Mixamo Control Rig in C4D R21

[@ro-animation]

There is a big lack of tutorials for Cinena 4D on riging and character animation. You have a good start, please do more! Subscribed!

[@WOLF-TECH]

agreed! Good vid Orestis

[@noneprivate5111]

Finally someone doing some character animation. Thank You!!!! for some odd reason character animation is neglected no tutorials people just moving shapes all day ugggh no real animation scenarios Maxon is in desperate need of people like you and they need to speed up there view port for play back.

[@creeper20ps]

What you expect. C4D is targeting motion graphics. While maya is targetting animation.

[@trscheit]

I really need to bookmark this tutorial. I come back to this one every couple of months because it's so well done.

[@DesmondHolt]

The tut hasn't even started at 1min 23 seconds and I've already learned I can delete all the skin tags and import them into the project holding shift instead of ctr+shft+o then navigating to the file. I'm buckled up and ready for the ride!!!!!! Cheers. *** 2seconds later I learned u can merge everything. Sheesh. Bro what's your Paypal or cash app I need to buy you lunch! *** BROOOO YOU DROPPING HEAT RIGHT NOW!! 🤯

[@BlueShroom-is5hc]

I think this is the best tutorial i've ever seen, thank you

[@TheDede508]

This has to be one the best tutorials ever so thorough and well explained and on top if that you showed me some things that I really needed to know that I didnt even know you can do.

[@RmaNYouTube]

I Finally understood what mixamo control rig is.

[@quickspinner]

This tutorial answered so many questions. I have been stuck for weeks.

[@SlobboVideo]

This is a game changer, if only Adobe actually still working on improving mixamo. We need an alternative badly.

[@WOLF-TECH]

It works fine!

[@ro-animation]

I was looking for exactly this all over the internet on new releas. Thanx

[@areavirtual3d]

Found no other video speaking about rigs controls in C4D, like if this was something new available only in R21!

[@pako_201]

Hi, thanks for the amazing tutorial. The merge funktin in r2023 does not work. Do you have a sloution or a tip how does it work? Best regards

[@KrissLafay]

The transfer weight doesnt work sadly. Thanks you for help

[@justalexproject]

Amazing showcase, great tutorial and great explanations 10/10 keep this, I'd love to see more again :)

[@vectorstain]

Now a tutorial on using it with mixing motion clips, using xref, and keyframing the rig. If I have to hit retarget all or transfer weights one more time, I'm gonna cry. A best practices guide would be a gold mine. Good tutorial though, very helpful.

[@ejicon3099]

This was amazing. Well done and thanks for sharing it with us.

[@diyz3n]

greate dear Orestis, I thought it's nothing to be new future but now I realize it's good and so handy, keep it coming

[@rachelbuchen6609]

This is exactly what I needed and saved so much time. Thank you.

[@zeeyannosse]

HELLO ! thank you so much for this tutorial !!! it's been so long I have wanted to be able to do that!!! it's like a dream come true !!! this is marvellous !!! And like other people are writing : please more information sharing on rigging/animation ;))) thanks!!! yann

[@TOMCHANTVFX]

Agreed Best vid out there on mixamo to c4d

[@btangonan]

This is amazing. Thank you for this walkthrough and I'm excited to learn more from you!

[@gordonmiller8723]

Thank you so much for this. I've been working with characters in C4D for nearly 10 years, and it is embarrassing how much I learned from just the first 90 seconds of this video.

[@phat80]

Why did you choose C4D over Maya? It's interestinng for me why most of the animators work in Maya and some of them switch on something else. I thought that Maya is the best animating software.

[@porteauloin]

Question How to export the full animation once we're done ? I imagine we should bake the Controller with the rig somehow. But how ? I would like to bring my character to a new C4D file without rig or anything, like an fbx of alembic

[@Politicalmeme]

i have problem when i controll rig nothing happend

[@ArlindBraka]

Orestis you are the best!

