How to Retarget Motion Capture Animations to Rigify Characters in Blender - Rokoko Guide

In this video we take a look at how to retarget your custom Rokoko motion capture to Rigify characters in Blender. Rigify is the native rigging tool from Blender that allows you to rig your meshes on the fly - and it's easy to use our free plugin to retarget any motion capture to those characters.
Rigify Tutorial: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqutZGyQhM2Zh5Y
Book a Live Demo: rokoko.co/3J1gNNS
0:00 - Intro
0:27 - Exporting mocap from Rokoko Studio
1:10 - Set up Blender Project
2:10 - Setting up Rigify Metarig
3:34 - Retargeting Mocap to Rigify Metarig
5:28 - Tweak mocap with Animation Layers
Firmware versions:
Rokoko Studio v1.19
Blender 2.91.2
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[@plyczkowski]

The character is not 'rigged with rigify', the rigify rig is what you get when you click 'Generate Rig'...

[@blenderblender792]

You get a pointless retargeted rig.

[@kat74809]

What if the animation is stored in the rig generated by rigify rather than the metarig? I want to use the rig as a source, but I can't select it. Why is this? The rig can only be selected as a target.

[@nosyb]

Super tools , and free. Thank you Rokoko!

[@GhostUEP]

great stuff

[@themightyflog]

Thank you! It did!

[@jeancampos5831]

Cool! Thanks for it!

[@RokokoMotion]

Happy you liked it!

[@superconceptng]

Thank youuu

[@StrayVertex]

Neat, thx :)

[@ShutterAuthority]

Thanks for the cool tutorial Sam! Have you figured out a way to easily get the rig to work with IK + Mocap data?

[@why7893]

Did you figure it out?

[@dinopuff7354]

ill admit enitially seeing this method i didnt think it would work very well, working with FK joints is never appealing to think about and the method shown looked almost to simple to be true... whelp i will now admit i am completely wrong, working with fk still isnt the best but my word is it simple to set up onto the characters and quickly edit the motion capture data to look more appealing especially when it comes to posing. so thank you for the amazing tutorial i am incredibly impressed with how much rokoko has done with tutorials working with various applications to get high quality motion capture footage with relatively easy setup,

[@conorsvfx]

Great tutorial!! Is there a tutorial to stop feet from sliding? I’ve used radical ai for my mocap but I know rokoko also has this problem sometimes?

[@runningcoyote9972]

what if we need IK controllers for hands and feet ?

[@NickShaheen]

Is there a way to tweak the animation in C4D similar to the "non-linear" animation layer technique?

[@RokokoMotion]

There is, here is the tutorial: kzbin.info/www/bejne/naaQpIywpK1lqrM

[@judithdoppler2202]

Hi, I really would love to use the rokoko plug in with the human generator addon. Whatever I try fails ... any chance for a walk through of that workflow. Whenever I go for it I get an Error with something like this: euler = pbone.matrix_basis.to_euler(obj.rotation_mode, euler_prev) ValueError: Matrix.to_euler(): invalid euler order 'QUATERNION' Unfortunatly I am not in animation at all - so maybe it´s easy to solve. Any advice would be very welcome. All the best.

[@CannyK9]

Hi! I'm very interested in being able to override certain parts of the mocap animation, but having only worked on linear animations by hand so far, I'm not completely clear on the NLA tracks. My issue is that I cannot rotate a bone to keyframe it away on an extra layer as is shown from 5:28 onwards - I'm assuming that's because all the bones have constraints pinning them to the source skeleton. There's a cut in the video at 5:56, after which the Character1_Reference armature has disappeared, presumably along with the constraints, leaving just the base rig and the new animation. I can't figure out what happened in that cut but it seems like it contains a missing step, could you let me know whether that's the case? Cheers!

[@CannyK9]

I believe the issue here was that Blender 2.9 was crashing part-way through the re-targeting, so it was creating constraints but failing to create a new action, then leaving a seemingly valid unbaked set-up. It works well on 2.8!

[@RokokoMotion]

Hey there🙂Glad you've resolved the issues! In case there is anything else you need help with, do not hesitate to contact our Support Team at [e-mail] 🦾

[@castoxmods]

Hello, I cannot create a keyframe on my new layer, any solutions?

