I'm quite the Houdini noob so this could be pretty basic, but I can't figure it out…

I have a simple skinned switch consisting of two objects: a switch_base and lever. Each has their own UV transforms. I want these UV to be shared on to a single tile so I created a 3rd object that merges by base and lever objects and applies a UV layout on the result. The original objs are hidden.

This all seems to be working as expected in Houdini.

However when I do an FBX export I can't get the merged object to export properly.

If I export with invisible objects enabled then the two original OBJs are exported, with their separate UV sets. I can't figure out how to get the merged obj to export.

Your merged geometry is inside a Null OBJ. That's used for parenting and rigs, and it's treated differently by FBX. You can create an empty Object node with the Geometry OBJ. Then, do the same object merge and uv layout that you did. Exporting that should give you the correct result.

So creating a geometry node instead of a null did get me a visible mesh.

However the merged FBX export is missing all skinning information. There is no bind pose, clusters of weights, etc. in the merged export. If I export un-merged objects then it does contain proper skinning information.

Is there something I'm supposed to do to ensure skinning information is preserved? Or is this a FBX export issue?