[@Binusriram]

Could you upload the same video with latest version? seems lot of difference with the current one

[@DominicSpall]

When i transfer weights the character doesnt bind to the skeleton. Help pls!!! x

[@schmitzcat]

same problem

[@chillsoft]

@eleetvision THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!

[@alcalartstudio4833]

@@chillsoft did you find a solution?

[@chni6676]

Great feature improvement. Do you mind giving an insight into the New Auto weighting?

[@CHACHILLIE]

Before Adjust And Weight Transfer Make Sure -all joint or null axis are alligned and centered properly. - all joints are named correctly - weight mesh to bind pose (if mesh snaps out of position when setting bind pose, use ‘Current State to Object’, delete old mesh, NOW set bind pose, apply new Skin to Mesh) -if knees bend wrong direction and cannot be corrected by offsetting the knee while Adjusting, fix Leg joint axis in attribute Allign and rebind -if Re target or weight transfer does not have desired results it is most likely a bind or origin issue, make sure to give the namesake the correct Prefix in the Retarget Master

[@antonnovosad7898]

Hey, Orestis! thanks for sharing your worflow! But what if I need to use motion clips and mix different mixamo animations and still want to adjust them on the fly without baking?

[@awayfarer9822]

have you figured out a way to do this?

[@BLOODPANIC]

Can't wait !

[@reggulus652]

Really really good!

[@Terry_Raphala]

This is the Best Tutorial i ever Watched Thanks alot Bro

[@drewnix7201]

At 1:30 when you merged objects, it took me a little while to figure out why it was not working for me. I was in polygon mode and that was why. Thanks for tutorial!

[@xoroc248]

Not working anymore on the 2023 version right ?

[@franklinvanreem]

Great tutorial, looking forward to see more! Thanks!

[@Perry-wy2fc]

I don't have the control menu when I click onto the Root ....how come?

[@arpadt8436]

Did you manage to solve this?

[@DIGITALMEAT]

4:21 - Naruto run :D

[@artkiko4460]

do you know how i can add a T pose and combine the animations using motion clips? there are tutorials on how to combine the animations but they don't mention the Control Rig. i want to export to Marvelous Designer. thanks

[@titaniaeb8722]

Simple, Easy, Clear. thanks!

[@luisozonas]

Hi, great tut! I've followed step by step several times from scratch with an fbx mixamo rig, but there's no way to get the retarget all nor the weight transfer buttons working at all. I'm really stuck on this, and can't figure out what I'm can possibly missing or doing wrong. Even retargeting manually every single element. Thanks!

[@luisozonas]

It does work on the basic Mixamo's bot character, not in another character

[@luisozonas]

solved :) before retarget had to be sure the namespace matches the top hierarchy rig's name

[@DominicSpall]

@@luisozonas Hi, im struggling to re-target weights. Could you elaborate how you solved it

[@luisozonas]

@@DominicSpall Hi, my problem was to put an incorrect name of the rig in the Namespace field. If you see in this tut 2:49, under the Character / COntrols / Retarget Master/ Namespace. The name of MY rig was not "mixamorig" so nothing happens if you transfer the weights if this name does not match exactly the name of the rig. Hope it helps and you already solved this.

[@Politicalmeme]

2:18 how do you open timeline pls say that

[@orestiskon]

Shift + F3, you can see the shortcuts next to the command's name in the menus. In this case it's in the Window menu.

[@orestiskon]

If you don't see them, you need to enable it from the Preferences / Interface

[@Politicalmeme]

@@orestiskon thx only that i wanted

[@effortmax]

Learnt a lot, thank you very much!!

[@infojaviernova]

Cool Orestis :) Thank you from Spain :)

[@markelliot2994]

great! Can i transfer mixamo animation rigging to another t posed character in C4D? ty

[@orestiskon]

Thanks! You should be able to transfer animation for characters with approximately similar proportions using the character definition & motion solver added in R23.

[@markelliot2994]

@@orestiskon Many thanks I will research that method, have a great week!

