Mixamo Animation Retargeting 2

UE5 editor plugin for precise and automated retargeting of skeletons, skeletal meshes and animations created with and exported from Mixamo tools (Auto-Rigger, 3D Characters, 3D Animations). Supports Root Motion, Full Body IK.

UE5 Mixamo Animation Retargeting 2 is an editor plugin that helps integrating Mixamo assets (exported from Auto-Rigger, 3D Characters, 3D Animations) into Unreal Engine 5.

With a few clicks, it allows you to use any Mixamo animation with any UE5 character, and use any UE5 animation with any Mixamo character. In addition, it makes possible to use Root Motion animations on Mixamo characters and create Root Motion animations from Mixamo In-Place animations.

Its core feature is a precise analytical method to compute the Retarget Pose needed by Unreal Engine 5 to manage Mixamo assets. The plugin automatically creates all the required assets and configurations needed by the UE5 IK Rig and IK Retargeter systems of Unreal Engine 5 (an engine feature that allows animations to be reused between characters using different Skeleton assets).

The plugin implements several advanced functionalities to obtain the best results in an automated way:

• automatic configuration of all the setups required by the UE5 IK Rig and IK Retargeter systems;
• the Retarget Pose is computed analytically, obtaining an exact and perfect match of the skeletons used by UE5 for the retargeting of the animations;
• a Root Bone is added to the Mixamo skeleton (and to all the related skeletal meshes and animations), allowing the use of Root Motion animations with it;
• convert Mixamo animations to UE5 Root Motion Animations (NOTE: both the normal and in-place Mixamo animations are required, check the documentation).

How to run the tool

To run the tool:

• select a Mixamo skeleton asset and execute the “Retarget Mixamo Skeleton Asset” contextual action.

Then you are ready to retarget all the needed animations (open the created IK Retargeter asset and use the export option on the desired animations).

The plugin creates optimal Retarget Poses for all the Skeletal Meshes sharing the same Skeleton. If you set a specific Target Preview Mesh in the IK Retargeter editor, to obtain the best results ensure to select the corresponding Retarget Pose before retargeting the animations.

Note that some retargeted animation could require some simple manual adjustment inside the Editor. Please check the documentation for details.

The tool also supports batch processing.

Supported skeletons

The plugin supports:

• all the skeletons from Mixamo (including the various LODs and custom characters rigged with the Mixamo Auto-Rigger service);
• the classic UE4 Mannequin skeleton;
• the new UE5 Mannequin skeleton (Manny, Quinn);
• the MetaHuman skeleton.

Technical Details

• Editor plugin.

• No third party code.

• Supports all Mixamo skeletons.

• Supports the classic UE4 Mannequin skeleton.

• Supports the new UE5 Mannequin skeleton.

• Supports the MetaHuman skeleton.

• Automatic setup of Translation Retargeting options.

• Automatic setup of IK Rig assets, including Full Body IK solvers (available also for run-time usage).

• Automatic setup of IK Retarget assets, handling retargeting in both directions (from UE5 characters to Mixamo and vice versa).

• Analytical computation of the exact Retarget Base Pose. Some bones preserve the original component space orientation to account for differences between Mixamo and UE Mannequin reference poses.

• Addition of the Root bone to the Mixamo skeletons to enable support for Root Motion animations.

• End results can be hand-tuned if needed.

• Animation Retargeting is done with the standard editor pipeline, using the IK Retargeter editor.

• Conversion of Mixamo animations to UE5 root motion animations (both “normal” animation and “in-place” animation are needed for the computation).

• To import new animations for an already processed Mixamo character, please read: How to fix the "FBX Import Error" message.

Intended Platforms: Windows, Mac

Platforms Tested: Windows, Mac