Why animations and models are sold separated in the marketplace?

hey, I’m a developer and I don’t know much about the artist side of Unreal Engine
but I have noticed that animations and models are not sold together when the model is a character.

Does it means that every character models is compatible with every character animations? how is it possible? there is like a standard skeleton for characters or I’m missing something?

Yes, all characters and animations in the unreal engine marketplace should use the same skeleton, so they should all be compatible with each other. There are some which are not, like the Mixamo Animation pack, but then you can just use animation retargeting.

As Alcatraz already mentioned, you can retarget the animations, that’s why they just sell animations without a special mesh. Here are some useful links:
https://docs.unrealengine/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/RetargetingDifferentSkeletons/index.html
https://docs.unrealengine/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/AnimationRetargeting/index.html :slight_smile:

If I get it right, I’m supposed to work with the default character in order to be able to add bought animations later on, while I can’t say the same for models.
I’m supposed to check in the marketplace description for “compatible” models? Cause I would like to buy both, I need some models from 1 package and animations from another one

Yep that’s the safest way -> most animation packs that are using the default 3rd person character on their pictures are compatible with the default skeleton :slight_smile:

I see, thanks a lot