[@ordosstudio1197]

Folks if you cant auto adjust your rig, select all your bones and set the prefix of the bone name to mixamorig: this allowed me to automatically adjust my mixamo rig to my old rig

[@SagunManandhar]

Thanks!!

[@normalrender]

At 2:50: the moment I hit retarget all, the mixamo rig is shifted down and does not match up with my characters mesh anymore... what could be the reason for this?

[@kamaur01]

Fantastic info. Thank you very much.

[@RupganjistanLtd]

hello i complete your process, but there is a problem. how can i combine another mixamo animation with this character

[@Oldyellowbrick]

Incoming all character animation everydays

[@yuriyb2003]

Thank you man!

[@metafuel]

Excellent thank you.

[@themightyatlas8594]

How do you bake and export the animation afterwards ?

[@orestiskon]

Hi, you can show all the hierarchy in the character object, and then select the bind hierarchy from the bind layer. Then you can bake and export that skeleton alone.

[@sajjadsaleemvfx]

can we export this rig from r21 and import in to r19?

[@peped6607]

i dont get how you select the components like that, i have to select with control to get both legs and then ahve to go back to get arms. Then they wont retarget...

[@irakligariba]

very good. Thank You

[@Skedooosh]

Can you do tutorials on advanced facial rigging?

[@user-wo3ym4bj8e]

1. It would be very nice of your side to show if we have for example some ears (wich are not in mixamo rig) how would you incorporate them with the mixamo animations. 2. Also what if we want to redesign the mesh of the character a bit and still use our tweaked animations on the new mesh too ? 3. finnaly: I met a problem with an exagerated character (smaller legs and arms and bulky fingers) like this: my fingers were not well synced, my knees bending produce some strange behaviour on the skin. How can I readjust some parts of the mixamo rig ? Should I delete some bones from the skin binding, adjust components of mixamo rig and then put them in the skin again ? shouldnt this loose something in the animations ? thank you for this video!

[@mikevandernoordt4507]

Can you bake the adjusted animation bake onto the mixamo skeleton, like in maya?

[@orestiskon]

Yes, you can. You can bake the motion in the bind skeleton of the rig, which has a mixamo structure.

[@antoniopepe]

@@orestiskon I cant find a way. can u explain how.

[@orestiskon]

@@antoniopepe Hi, I'll try to prepare a follow-up video.

[@antoniopepe]

@@orestiskon I managed to get it to work i make editable the "Character" rig with the adjustment. i go to the skeleton "Bind_Hierarchy", select all the child, open the Fcurve and bake all, (bake with no create Copy and bake expression checked ) after delete all the other rig stuff. Use Naming tool to rename all this bone as the original .. i first delete the suffix "_bind" and add the prefix "mixamorig:" last i take out to the root the hierarchy as the orginal . export to Unreal as FBX and Boom ... WORKSSS ! its a pain but works . im curious if u can find a procedural way without the bake and renaming stuff.

[@501bits6]

Thanks, fantastic teacher !! Please a fix mixamo weight tutorial at your teaching style ! For example on small and not so human character.

[@thejetshowlive]

After I click on adjust controllers and I try to drop the mesh into the weight transfer window, the window is grayed out and I cannot drop the mesh to transfer the weights. Any Ideas?

[@orestiskon]

Did you try switching to animate mode first?

[@thejetshowlive]

@@orestiskon I did, I also copied everything to a new document and it worked. Thank you for taking the time to answer, I really appreciate it.

[@orestiskon]

@@thejetshowlive no problem. It might also have been that the scene was using a different take. Sometimes it happens when you import an FBX file.

[@thejetshowlive]

@@orestiskon 200%, as I am not very familar with the Take System, a fellow c4d Artist showed me how to select and copy/cut everything, delete the materials, go to the take system, delete the "MIXAMO Take", then paste everything back into the project! Right as rain! I'm sure you're a busy person, so Thank You again for your reply.

[@orestiskon]

@@thejetshowlive Glad that works out. You can also create a new document out of the Mixamo take from the Take manager's File menu to avoid doing all these manually.