[@raymondwood5496]

I thinking to transfer the motion to rigify rig.. i think there should be some methods.. later will try it out

[@3dkarate-virtualdojo280]

Great tutorial! Any way to add the control rig (rig) so its possible to use the controls from that rig?

[@marcoelfilmm]

How do you add the T pose to the rokoko armature? Do you just pose it in blender?

[@havardtveito4070]

Hi! I am working with some animations that was captured with Rokoko and retargeted to the Rigify rig. But is there any tutorials on how to export them to UE5? Because UE5 does not respond well to the Rigify rig as far as I can see...

[@RokokoMotion]

Hey! Thanks for your question. I recommend you check out the Rokoko Guide video through the link here - kzbin.info/www/bejne/amiToWOqe7Frpqs. Hope this helps!

[@MagicSwordFilms]

I've been having an issue where my hands are crossed at the beginning of an animation, and then throughout are pretty far from where the base BVH data is. Anyone have this issue before?

[@jonathanhiggs9677]

You didn't start in Tpose

[@dam55ian]

if ur rigging a character this way with the Rokoko retarget can u export the model and have it work with the smarts uit in lets say unreal?

[@RokokoMotion]

Yes, if you export to an FBX you'll have the rig and the mesh retained and can use it in other contexts like Unreal 😀

[@SuperGari2]

Would Rokoko works with short character(very short legs or arms)?

[@RokokoMotion]

Definitely! You just might get some foot sliding because of the difference in the limb proportions - that can be fixed using animation layers in Blender, though!

[@dragonskunkstudio7582]

I'm confused, why did you hit the generate rig if you're not gonna use it?

[@Simon2d3d]

If you want to do this, go here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fquVo5aflMmJhas

[@dragonskunkstudio7582]

@@Simon2d3d Video = private

[@dominikl3406]

Hi Sam could you show how to retarget the rokoko fbx mocap to a Auto rig pro rigged character?

[@RokokoMotion]

Hey Dominik - It's on the docket!! We know there are a bunch of issues that arise from AutoRigPro's animation rig that gets layered on top, but we think we found a good workaround and will be getting that video out shortly. Thanks!

[@dominikl3406]

@@RokokoMotion Hi Sam thanks for the answer. Keep up your great tutorials :)

[@georgeheinz7074]

SAM and rokoko team great job! Question: I’ve learned a tutorial from Udemy... using blender and mocap... And the professor say: to do this... Use your mocap suit (rokoko, xsens, etc) and then rig it with “auto rig pro”... but I see if I recently I bought the rokoko suit, could be easier to pay a “studio plus plan and face capture software” than others softwares in the marketplace .... anyway, my question is: Do I need Auto rig pro if I decide to pay studio plus ?? Or what is the best workflow you recommend to me once you get a “rokoko suit”. (I don’t wanna pay extra softwares) THANK YOU! I’ll wait your answer Example: Environment: you can use blender and substance painter or do yourself Characters: mixamo, character creator 3d or do yourself Rigging and animation: get a mocap suit (rokoko the best hehe) + this software to rig it and you’ll be perfect Lights, camera and rendering: we recommend cinema tracker or blender. Etc... (It will be so awesome to have an entire workflow to make an animation of 1 minute) Bye Sam 😃

[@georgeheinz7074]

@rokoko SAM please this question 🙋‍♀️ thanks

[@RokokoMotion]

Hey Sole - So if you're already invested in and know Blender, I would definitely recommend staying within Blender to do all your mocap retargeting. The Auto Rig Pro stuff that the professor was talking about was probably in regards to rigging a mesh (giving a character a skeleton, essentially). You can also use Auto Rig Pro to do retargeting, but you definitely don't need to - our plugin, which is free, can do all that retargeting for you using the method shown in the video. We also have a ton of tutorials about retargeting on the channel you can check out. So, for your example - you would download a rigged character from Mixamo, record your mocap using Rokoko, and then retarget your mocap to your rigged character in Blender using the Rokoko Blender Plugin. We've been getting a lot of requests taking people through the entire process from start to finish, so we'll probably put out a tutorial like that soon. TL;DR - no, you don't need Auto Rig Pro to work with our mocap in Blender, just our free plugin. Hope that helps!

