Mixamo Animation Retargeting

[UNAmedia]

@katanec

Hello all. Plugin looks great. Two questions:
-is it working with T character pose?
-are there any sales planned in the future?

Best…

Hi!

1. the plugin works with the Mixamo character in it’s usual T-pose. The plugin will automatically compute the proper A-pose to match the UE4 mannequin.
2. no sales are planned at the moment, but you could check with Epic if they are planning something before the Winter sales.

[UNAmedia]

@psalm702

Game Jam SOS!

“Retarget Mixamo Skeleton Asset” is greyed out. Plugin (using 4.20 version from Gumroad) isn’t working. Mixamo recently (actually quite a while ago) added an extra prefix “mixamorig:” to their skeletons. Can this be the reason?

[Edit] I tried removing the prefix “mixamorig:” by hand and it’s now working. Please add this feature to the new updates. Thanks!

Hi psalm702, thanks for the report and the workaround. We’ll look at this issue in the next days. Thanks!

[Achitakayoh]

Hi, I can’t Retarget Anim Asset from AnimStarterPack to Mixamo character.

UE4 4.19.2 + Plugin Mixamo Animation Retargeting enabled

Steps

0. Assign humanoïd rig to UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton
1. Download character from Mixamo.com (I tried with “Brute” and “Akai E Espiritu”)
2. Import in UE4
3. Assign humanoïd rig to Brute_Skeleton (Save)
4. Right-clic on Brute_Skeleton : Retarget Mixamo Skeleton Asset (Save)
5. Right-clic on ThirdPerson_AnimBP (OK - Perfect, just small adjustment for shoulders)
6. Right-clic on AnimStarterPack » Aim_Space_Hip (or any other animations) = No compatible skeleton (even UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton is not recognised)
   
   
7. Uncheck “Show only Compatible Skeletons” and Retarget
   »» T-pose + head falling only
   
   

Any idea?

[UNAmedia]

@Achitakayoh

Hi, I can’t Retarget Anim Asset from AnimStarterPack to Mixamo character.

UE4 4.19.2 + Plugin Mixamo Animation Retargeting enabled

Steps

0. Assign humanoïd rig to UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton
1. Download character from Mixamo.com (I tried with “Brute” and “Akai E Espiritu”)
2. Import in UE4
3. Assign humanoïd rig to Brute_Skeleton (Save)
4. Right-clic on Brute_Skeleton : Retarget Mixamo Skeleton Asset (Save)
5. Right-clic on ThirdPerson_AnimBP (OK - Perfect, just small adjustment for shoulders)
6. Right-clic on AnimStarterPack » Aim_Space_Hip (or any other animations) = No compatible skeleton (even UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton is not recognised)
   
   
7. Uncheck “Show only Compatible Skeletons” and Retarget
   »» T-pose + head falling only
   
   

Any idea?

Hi Achitakayoh,

thanks for all the details.

The “Select Skeleton” view of the UE4 editor shows all the skeletons that have the same Rig as the one of the selected asset. So, if “Brute_Skeleton” doesn’t shows up here it means that the selected asset and the “Brute_Skeleton” have different Rigs. This usually happen when you have multiple UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton skeletons in the same project: you set the Humanoid rig on one UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton skeleton but the animation is linked to another UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton asset (that has an empty Rig). Also if they are identical, each one is a completely different asset for UE4. Search for all the skeletons in your project and likely you’ll find multiple copies of the UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton. (more quickly: open the problematic animation and check the bound skeleton)

Let me know if this solves your issue or if it persists.

[Achitakayoh]

Thank you very much . Problem solved!

• AnimStarterPack » UE4_Mannequin » Mesh : UEO_Mannequin_Skeleton
• Select Humanoïd (save)
• Retarget to Mannequin » Character »Mesh » UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton

[UNAmedia]

@Achitakayoh

Thank you very much . Problem solved!