[@Perry-wy2fc]

I'm doing many times the tuto but it seems that there is a problem while transferring the weight. it's like only the hips weight is taken in consideration. and I cancel all the mixamo rig and double click onto the weight, only the hips weight is shown .... very strange

[@orestiskon]

Hey Perry, if you can share a file of a mixamo file that you couldn't transfer, I can take a look. Ideally I'd like to make a follow up video with problem solving.

[@Perry-wy2fc]

hi Orestis, I’m not sure I still have the file because somehow I understood what was the issue. First we can’t use a too old mixamo rig, it has to be from the same generation than the R21. My first one was already 2 years old. Secundo, when it comes to C4D the whole animation is locked. We have to go into the takes and make file, open into a new document. It will unlock the keyframes... and only at this point we are able to use the transfer weight and retarget all ... but I will check if I kept the file before solving the problem ...

[@nickmason8715]

Hi Orestis, firstly thanks for this tutorial, I have found it incredibly useful! In R23 I have been having an issue that I wondered if you knew a solution for? I can use a Mixamo rigged character and additional mocap in the Mixamo skeleton format together with the character definition>solver workflow… but if I then add Mixamo controllers to the rig (which i want for finer control and customisation of the underlying mocap animation like you do in this video), then after I do this step the character definition/solver process no longer works properly. Weirdly the character’s geometry still follows the underlying Mixamo animation, but there is no way to preview it in the viewport and make alterations on top of this, as the character’s mesh remains in the bind pose in the viewport after I click play…the mesh then jumps from the bind pose to whatever pose the character is doing in the mocap animation when I pause the playback on a given frame. Does this make sense? Many thanks in case you are able to help, it’s driving me crazy! Cheers

[@orestiskon]

Hi Nick, it sounds like a priority problem. You could try lowering the priority of the character solver tag and see if that helps. Feel free to join my discord server to provide an example file, I'll try to take a look at it. You can find it here: discord.com/invite/FuznSz5k6H

[@nickmason8715]

Thanks Orestis! That worked perfectly changing the priority, really appreciate it!

[@orestiskon]

Glad it worked out!

[@smyrkphace]

Having a problem where the character rig only controls the left side of the body. Any idea why that might be?

[@orestiskon]

Is it a Mixamo character or a character you've uploaded? If it's the first, maybe the naming conventions don't match what the rig can understand.

[@smyrkphace]

@@orestiskon Its a miaxmo rig. I ended up adjusting it using the c4d layers. (yet another overlooked method and hardly any tutorials on out there) I found the method on a rokoko video. Why dont maxon put some vids out for people lol

[@thefloydian1876]

Thank you very much

[@RANGLEE_9187]

I wanna know how to add another mixamo motion! Please ~~~

[@orestiskon]

Hi there, you can try to use motion clips on your mixamo source for that.

[@phntm_pwr]

This is great, thx Orestis! Quick question: Can you also edit the Mixamo animations on a keyframe level, or are you limited to only offsetting the baked animations that you import? Could I delete a whole middle section from a Mixamo mocap, for example?

[@orestiskon]

Hi, you can change the keyframed animation on the source as you normally would, the control rig is live-retargeted on it.

[@BambangSuhendra]

Thanks for the great tutorial 👍

[@pascalmiller4798]

When I build the character control rig and go to the adjust tab, my controllers don't snap to the right locations like in your video. Am I missing something?

[@pascalmiller4798]

I found the problem, the imported mixamorig had on all the bones a 7 'mixamorig7.hips' for example. I simply selected the entire bone hierarchy, removed the 7 with the naming tool. And now the character object identifies the skeleton :)

[@artkiko4460]

do you know how i can add a T pose and combine the animations using motion clips? there are tutorials on how to combine the animations but they don't mention the Control Rig. i want to export to Marvelous Designer. thanks

[@btangonan]

When I click "adjust" on my rig, all of the control disappear. Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

[@bazibada]

Hello, I can't transfer the weights. The namespace showing mixamorig: is greyed out. When clicking retarget is works, but every joint binding on components and other parameters are greyed out, and I can't drag and drop mesh in transfer weights tab. Why everything is greyed out ? Thanks in advance for your help

[@orestiskon]

If you download native files from Mixamo sometimes they come with Takes and the parameters are locked. You can go to the Take manager and export the take as a new file to resolve this.

