Generic single animation for multiple meshes

Hi people,

I’m trying to use a single animation (idle, walk…) for many characters that have the same rig - with different prefix names-
(I use Generic animations since Humanoid don’t follow the driven keys)
But it seems that the animation in generic type doesn’t recognize the model’s bones hierarchy unless their name match properly.
According to you, do I have to export all my meshes without any prefix or is this a way to apply my animations to different bones hierarchy?
Thanks!

Okay I’m starting to get nervous with that issue!
Let me explain: I have a bunch of character that share the same rig and who’ve got some driven keys linked to their bones (so as their clothes moves correctly). One single mesh per character with their own skin and own bone hierarchy prefix.
I’m just trying to apply a standard animation like walk or idle to everyone with their driven keys but no success so far, in generic or humanoid mode.
Does Unity allow that? Have you ever been stuck with such an issue?
Thank you!

It will work only if:

  1. both rig names match perfectly, the only GameObject that can have a different name in your hierarchy is the root GameObject of your rig. Animation Curve are binded to properties by transform path.
  2. Your skinned pose is the same for all your character. When you zero all the rotation on the rig all the transform should be in the same position and orientation.

Best regards,

Thanks Mecanim.Dev for that quick response.
Option 2 will fail cause our characters have different skinned meshes.
I’ve tried to export a dez one with tthe same nomenclature (except for the root bone) and I have a starter of something but it has to be refined:
The animation aren’t playing properly.
Any solid worklow to propose for that specific case?
Thanks again,

Hi, one tool in my extension “Skele: Character Animation Tools” can modify the animation curves’ properties, in your case it’s the transform paths need to be fixed

Check the video below to see if it’s what you need.

Hi there,
thank you TMPxyz for that tool, but we can’t afford to plug another layer in our pipeline. I’ll sure remember it for our forthcoming projects!
Actually I’ve resolved my issue, and here’s how I did.
According to Mecanim.Dev’s answer, I’ve changed the whole bone hierarchy (except for the root) of my character to make them match. Before I had something like “char1_Hips”, “char2_Hips”, now I just have “_Hips” for everyone.
The last thing is to export the right nomenclature of your animated skeleton: “_Hips”… and so on.
That way he’ll recognize every bones accordingly.
Thanks again all for your support!

Hello,
Do you know if it’s possible now to import animation that have prefix (i.e for the idle animation the rig is “char1_Hips”) on a character rig that does not have prefix?
I’m trying to plug prefixed animations on my character who’ve lost their prefix, but the driven keys seems to be broken again, even using mask tool.
Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks!

Several methods:
1. modify the bones’ names in character hierarchy to match the animation.
You could do it in the unity, just rename the bone from “hips” to “char1_hips”,
If your animations all use “char1_” as prefix, this would be the fastest solution.

2. Re-export all related animations from DCC tool, removing the prefixs

3. modify the clips, remove the prefixs.

Thanks again TMPxyz for you reply.
My case is quite singular since I have a set of character who share the same rig and some of common animations.
But they all have driven keys to get their clothes move and different skinning.
So their bones hierarchy must not have any prefix so as the driven keys works well with the common animations.
The matter is that now their own specific animations (with prefixed bones hierarchy) do not recognize the driven keys.
According to your answer, I’ll just use the solution 2, renaming the prefix from the source. (btw, what is a DCC tool?)

Digital Content Creation tools. (Max/Maya/Blender/etc.)

Glad to know you’ve solved it.