• AnimStarterPack » UE4_Mannequin » Mesh : UEO_Mannequin_Skeleton
• Select Humanoïd (save)
• Retarget to Mannequin » Character »Mesh » UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton

Great you solved!

[twalk1776]

Incredible work! I’m getting an issue where rootmotion animations convert horizontal movement to vertical movement. (Essentially–my character runs up into the air instead of straight forward when I untick the “enable root motion” option in animations generated by your plugin). Are you familiar with this issue? I think all my animations are imported in the proper orientation, so there shouldn’t be an issue there. Any ideas?

[UNAmedia]

@twalk1776

Incredible work! I’m getting an issue where rootmotion animations convert horizontal movement to vertical movement. (Essentially–my character runs up into the air instead of straight forward when I untick the “enable root motion” option in animations generated by your plugin). Are you familiar with this issue? I think all my animations are imported in the proper orientation, so there shouldn’t be an issue there. Any ideas?

Hi! Could you please confirm that:

1. you imported from Mixamo:

• the rigged character;

• a corresponding ordinary animation;

• the in-place version of the above animation.

1. you successfully applied our plugin to the imported Mixamo skeleton;
2. using our plugin on the updated skeleton, you generated a root motion animation from the two imported animations above.

is it right? If you followed all the above steps and the problem persists, please write us (a PM here or an email at support@.com) specifying:

• the name of the used animations, as they appear on Mixamo web site;
• a link to download the FBX files (as downloaded by you from Mixamo) for the character and the two animations.

Thanks.

[markvandenbergen]

Hi
Thanks for the great plugin
It plugin was working for me last week, but now “Retarget Skeleton Asset” menu is greyed out.
I suspect it is because, the skeleton names are importing as :
mixamorig_Hips
mixamorig_Spine
Where as a week ago they were importing as :
Hips
Spine
I find this strange because the source fbx is the same (Downoladed directly from Mixamo website).
Only difference if running UE4.2 now, where as be fore I was on UE4.19
Could it be my FBX import settings?
Any advice would be great, to get this plugin working for me again.

[twalk1776]

Hi! Could you please confirm that:

1. you imported from Mixamo:

• the rigged character;

• a corresponding ordinary animation;

• the in-place version of the above animation.

1. you successfully applied our plugin to the imported Mixamo skeleton;
2. using our plugin on the updated skeleton, you generated a root motion animation from the two imported animations above.

is it right? If you followed all the above steps and the problem persists, please write us (a PM here or an email at support@.com) specifying:

• the name of the used animations, as they appear on Mixamo web site;
• a link to download the FBX files (as downloaded by you from Mixamo) for the character and the two animations.

Thanks.

Hello, yes—I’ve done all of that. I went ahead and sent you an email with a link to the files!

[UNAmedia]

@markvandenbergen

Hi
Thanks for the great plugin
It plugin was working for me last week, but now “Retarget Skeleton Asset” menu is greyed out.
I suspect it is because, the skeleton names are importing as :
mixamorig_Hips
mixamorig_Spine
Where as a week ago they were importing as :
Hips
Spine
I find this strange because the source fbx is the same (Downoladed directly from Mixamo website).
Only difference if running UE4.2 now, where as be fore I was on UE4.19
Could it be my FBX import settings?
Any advice would be great, to get this plugin working for me again.

Hi! The issue is the prefix “mixamorig_” in front of the bone names, if you remove them then the plugin will work as usual.

The issue has been reported by another user few days ago, it seems Mixamo changed something recently. We’ll investigate this issue in the next days.

[UNAmedia]

We investigated the issue about the bone names prefixed with “[FONT=courier new]mixamorig”, causing the plugin to fail detecting the skeletons as being compatible with Mixamo. The issue was a bug in UE 4.20.0 and should have been fixed in UE 4.20.1. Please update your UE4 installation and verify if the plugin now works as expected.