[@bazibada]

@@orestiskon Oh thanks a lot, it worked !

[@Perry-wy2fc]

After many trys, I succeeded to get something but I had to re-bind the character by selecting the whole character mixamo rig and the geo. Because once I imported again my character from mixamo the retarget all and transfer weight could not be used .... why ?

[@cyrilldurigon2734]

I have an issue when I click on the bone to reset Bind pose, the button is grey out I cannot click on it to get the T pose of the Avatar. Any idea where is it coming from ? ( I am using R25 )

[@Richard-vm8rl]

Very helpful, thank you!

[@stephanebordonaro]

hello , i would like to know what is the utility of deleting the skins and rebuilt them in one ? does it affect fbx export ? same question with " connect and delete the mesh " ? thx for your work

[@itsdavehimself]

For some reason I can't drag my mesh into the WeightTransfer. Anyone run into this and have a solution?

[@patlin3651]

Hi Orestis and thank you for this helpful workflow tutorial. The animation and the mixamo autorig work exactly as you showed, the issue I have is, that when I manually rotate the hip controller, the feet are glued to the floor (no movement, no rotation) and therefore the feet stretch wierdly. Any help on that? Thx.

[@itsfuturefox]

Thanks a lot for that great tutorial! One quick question - is this method still working in S24? For some reason the Mixamo Rig does not adjust to my character although I did everything you did. I even renamed the joints to just "mixamo:" for some models that had something like "mixamo6:" as a prefix. But that did not help either. I am not sure if this is my fault or maybe just a problem in S24?

[@orestiskon]

Hi, I haven't went through it in S24 yet but in R23 it was working and it shouldn't be much different as far as I know. Check the console for any error messages.

[@LeighWilliamson]

in your tut you mention the "adjust tab" automatically aligns /snaps the mixamo rig to the joints. Mine is not snapping. Is there something I'm missing? Also the "controllers" tab is missing from the Root. So I don't even have the option to press "retarget all". Im using a trial version for S22. Has something changed since your tutorial on R21?

[@arpadt8436]

Same here, did you manage to get this working?

[@oniksbilgisistemleri43]

how to do mixamo combine animation this method? thanks.

[@oniksbilgisistemleri43]

@@saeye thanks bro, i solved

[@sergey041963]

How to reduce the size of all controllers, do I have much more character?

[@mpetamwasa1597]

What about a rip cync there is a change in r21?

[@btangonan]

Are there any advanced tutorials or resources that go beyond this intro? We'd love to animate in Cinema 4D instead of Maya but need instruction.

[@holybomb9245]

Thank you. so helpful tutorial!! but i can't bake the animation after all . how can I export the Character object to FBX? please help me...

[@orestiskon]

Hi there, make sure you display all hierarchy in the Character Object and in the Layers there is a Bind Joints layer. You can easily get the bind joints from there, and export selection to FBX.

[@eftorq]

@@orestiskon Thank you for the hint! Can you elaborate more on how to make it ready for fbx export? I'm using Fuse Characters and I can't get it exported to work with Unreal or Houdini.

[@eftorq]

@Ana Sariol We can't use alembic due to pipeline restrictions. But someone gave a clutch hint on this video! kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZraiX59j55mpaM&lc=UgxfR6d3hIKJokYZx7N4AaABAg.96wiTBImfpq97hLxHkeCjZ

[@OKDK_Studio]

Everytime I transfering the wheights, the character jumps a littlebit back and is not longer similar with the joint skeleton. Strange...

[@orestiskon]

Does it jump with the transfer weights button? Do you transfer while in the Bind Pose? If so, try to set the bind pose again after the transfer and see if that helps.

[@motion.design.school]

hi,i love mixamo but i dont hawe mixammo script,please give me?pplease?

