Copying Animation Clips from Imported FBX

Update: Just found this: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/187907/how-to-add-keyframes-on-imported-read-only-animati.html. This suggests I should be able to drag my newly-copied animation clip onto a prefab of my model and edit the clip in the animation window. Unfortunately this doesn't work for me either - it's still read-only. And yes, I have copied the curves over to it.

Hmm. The prefab for my model is a placeholder game object which references the $$anonymous$$odel Object from the FBX and instantiates it at runtime. This is as recommended elsewhere on this site, so that re-importing the FBX does not result in having to set everything up again in Unity every time.

Perhaps the simple truth is that this approach is incompatible with the need to modify the model's animation curves? I'd love to know how other people have things set up - I'm in a right ol' mess here...

O$$anonymous$$, I believe I have a solution to this, which I'll describe in case anyone else has similar problems. Following my previous comment, I realised that if I simply drag my FBX-imported model onto the scene, I could then finally edit my animation clips. Woo... Also, if I then made it a prefab, I could still do so. This lead me to look at writing an import (i.e. Editor) script that instantiates each new FBX (adding it to the scene), makes a prefab out of it and then destroys the instantiated object:

using UnityEngine; using UnityEditor;

public class Import$$anonymous$$odel : AssetPostprocessor { public void OnPostprocess$$anonymous$$odel(GameObject root) { $$anonymous$$odelImporter modelImporter = ($$anonymous$$odelImporter) assetImporter;

     // Instantiate object in scene
     GameObject inst = (GameObject)GameObject.Instantiate(root, Vector3.zero, Quaternion.identity);

     // Create prefab for it
     Object prefab = EditorUtility.CreateEmptyPrefab("Assets/$$anonymous$$odels/" + root.name + ".prefab");

     // Replace the empty prefab with the newly instantiated model object
     EditorUtility.ReplacePrefab(root, prefab, ReplacePrefabOptions.ConnectToPrefab);

     // Destroy the object we added to the scene
     GameObject.DestroyImmediate(inst);
 }   

}

(apologies for formatting issues - I think this is a line-ending issue with this site)

Once the models are imported via this script, they can then be referenced by the 'empty' that instantiates them at runtime (so that there is no work setting things up again when the model is re-imported).

This just leaves the animation clips. The solution here is to duplicate them - but now, they can be added to this new prefab generated by the editor script above, and they are also then editable. Solution! I'm going to add that to the script above, but haven't got that far yet. I'm sure it's achievable though.

So it looks like I answered my own question here. If anyone's got a better solution, please do speak up though :)

Cheers Borrus

Update: O$$anonymous$$, Seems the solution I posted above does not work, so converting it back to a comment, rather than an answer.

First, it is not possible to duplicate animation clips in the editor, it transpires. Second, even if it were possible, how would you then manage the conflict between inco$$anonymous$$g changes to the imported clips and changes made within Unity?

I came up with a solution where I manually create copies of the FBX's clips, and integrate Rune's curve-copying script so this happens for each model during import. This worked wonderfully. If you then drag the copy of the model to the scene, you can edit the curves of the copied clip. However, if like me you have a prefab object which references the model object, in order to avoid having to recreate the GameObject and all its components every time you re-import, and this is what you drag to the scene (and not the copied model), you are stuck: if you click on a model form the Project pane (not the Hierarchy pane) and view its animations, you still cannot edit copied clips, even though they are read/write: the record/play buttons are simply greyed-out :/

I do realise this is probably getting very difficult to follow due to complexity. Perhaps I should call it a day updating my findings here, unless anyone out there is finding it useful.