Here some more details:

• Official issue: Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker (UE-62067)
• Official fix: https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/commit/94d60d42f96113c129575032cd92055d7c1c0326
• Can't import animation in 4.20 - Character & Animation - Unreal Engine Forums
• Skeletal mesh and joint name issue with 4.20 (Maya namespaces) - Character & Animation - Unreal Engine Forums
• word of WARNING for mixamo rigs - Character & Animation - Unreal Engine Forums

[Mighteemouse3]

so, just bought the plug in… it’s fantastic. when i tried to manually retarget, the lower spine seems short giving the character shelves for hips, blah blah blah… this fixed all of them. however, i have a new problem that I didnt get when i manually mapped… (the animations may not be from the starter pack but they are rigged to the ue4 mannequin. Everything looks SOLID except the left wrist and only in certain animations… when holding an item, the left wrist looks off… i just downloaded the rigged character 2 days from fuse->mixamo workflow. Imported the character, ran through the tutorials and here’s the resulting issue:
I’m assuming i need to tweek the left wrist and that’s what i’m doing but if anyone can at least point me in a right direction (i’ve tried rotating the wrist and when it’s

[Mighteemouse3]

Ok, So i think i have figured out the issue, I think mixamo is skinning the wrists wrong. I used one of their own characters in a shoot anim on the site (one where i could see his wrists) and it did it too. I hadn’t used anything from mixamo in a while but this appears to be something new. I tried an obj file and it was a little better. but if anybody figures out any good hints let me know.

[twalk1776]

I have a follow-up question:

When I run “Retarget Mixamo Skeleton Asset” any bones that I add to the mixamo skeletons loose their animations/poses and are forced to their base pose for the duration of the animation.

For example, I have one character that I added some facial bones to, and I created the following smiling pose:

However, after retargeting the skeleton asset to the UE4 Mannequin, all bones that are not part of the original UE4 mannequin revert to the base pose instead of retaining the pose they originally had, which is why the smile disappears (shown below):

This definitely seems like something that should be fixed, because this means people can’t use your tool at all if they want to use bones to animate their character’s faces. All bones not included in the Mixamo rig should retain their poses when retargeting is applied.

Best,
Tyler

[twalk1776]

Hi! Thanks a lot

I think that unfortunately this is the default behavior in UE4 when you do animation retargeting: if the target skeleton doesn’t have all the bones of the source animation, such bones are ignored (see for example this answer - the question is similar to your: Extra bone but still can use the main skeleton - Character & Animation - Epic Developer Community Forums). The reason is simple: as you are transferring informations to a new mesh, the system doesn’t know how to automatically add such bones and - more difficult - how to properly skin them on the new skeletal mesh.

If you want to apply such animations to the UE4 mannequin, you have to add and skin such bones to the UE4 skeleton and skeletal mesh before, then apply the retargetings. Unfortunately it’s not a quick task. But maybe there is some other solution that I’m not thinking about.

Ohh I just saw this post… Hmm seems like an issue UE4 should have figured out, but I suppose this solution will have to do…

[Thegamerguynz]

Hi, how would i go about importing rigged clothing? all the clothing is rigged to the mixamo skeleton, normally i would just import them and choose my character skeleton, but i can’t do that after using the plugin. If i export the skeleton after applying the plugin, it exports the mixamo one, so i can’t model on an identical skeleton, if that makes sense.

[UNAmedia]

Hi all! Update for UE4.21 has been submitted to Epic and should be available in the marketplace in few days.

[anonymous_user_fb040bbd]

Have you tried it with the Paragon chars? Or do they need it.

[kerds78 (Kelechi Apakama)]

Hi, I recently bought your plugin, and I have followed all of the steps in your video to get a “root motion” animation. When I preview it in the animation editor without “enable root motion” checked, it looks like this (as expected):

But when I check the box and have “preview root motion”, it stays in place like this:

whereas ue4’s root motion example moves like this:

In game, my character does not move because there seems to be something wrong with the animation asset. I have tried 4.20 and 4.21 with various different mixamo models but it still doesn’t work. Any help would be greatly appreciated