Why do I have to choose Rig/Animation type in Unity?

Unity Engine
1

When I import an animation of a character that I’ve done in Maya, why do I have to choose animation type (generic, humanoid etc) under the rig tab in order for my animations to even be visible unity?

I mean the rig (skeleton) is already made in Maya and the animations are baked. Shouldn’t all that information already be present in the .FBX file?

Some clarification here would be much appreciated.

2

It’s covered in docs and learning materials but:

  • generic is for any kind of rig like from maya or whatever

  • humanoid is a variant of that which allows animations to be transferred easier and makes IK easier. I don’t use it because I made generic do the same thing

You can just import it and ignore all that and it’ll just automatically work by default. So what is your issue with the system, if any?

3

I am asking because I want to understand better what is happening when I import animations. I understand the difference between generic and humanoid but I am asking why I have to choose one at all. Why does Unity need any information regarding the rig when I have already baked the animations?

4

The humanoid rig would make more features available to you such as looping cleanup in the properties, abiliity to use mocap clips from other sources that are already prepped for such rig since it uses specific bone names, blending tools between compatible animation clips. etc. I’d recommend generic for characters or creatures requiring more bones or unevenly proportional or asymmetrical rigs.

5

Use “humanoid” for human characters, and use the other one when you have a 6 legged spider, a dinosaur, a dog, a bird, etc.
As they pointed out, “humanoid” gives more advantages but only work with human characters: For example you can use any animation of a humanoid in any other humanoid. Say you’ve done all the animations for the main character, if other characters are also humanoids (ie have 1 head, 2 legs and 2 arms), you can use the main characters animations with this other character, instead of readoing all for each character. There are other advantages too, like ragdolls.