[@davemacomber1035]

Does this methodology work with motion clips, or just keyframed animations? Thanks -- this looks great!

[@orestiskon]

You should be able to use motion clips on the Mixamo fk rig just like normal and use the control rig in it.

[@davemacomber1035]

@@orestiskon Awesome. Thanks!

[@mariotapia6890]

When i reset bind pose my model moves and rotates, any tip to fix this?

[@Nit3T3rror]

Don't know if you fixed this but i'm pretty sure your axis points are backwards.

[@areavirtual3d]

Orestis after importing my knee movement inverted, I see no knee polee, how to fix it?

[@areavirtual3d]

If I hit Z align the leg join it fixed the join movement but the weight get ruin.

[@areavirtual3d]

I found the solution, align the low leg part z axis, and hit set bind pose to reset weight.

[@orestiskon]

Hi, sometimes the mixamo rig comes with inverted knee bend to start with, and that breaks the IK expression. Oftentimes you can fix it in the Adjust mode, by dragging the knee component forward so it bends the right way to start with.

[@areavirtual3d]

@@orestiskon you are right the knee pole was almost inside the mesh, close to the hips, were very hard to see, and the character names for controlers are not very intuitive, solved.

[@nathanlebeau2495]

hello when my man is in T pose and i would change the template of the character, C4D not propose "Maximo control rig" please help me : 2:24

[@kennetherhabor5543]

What version of Cinema 4D are you using? Mixamo control rig is only available from R21.

[@nathanlebeau2495]

@@kennetherhabor5543 R20

[@TunesAndToys]

is there a way to apply a mixamo animation to a control rig already built with facial controls? I want to have a rig with face controls that i can apply mixamo animation to without destroying those controls. thanks.

[@orestiskon]

Hi, there isn't an "automatic" way, you would need to manually retarget the rig using something like constraints.

[@emekaeffi]

Please, we're still waiting for the next tutorial

[@vahidhanid2075]

hi..i have problem with rigging in this tutorial--when i used Ctrl+z in rigging every change missed up and doesnt work at all..can you help me?thanks

[@KenedyTorcatt]

Do you have a link to download the model you are using there? oryou modeled by yourself? thanks for this video!

[@orestiskon]

The model will be available in the R21 content browser.

[@KenedyTorcatt]

@@orestiskon oh, great thanks!

[@otakusyndrome5340]

Is dis feature only for r21

[@orestiskon]

Hi, yes the mixamo template is introduced with R21 but files using it can work with previous versions too.

[@lukehallmedia]

Great tutorial! Like how you mentioned the hips moving down when the foot collides gives the character weight. Was just reading about that in an animation book.

[@lukehallmedia]

okay update: watched the tutorial before trying it myself - not sure that it works as of 2020 :/

[@btangonan]

Thanks for the tutorial! One thing: For some reason, after applying the mixamo rig, the knees on my character bend the wrong way. Is there a way for me to flip it back to normal?

[@salarycat]

That can happen if the mixamo T-Pose has already back-wards bent knees. That doesn't work well with IK. On your rig on the adjustment phase, go to side view, hold "7" to move parent and pull the knees a little bit forward so they bend the right way.

[@btangonan]

@@salarycat Thanks! that worked!

[@avaantgarbdesign8396]

For some reason my rig keeps getting detached from my model. Is there a way to fix this when that happends?

[@justin-wb3xb]

Can I download this character model? Thank you

[@JayIsABoss07501]

i dont know what i did wrong but my rig moves with out the character :( the character is standing there and the rig is walking

[@justin-wb3xb]

Where can I download this character model? Thank you

[@orestiskon]

It will be available in the R21 content browser, and it's also available commercially. I added information about it in the description.

[@justin-wb3xb]

@@orestiskon thy

[@mvinch101]

Do you know how to combine two rigged animation into one, and then export it as a fbx file? Thank you in advance.

[@diegomarinho1322]

automatic adjustment doesnt work? Anyone knows why?