Quick Tip: Transferring Mixamo animation to 3ds Max CAT Rig Tutorial

Hello friends. Mixamo allows animators to add mocap animation to their custom characters. But in the process a lot of functionality, such as facial rigging, can be lost. This video shows you how to transfer the animation from Mixamo to a CAT rigged character in 3dsMax, and allow you to customize the animation without losing the additional properties of the 3dsMax character. Enjoy!
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[@MrDavidBFoster]

Thank You for this Clear and Concise Explanation! Also, Thank You for not blasting yooptie-dooptie music at me at full volume!

[@lukaz2040]

I was using some ancient method I found years ago! Using save and load motion, and it was soooo tedious! This is so much better, thank you so much!

[@AnimazaStudios]

Glad it helped.

[@AliNaserGFX]

very clear tutorial thanks waiting for the next one

[@AnimazaStudios]

Thanks Ali Naser. More videos coming soon.

[@matthiaswegger]

just what i needed. Thank you!

[@AnimazaStudios]

Glad you liked it Matthias. More tutorials on their way.

[@robertnewton9548]

Thanks, that was really well done. Super clear.

[@AnimazaStudios]

Glad it helped!

[@YukaDeath]

This is SO helpful, thank you!!

[@AnimazaStudios]

Glad it helped.

[@Andrea-ey6fu]

Amazing tutorial

[@AnimazaStudios]

Thanks Andrea

[@bafhimself3970]

great job buddy

[@MrFrameFlick]

Awesome!

[@AnimazaStudios]

Thanks!

[@robyganon]

Thank you so much, really

[@AnimazaStudios]

You're welcome!

[@thedesignertoydragon6807]

thank you so much!

[@AnimazaStudios]

Glad you liked it. New tutorial posted today.

[@KarshMedia]

Good video.

[@madman7923]

this was really great thank you so much! are you able to add additional bones to the cat rig for accessories and stuff after exporting the mixamo animation?

[@AnimazaStudios]

Thanks for the comment. You can add additional bones after the process, though for best results I recommend doing that before you send the rig to mixamo.

[@Vlad_-NET]

Export FBX with you skin to Mixamo\Load animations and save to disk animation.fbx\ in 3ds max import animation.fbx and select "'File content'' Update animation and Ok! Bingo!

[@AnimazaStudios]

Excellent workflow.

[@Apixel1704]

Thank you!

[@AnimazaStudios]

You're welcome!

[@ayaz1979]

nice thanks

[@robyganon]

Do you know why when I select a bone target it is in yellow colour and there is no way to select it? Maybe I have to work over a fbx mesh? Because I am trying to select a bone from a re2 mesh file

[@AnimazaStudios]

The process only works with a CAT rig. It will not work using the regular 3ds Max bones.

[@corey6796]

is there a way to do the mapping manually? coz auto map for me throws an error idk how to fix.

[@AnimazaStudios]

Hello. Yes it can be done manually. Instead of clicking Auto Map, you click on the triangle next to CATRig Mapping and all the bones appear. Drag the bones from the Source node into the Capture node section. Be warned that as you move the source nodes to the capture nodes, the CAT Rig will move on top of the source node bone by bone.

[@BARE_TEETH]

It looks like there are keyframes on every frame. Does this cause issues? If you want to edit or work with the animation are people deleting keys in between major poses etc...? a way to fix that? Thanks

[@AnimazaStudios]

The keyframes do not cause any issues. I use the mixamo animation as a base and sometimes delete keyframes to smooth out small parts of the animation. For major changes I create a new adjustment layer in the CAT layer menu.

[@bakenpc]

does this work with bones instead of cat or biped?

[@AnimazaStudios]

I haven't tested it with regular bones. If you can setup the hierarchy properly it might work, though it would be an extremely time consuming process. If possible, I recommend converting your rig to CAT or biped for best results.

[@ROMTHIRTY]

Is there a way to do this on an existing rig that isn’t a CAT rig?

[@AnimazaStudios]

There is a workaround for using biped, but as far as I know 3ds max does not have a direct means to transfer from mixamo to a custom rig.

[@Exsulator2]

Ah great video ty. Also have a question; what if you already have A LOT of animations... and then suddenly... you wanna change the mesh to a new character, with different proportions. The animations are on CAT layers. What would you do in this situation? Still want the same rig functionality, but all the anims already made with the rig is now animated with wrong proportions

[@AnimazaStudios]

Hello. I would flatten the CAT layers then export the entire animation of the first character as an fbx. Then I would re-import it back into 3ds Max, then transfer the animation to the new character using the same process as described in the tutorial.

[@Exsulator2]

@@AnimazaStudios oh sorry I wrote confusingly, but I got DIFFERENT animations, they cannot be flattened, each absolute layer contains a separate game animation. That's kinda... just how it was done around here

[@AnimazaStudios]

Hello. What I would do is go layer by layer. For example, if the character has three layers of animation, delete layers 2 and 3 then export as an fbx. Once done, delete layers 1 and 3 and export layer 2 as fbx. Finally delete layers 1 and 2 and keep layer 3. Export as fbx so at the end of the process you have 3 fbx files with each animation. Then you import each animation and run it through the process described in the tutorial on the new character, creating each layer as you go.

[@Exsulator2]

@@AnimazaStudios Ok thank you for your time! :) I'll try this.

[@realadminplus]

I can't select my pelvis on my actual model that isn't the mesh 3:24 in the vid, any suggestion?

[@AnimazaStudios]

Hello. The pelvis bone might be set to freeze. Right click and unfreeze all to see if it works.

[@realadminplus]

@@AnimazaStudios same issue, im trying to do this for creating animations on GTA V / FiveM

[@AnimazaStudios]

@@realadminplus I have not tested with GTA V, but I believe GTA V uses a different bone structure then 3ds Max. You have to delete the bones from GTA V mesh then re-rig the mesh with the CAT bone structure for best results.

[@robyganon]

I've got the same problem for Re2 skeleton...I see the bones of my model but when I click for targetting it does literally nothing

[@angelarioserassanmartin9855]

When I try to make the Auto Map it told me that it fails, I don't know what to do

[@AnimazaStudios]

Hello. The file might be corrupted. Open new file in 3ds max and create a CAT Base Human. Then import a mixamo character and run the process.

[@angelarioserassanmartin9855]

do i need to make the skin before i upload the mixamo animation? @@AnimazaStudios

[@AnimazaStudios]

No you can do it without the skin.

[@xmrboglikenfs7078]

U have discord

[@AnimazaStudios]

Hello. Not on discord yet.

[@xmrboglikenfs7078]

@@AnimazaStudios or you have fb iwant to ask something only please

[@xmrboglikenfs7078]

@@AnimazaStudios bcouse my character using bip

[@AnimazaStudios]

@@xmrboglikenfs7078 You can email me here: [e-mail].