S4S animation export error - Possible S4S bug?

Hi. I cant check myself at the moment, but could you try this:
- repair your game;
- delete sims 4 studio folder from documents;
- start s4s, let it re-index, open settings, change the path to blender.exe in blender 4.1;
- export the bad animation again, check in 4.1;
- if still broken, tell us

o19
Hi, if this hasnt been reported yet, could you please do it here?

Thank you mauvemorn for your troubleshooting guide.

I followed your directions, but sadly no change.

With regards to the following two animations:
horse animation: ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_high_success_x

rider animation: a0ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_high_success_rider_x1

The rider travells from point A to Point B. The horse rig runs in place.
See blender video here: 

link to video


Notes:
If I try export either animation from S4S main menu > override > animation, then animation/bones isn't included with the rig.
If I export from S4S main menu > Clip pack > animation, then both animations do export

I'm not sure whether the method of exporting should make a difference or not, but it does.

Here are the blender file exports (unedited) after a repaired game and fresh S4S install and reindex:
drive.google.com/drive/folders/16zEW0ngQwVTfr7Nx5m-AOJBGQLWtms7a?usp=drive_link

(I have indicated at the start of the file name how I exported the animation)
Files used in the video shown:

CLIP PACK ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_high_success_x

CLIP PACK a0ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_high_success_rider_x1

As far as I can tell the sim is parented to the horse. So when the horse moves the sim is moved too.
In this image I rotated (only) the horse: ibb.co/28nkh9P (I'm testing a few things, currently without any outfit mods to speedup the load time)

Anyhow there are some animations where the horse and sim are not parented. When I try to rotate the sim in-game only the plumbob is rotated, likely due to a constraint/IK/posture/whatever with the sim: ibb.co/sbMTT5h


Can you confirm that all FrameData values still match after importing the animation to S4S?
"FrameData": "AAAHAP8P/w//D/8P",
"ChannelSubTarget": "Orientation",
"ChannelType": "F4_SuperHighPrecision_Quaternion",
"FrameCount": 1,
"Scale": 0.5,
"Offset": 0.5,
"Target": "0xA0FCA895"

Click on 'Text' instead of 'Data' and you can copy them to a text editor and compare the data of both clips.

I wonder whether it is sufficient to export the animation from S4S and then import it again to break it. Then it would not be related to Blender but to the export/import process.

mauvemorn

I followed your troubleshooting directions above and, unless I'm doing something wrong, here definitely seems to be an export/ import bug.

1. Exporting to Blender - broken

I exported all horse/rider barrel and jump animations. The animations for the rider move correctly. However, all of the horse animations are broken in some way or other when opened in blender.

Some testing:
method of export: S4S main menu > Clip pack > animation > clips > Export > horse > EA Clip> "ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_high_success_x" > Export
ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_high_success_x.blend - animation works, but the horse runs in one place and doesn't move along the Y axis
ah2o_horseObstacles_barrels_lowSkill_fail_horseObstacleDouble.blend - no animations, horse standing in base position only
ah2o_horseObstacles_barrels_lowSkill_loop02_x.blend - Horse animation is correct, but mostly stays in place on the Y axis, sometimes moving a little along the axis, but not correctly.
ah2o_horseObstacles_barrels_lowSkill_succeed_horseObstacleDouble.blend - no animations, horse standing in base position only
ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_balk_x.blend - correct animation but stays in one place and doesn't move along the Y axis
ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_low_success_x.blend - file is empty
ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_low_fail_x.blend - correct animation but stays in one place. two horse rigs present. one rig is in base position

ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_low_fail_x.blend has two horse rigs present:
or or
drive.google.com/file/d/1gh6voHhro5C1BSpK8ZH_iBX987uoN3oQ/view?usp=sharing

One is animated and the other static


If animations are exported as an override, then all horse animations only contain the horse T-posing and one single animation frame:
S4S main menu > override > animation > "ah2o_horseObstacles_jump_low_fail_x.blend" > horse > export

or drive.google.com/file/d/1ZJvwySNwIx4gL3TAkRL7wK14VhxiSTeh/view?usp=sharing

Here is a breakdown of testing the override animations, which all look like the above:

or drive.google.com/file/d/1wpqR_zyg1g7Hf9WrcP5FfUy2mTQf8P9J/view?usp=sharing

2. Importing back into S4S - also broken

As noted above by o19 above:


I tried to manually fix the data but without success.

o19 also said:

I don't think this is the case as the sim animations for both the barrels and the jumps are properly rigged and move along the Y axis as appears in-game.
And I don't think it's the case of the horse being connected to the sim animation as horses can do these actions without a rider, therefore not needing to be pared to the sim for animation over jumps and round barrels.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, I do believe this is a bug.
Possibly relating to the rigging and/or how the animations for horses are coded in both export and then import.
The animations for sims do work. Some of the horse animations do kinda work, so I do believe it should be possible with S4S if the bugs could be ironed out.

I am aware that this isn't a mainstream thing to be fixing, but fixing this would enable massively expanding what can be done with horses as we can then make use of existing aniations.