Bringing visibilty and material animation from Max to Unity

As far as I know, there's no way for Unity to directly use imported animation channels from e.g. FBX files for things other than transformation (rotation, position, scale) and for blend shapes. However, there are a few ways you could do it ranging from kinda easy to crazy complicated.

Probably the easiest way is to add some extra joints to your animation rig that aren't weighted to any vertices. You can then use the x,y,z position to animate different parameters. In Max, you can drive the position of the joint from your material properties using **wire parameters**. (I'm more familiar with Maya, where they're called Driven Keys). Call the joint something like MaterialDriver.

Once you import the animation into Unity you'll have these extra joints moving around in your character. Then you write a super simple script in Unity that takes those transform positions and drives the corresponding property in the material. Something like:

 public class MaterialDriver : MonoBehaviour
 {
     Transform MaterialDriver;
 
     void Update()
     {
         // Get the current color
         Color materialColor = renderer.material.color;
         // Set the alpha of the material from the local (animated) x position of the transform
         materialColor.a = MaterialDriver.localPosition.x;
         // Set the new color
         renderer.material.color = materialColor;        
     }
 }
 

Add this Component to the object you're animating and set its MaterialDriver to the MaterialDriver child object. Assuming you've exported the animation correctly so that its scale and axes are consistent with Unity, you'll get animated materials.

Thanks for the response Baroque. That's a really clever work around! I will keep that in mind for other circumstance. Unfortunately that won't work for what I need the animation isn't actually created in Max. The animations are created in a construction scheduling software called Synchro, with which I am not super familiar. However, when I bring the animations into Max all the material and visibility animation is retained in the fbx from Synchro. I am asking about 3ds max because that is what I generally work with and I know that I can get the animations into Max without having to deal with Synchro.

So I love your work around, but won't work in this instance. I will really need a way to actually script an exporter in Max or an importer in Unity. I am not interested in getting to in depth into Sychro.

Sorry to bring up an old thread, I was wondering if you got anywhere with this kamullis?

I am also trying to bring 4d models from synchro into unity.

Thanks,