I’ve encountered a problem I am not sure how to solve. There are a few threads but I haven’t found the exact problem. The setup is this:
We have a project with an animated generic character with anim clips. This character works fine. It has ist avatar definition created for the specific rig. So we’ve set up an animation controller and some logic. Works as well of course.
Now we got a second file with animations. The character rig is the same one as in the first one. So logic tells me that I can simply tell Unity on import to copy the avatar definition from the original file with the first batch of animations.
In the preview it sems to work fine but in the project itself it won’t work any more. The new animation clips can of course be dragged into the mecanim setup but as soon as the logic hits one of the clips from the second FBX (with the avatar definition copied from the original file) the character snaps back to origin and remains still. Or in other words - does not seem to recieve valid animation data. The animation window also shows missing references.
So my question here: Can generic animations even be transferred to an identical rig at all?
Does it have to be one single file with all the animations as clips or a long timeline when working with generic models?
So my question here: Can generic animations even be transferred to an identical rig at all?
yes
Does it have to be one single file with all the animations as clips or a long timeline when working with generic models?
no, many user use one file per animation.
My guess is that both rig have a small difference, probably only one transform that does’nt match.
Some DDC tools like blender do add a root node in some case.
FBX file also add a root node when you import a file without any mesh.
Drag both rig in your scene, and compare them, the topo
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Cool - thanks a lot for the answer.
I will check this when I’m back at the office. 
very late bump
I am still having this problem. Due to time reasons (wouldn’t work last time) we just worked around it but it still annoys me that I can’t seem to get it to work. I even tried to simply duplicate the file in unity and then transfer from one rig to the other. Did not work. All of the files are coming out of Maya derived from the same rig by our animator.
We are developing this project on Unity 5.4.1f1.
This is what I was doing to test it just now:
- Duplicate the character file.
- In the rig settings set Animation Type to ‘Generic’ - Avatar Definition ‘Copy From Other Avatar’ - and into Source I dragged the Avatar from the original file I duplicated from (when expanding the file).
- Hit ‘Apply’
Now when I want to play the Animations in the preview window they all show up in the clips list like in the original file I duplicated from. None of them are actually playing, though.
So I tried to put the model in the Scene and give it the same Animattion Controller Setup as the original Model (Same Anim Controller) with the exception that I am using the Avatar from the original file.
Animations won’t play and this is what the Animation Window shows me:
What am I doing wrong here?
At least the original file should have the exact bone hierarchy as the other one, shouldn’t it?
@Mecanim-Dev
(Edit) Aaaaand it’s 5.4.1 specific. In a 5.5 Empty project it works.
So I guess there won’t be a way to make this happen in 5.4?
(edit2) okay we worked around it again. I’m just glad we probably won’t need that feature in the project more often any more.
You can log a bug and we will investigate.
it should work in 5.4 too as this is a basic feature used by many user
@Mecanim-Dev It works now. I am doing nothing different (created a new project and reproduced the steps above) but now it works. That’s why I am a highly paid professional, I guess. 
Sorry for the stir up.
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