Cannot import FBX rig correctly, imports into separated chunks

Hi, I have a rig which I’m trying to import into UE4, but whenever I import it, it only shows some parts of the rig. Within Maya, I was able to animate everything fully (I made a run cycle for the character rig.) The way the rig is designed is that its arms, legs and head bones are separated from everything else. I’m not sure if this is causing the problem, though. If I need to provide more info please let me know. Any help is appreciated!

How the rig looks like with all its controllers

How the rig looks with all its joints enabled

You definitely should not be trying to import a rig into the engine.
You would have to re-create the rig with control rig for it to work in engine anyway.

If what you mean is that you can’t import the animation or character, then the engine will also give you specific error messages to go with the failed import.

the skeleton look OK. There is no need (I think Maya is not my forte) for the bones to be physically linked. They however do need to be patented to the correct bone.
you can’t have multiple root bones when importing, so everything within the skeleton hierarchy needs to have a proper parent, whether it is attached or detached.

Ohh I should’ve worded it a bit better, I just wanna export the model with the armature so that I can apply animations n stuff to it. I wasn’t aware that I’d have to recreate the rig within UE to get it to work. I did try to parent the loose bones, but UE just said that it failed to import it.

Before, I was getting an error that said “- Mesh [Geometry have no name] in the fbx file is not reference by any hierarchy node.” It listed this quite a few times.

Haven’t gotten that before, I would wager a guess that it is because the mesh isn’t parented to the armature.

You don’t “need” to re-create the rig. you can just animate stuff inside your 3d program and import it. There’s really no need to have the rig re-built in engine Unless you specifically need that functionality.

As far as the errors go, there is usually a more accurate list inside the log.
Window > Developer Tools > Output Log
I normally place it as a tab next to the Message Log so I can cycle back and forth.

As far as the bones go, just make sure they are all linked (not necessarily connected). Legs to the hip, arms to the spline_03 usually.
When you export, make sure that you select the same version that matches the one available for import in the engine. There’s another topic (recent) in this thread that explains what people are doing to export from Maya. You may want to look into that/ask there.

I managed to import it! I went thoroughly through the rig hierarchy and made sure everything was connected. Although, I have to redo the run animation I made as it isn’t compatible with the rig anymore, which is a bummer.…9ee9d92bf7.mp4

Thank you for your help!