, or from Maya or another tool?

[Nathanieljla]

Maya’s standard FBX exporter. If there’s a way to DM a file, I can give you a text file of the string value, if that helps.