Kiel Figgins - Animator - Store > Support

Film Broadcast Personal Resources Reel Resume Contact Store

Store > Support > kfMixamoTransfer

Mixamo Transfer for 3dFiggins.com AnimRigs

Mixamo is a free online library of motion capture you can use for your own animations. Here's the process to transfer the mocap clips onto the Mixamo Ready rigs found at 3dFiggins.com/Store. Do note that not all rigs are Mixamo Ready (quadipeds and creatures as Mixamo is a Biped library), and as such are not supported for this process.

Base transfer of a Mixamo Mocap clip to the AnimRig

Purchase the script here:

Map Mixamo Mocap to KFRigs - Buy

1. Log into https://www.mixamo.com/ to download the desired mocap file
         1a. Find an animation you like
         1b. Click the orange 'Download'

         1c. Leave the settings Default, though you can change the Frames per Second to fit your project
                  Format: FBX Binary (.fbx)
                  Skin: With Skin
                  Frames per Second: 30 (or whatever you like)
                  Keyframe Reduction: None

         1d. Click Download

2. Open Maya and open the rig file, in this instance the rig file is Nubian_Rig.ma
Note: If you have a GameReady rig, such as Nubian_Rig_GameReady.ma, you can choose that one as the mapping nulls created will work for either File

3. Source the kfMixamoTransfer.mel script
         4a. Windows > General Editors > Script Editor
         4b. Script Editor > History > Suppress Duplicate Variable Messages (For Maya 2015 onward)
         4c. Script Editor Window > File > Source Script... (select the kfMixamoTransfer.mel file wherever you downloaded it)
         4d. Script Editor Window > In a MEL tab, run the following mel command:

                  kfMixamoTransfer();

         4e. Script Editor Window > MEL Tab > Press enter to run the command and a new UI should open
         4f. You can close the Script Editor at this time

4. Inside the Mixamo Transfer UI > Right click on the button '1. Instructions' and choose 'Create Rig Nulls' from the drop down

5. In the new UI > Select your mixamo fbx clip (or any other mixamo clip, as this step just creates the nulls, you only need to do it once) then click the 'Select .fbx' button

6. The clip will be imported and Maya will run through the timeline a few times. Zoom out and play the timeline to see that the transfer was successful. This isn't the transfer that we want to keep, this step is only to create the mapping template for future uses with this character.

7. Close the Mixamo Transfer UI

8. Close the scene without saving

9. Create a new scene

10. Reference in the AnimRig, in this example Nubian_Rig.ma:
         5a. File > Create Reference > Option Box
         5b. Reference Options Window > Edit > Reset Settings
         5c. Reference Options Window > Namespace Options > Select 'Use selected namespace as parent and add new namespace string:'
         5d. Reference Options Window > Namespace Options > In the Namespace field, type: char
         5e. Reference Options Window > Click 'Reference'

5f. Navigate to the Nubian_Rig.ma file and click 'Reference'

(For more information on referencing check out the steps covered in the Quick Start Guide)

10. Reopen the mixamo ui

11. Select a control on the referenced rig and click the button next to 2 The name of the control, in this instance char:CTRL_Head, should appear in the text field

12. Click the button '3. Define Mixamo clip' and select the desired mixamo fbx file from the new ui. Click 'Select .fbx' button.

13. The path of the clip and the Clip name field should be filled in the ui

14. Click the button '5. Import FBX clip' in the MixamoTransfer UI. The clip should be imported and properly named in your Outliner. However the motion is not attached to the rig.

15. At this stage, you can position the mixamo clip or change the timing to better fit your scene before mapping to the character. You can also adjust your timeline to only the part of the clip you want to map, but in this example we'll use the entire Clip

16. Click the button '8. Set to Clip'. The mixamo hips will be selected and the timeline set to the range of keys on that joint

17. Click the button '9. Map Clip to Rig'. The timeline will run through a few times, but the end result should have the motion transferred to the rig.

18. From here, you can clean up your motion, map the IK or FK as desired, and so on. You can also delete the Mixamo Mocap group in the outliner if you no longer want it in your scene. Also, now that the Transfer Nulls have been created for this character, you can simply map future mixamo clips to the rig, as the Transfer Nulls only have to be created once.