[@georgeheinz7074]

@@RokokoMotion you are so kind !! I appreciate your answer. So rokoko plug-in is free. But if I want to use a live system (body or face)... I need to buy both licenses right? Is that makes senses? Well, my question is... when do you recommend buy rokoko studio licenses?? (Faster workflow? Etc) thank you! Rokoko the best

[@RokokoMotion]

@@georgeheinz7074 Hi Sole - there is actually a 30 day free trial for the Pro subscription, which gives you access to the Live Plugins and also includes 30 days of facial mocap. I would do that and then try it out with your workflow to see if it's a good fit! I do think it's nice to be able to record everything to one program (face, body and hands) but you could use other facial mocap software alongside your face and hands mocap, just depends on the specific workflow I think. Hope that helps!!

[@Frigus3D-Art]

But what if you need the animator rig bc you facecapture with blendartrack (android) and that relies on the generated rig?

[@RokokoMotion]

Hello! You can use our plugin to retarget to any humanoid rig, this is just one example where we set up a mesh with a rig first. Just follow the process from 3:34 and forward with your own rig - though do make sure you pick the appropriate bones, might take a bit of guessing if the names are wildly different. You can save the bonemap afterwards and reapply it to other characters using the same rig, however, so it's a one-time process 🤓

[@kat74809]

Did you ever find a solution?

[@Frigus3D-Art]

@@kat74809 yes, simply retarget the animator rig. in the armture tab set the bonelayers (the grey boxes where some have points in it) so you can see the underlying bone skeleton. (not the helperbones) this skeleton are the bones you have to retarget. also you have to turn from ik to fk. hope this will help you

[@kat74809]

​@@Frigus3D-Art I'm trying to use cgtinker's BlendArMocap addon. It must be used with Blender's Human (Metarig) to transfer animation. I followed the instruction: Shift+A->Human (Metarig), In Object Data Property-> Generate Rig. The addon then transfers the animation in the rig generated by rigify rather than the metarig. The metarig is essentially useless and can be deleted. I want to use the rig as a source, but I can't select it. Why is this? The rig can only be selected as a target.

[@insertanynameyouwant5311]

sometimes it works but arms are in the body, how can I fix it?

[@RokokoMotion]

It probably has something to do with the rest pose of the character being an APose - check out this tutorial for more information on that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hoXFqZtnf52kgs0

[@curtiswindover4564]

Sacrifice having a control rig? After retargeting you might have hundreds of tweaks and additions you want to keyframe in. Finessing the fingers for example. Ditching the control rig is going to cost you a lot of time isnt it?

[@andrew_raya]

Someone know how to do it WITH rigify? xD

[@blenderblender792]

NOTE TO SELF IGNORE THIS TUTORIAL IT IS POINTLESS

[@RiggingDojo]

This isn't a correct workflow look @cgdive for proper rigify retargeting. This video should be removed as it is going to just cause every user problems who follows it.

[@mattwhitehead32]

This should be the top comment. "The rig that we're ignoring." It is just downright unprofessional to call this a tutorial for using rigify. People want a rigify tutorial because they *also* want to hand animate additional stuff on top of their mocap (like say, wings, or extra arms or something) or simply just clean up with better controls than you get from adding keys to a single barely functional bone.

[@RokokoMotion]

Thanks for pointing this out! The idea was to show a way to easily associate the bones with the mesh using the plugin, but it is not what the title is implying. I've forwarded your comment to evaluate if we should rename the video and/or make another video that makes proper use of the rig controls. Much appreciated! 👍

[@mattwhitehead32]

@@RokokoMotion Cool beans! So, if you want to do something like this to make a simple deform bone, what I would do is make your own 'metarig' template that's actually just a match to the default mocap bones that people can 1-click add and line up (because this use case is also going to be common- plenty of people just want their mesh humanoid to work with their suit, right). That then avoids the rigify confusion issue entirely. Then also cover rigify separately. It's actually pretty easy to take a look at how rigify outputs templates and you 'borrow' the tools it has to help you get the python you need to make yours and derive whatever else you might want around it to make it work better in your addon.

[@madex3d120]

@@mattwhitehead32 This is exactly what I was thinking, and I'm I'm brand new to character animation. I know that I'm going to need those damn hands to look like they grabbing stuff.

[@RokokoMotion]

Great suggestion! We'll definitely keep this in mind for an updated video 🤓

[@nbamol5453]

im using blender 2.93 when i try to unable the addon i get this error ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'rokoko-studio-live-blender-master.packages.win.lz4._version'