Can you use Mixamo characters and Unity animations?

Animation
1

I downloaded two Mixamo characters and tried to add a simple idle animation. My character goes into a fetal pose and sinks to waist through floor (plane).

I tried to search for this, maybe I’m not using proper search criteria. Are you forced to use Mixamo animations for their models? How can I apply Unity animations?

2

Applying an animation from one model to a different model is called “retargeting” the animation. And yes, it is possible, under certain conditions:

  1. The model is a Mecanim humanoid, and identified as such in the import settings.
  2. Ditto for the animation.
  3. The model bones are correctly mapped into the Mecanim humanoid slots.

Actually, I think that’s it. The whole point of the Mecanim humanoid system is to allow retargeting of these animations. (Sometimes you can retarget animations in other cases, for models whose bone structure is essentially the same, but there is no standard for those.)

Check out this article for a good introduction to the topic, straight from the horse’s mouth.

3

Hi joe,

Thanks for the link. There’s a pretty good Unity video on retargeting. I retargeted the Unity Chan with a simple mocap animation and had no problem.

I made two attempts. The first, lowered arms and curled up the legs. I started over from scratch using a different animation and the model goes into fetal pose and falls half way into floor. I think the fetal pose is what mecanim does when it chokes on the supplied data. These are mixamo models. I downloaded without an animation. Are bone names supposed to have generic names? The model has the character name embedded in bone names. Just wondered if there were issues with mixamo models. The selection isn’t huge but they look pretty good (in mixamo), and they are free. What’s not to like. Kind of figured there was a catch in there somewhere.

I’ll try again after reading the link and maybe another look at the video too.

4

Try to set your model and your animation to Humanoid. I’m no animation expert, but I’ve tried this with Raw Mocap Data and a Zombie character from the Asset store and it worked.

5

This was specifically about using Mixamo models. I’ve had success with Ethan, Dude and UnityChan models. When trying on a downloaded Mixamo model, I started having issues.

6

I use several Mixamo characters in my projects. Make sure you download them in the FBX for Unity format