This page describes how to export Cascadeur scenes to Blender, and what problems you might encounter while doing so.

File Formats

Most file formats supported by Cascadeur can be exported to Blender:

• FBX
• Collada (DAE)
• USD

For most cases, the FBX format is the best choice, as it is less likely to introduce issues.
However, in cases where issues are there, using a different file format might fix them.

Preparing the Scene

Model Pose

By default, the Armature’s “rest pose” can be calculated from the character mesh’s Bind Pose data. But if the mesh is not included in the imported file, the Model Pose data stored in the bones can be used to retrieve the “rest pose”.
In Cascadeur, you can manually write Model Pose data into the character’s skeleton.

To bring the model to its default pose:

1. Set or find a keyframe to set the Model Pose on.

2. Switch to the Box controller mode and select all Box controllers associated with the character:

3. Select Go to T-pose from the Commands menu (to set the current pose to the one the character was originally rigged in in Cascadeur).

Then, to set the Model Pose:

4. Switch to the Joint Mode:

5. Select the model’s entire hierarchy, starting from the first object in the hierarchy.

6. Select Transform → Set Model Pose from the Commands menu:

You can also use the Fix scene option (in the File menu): it includes setting the model pose.

Cascadeur Export Settings

As always, the export dialog is open by selecting Export → Export FBX/DAE from the File menu.

The necessary preparations are:

1. Choose a fitting preset.

As usual:

• The Scene preset is for exporting the model with the animation.
• Animation is for just exporting the motion (and the skeleton to which it is attached).
• Model is for cases when you only need to export the 3d objects and not the motion.
• and Scene from selected object exports only the objects that are currently selected.

All this, of course, can be customized with the export options.

But there is one option that you should pay attention to.

2. Blender uses binary FBX files, so make sure the Type fbx ascii parameter is set to Binary:

For the rest of the options, you can simply use default values.

Once everything is set, click the Export button and choose a name for your file.

Importing to Blender

Now that you have your scene exported, you need to bring it to Blender.

1. Open Blender.

2. Go to File → Import menu.

3.  Select Collada (.dae), or FBX (.fbx), or Universal Scene Description (.usd), depending on which one of these formats you’ve used for export.

4. Set the import settings.

4.1. For FBX, you can simply use the default settings.
However: do not enable Automatic Bone Orientation in the Armature section: doing this would mess up the Joints’ rotations, and with them, the animation.

4.2. For Collada, it is recommended to enable Fix Leaf Bones, Find Bone Chains and Auto Connect:

This way, the character skeleton should look more or less the same as it does in Cascadeur; otherwise, there might be issues with Joint length and size.

4.3. For USD, the default settings should work fine.

Either way, the imported scene should work without any issues.

Common Issues

Bone Lengths

When you import scenes to Blender, you might sometimes get a skeleton with Joints pointing in seemingly random directions:

This happens because of how Blender renders Bones.

Inside Blender, all Joints (called Bones in Blender) have length values. These length values are proprietary to Blender, meaning that they can't be exported in any file format. When a model is brought to Blender, the import algorithm tries to ‘guess’ the length each bone should have - and the results are not always correct.

Additionally, all Blender bones have the +Y axis as the default forward axis. So if the model's bones have a different forward axis from Blender's, the bones may "look" the wrong way.

Ultimately, this does not affect the animation sourced from the original skeleton. So if Blender is the final point of your animation pipeline, and if you intend to, say, render an animation in Blender, this issue can be ignored.
But if you intend to use the imported model down the line, it could affect other aspects of your pipeline that rely on the skeleton, such as the retargeting process.

There are several ways to address that:

1. You can simply work with these incorrectly-lengthened Joints - if you find it convenient enough.

2. You can manually change Joint lengths by selecting and scaling them by their "Individual Origins".

3. If the model has originally been exported from your Blender scene, you can add leaf bones to the ends of bone chains (by enabling the Add Leaf Bones option in the export settings). This will preserve the lengths of the regular Joints.
Leaf bones can then be ignored upon import (by enabling the Ignore Leaf Bones option in the import settings) or removed manually.

4. Finally, you can use the Legacy FBX importer and its Automatic Bone Orientation import setting to make Blender orient bones along the +Y axis.

Animation Assign

When you apply the action animation from the exported Cascadeur animation to your original Armature in Blender, some bones may ignore all animation data, even though both Armatures are entirely the same.

To fix this, switch to the Pose mode in Blender and check the bones’ Rotation mode. It may be that these faulty bones have a different Rotation mode than the rest of the bones. After you assign the correct Rotation mode, the bones should 'recognize' the animation data:

Working with Blender DCC Rigs

If you’ve animated a Blender model that has a dedicated control rig (e.g., Rigify or AutoRig Pro), you may notice that applying the Cascadeur animation back to the original Blender rig is not possible.

To transfer your Cascadeur animation back to the Blender rig, you will need to retarget the motion back to the model’s controllers. This can be done using the retargeter tools, like the Rokoko plugin or the retargeter included in the AutoRig Pro plugin.

See Also

Import From Blender

Import FBX/DAE

Export FBX/DAE