Overview

The Threepeat Animation Importer provides completely automated Unity import and configuration of humanoid animations from external sources. These external sources include the Unreal Marketplace, Reallusion's ActorCore, Motek's StockMoves, Ramsterz store, Mixamo, etc.

Important

Please read this page prior to purchase/use!

Important

This asset is being offered in EARLY ACCESS: This offering is to gain access to the in-progress product once it has reached minimum viability and before it is feature complete. Early Access users may offer feedback and request features to more formatively shape the roadmap of the asset before its release on the Unity Asset Store (UAS). Purchasers of the Early Access version will receive all updates leading up to and after this asset releases on UAS. Updates will be provided here before they're published to the UAS.

NOTE: The product will be released on the Unity Asset Store for a lower price, as the premium paid here is for earlier access to the alpha version of the asset and all updates as it progresses to the first production version.

Included Features:

Early Access v0.1:

• Persistent configuration through config scriptable object and associated Editor Window (Tools -> Threepeat -> Animation Importer)

• Right-click menus for Full-detection automated Import and Quick Automatic Import

• Automatic configuration of the following:

  • Removal of T-Pose animations (based on configuration preference)

  • Renaming animations to match the model prefab name (as Unreal and ActorCore animations come in with "Unreal Take" and "Take 001" as animation names)

  • Automatic setting of Y- and Y-rotation root motion reference

  • Automatic animation loop detection

  • Automatic animation Y-bake detection (starts and ends at same Y root position with total Y traversal within configured thresholds)

  • Automatic Avatar configuration

  • Automatic Y-rotation bake detection (For animations who start and end at same Y root rotation)

Getting Started

There are three main user interface elements for the animation importer: the Asset Right Click Menu, the Animation Importer Editor Window, and the Avatar Selection Popup.

Asset Right Click Menu

Selecting one or more model prefabs (with animations) in the project window and right clicking will bring up the following menu:

There are two main mechanisms for import: FULL and QUICK. FULL will execute all of the automatic loop, Y-bake, and Y-rotation bake detection on all of the clips. QUICK just sets the avatar and handles animation name setting and other convenience import duties (but is much faster). Each of these methods has two options: "and Create Avatar" and "and Use Other Avatar."

• And Create Avatar: this option will create the avatar from each selected model prefab

• And Use Other Avatar: this option will open the Avatar Selection Popup so you can pick a single avatar to use for all selected animations.

You can also bring up the Animation Importer Editor Window by selecting "Configure Importer Settings" at the bottom of the menu.

Animation Importer Editor Window

The Editor Window allows you to configure the following:

• pre-selection of a persistent Avatar to use for import

• Whether to automatically remove any T-pose-only animations from the model prefab(s)

• Whether to Bake Y when Y motion is within the maximum positive and negative thresholds

• toggle debugMode if you want to fill the console with nerdy things

Avatar Selection Popup

The Avatar Selection Popup will appear when you select any of the "And Use Other Avatar" import options. Clicking outside the window or pressing Esc will cancel the import.

Full Steps for Importing External Animations

Walkthrough videos will be provided on full release, but importing animations is best executed via the below steps:

Unreal Engine

1. Identify which skeleton the animations you're exporting are using (typically it will be either the SK_Mannequin (UE4 Manny Skeleton) or SKM_Manny_Simple/SKM_Quinn_Simple (UE5 Manny Skeleton)). For a given animation sequence, the skeleton can be found by hovering over the animation sequence in the content browser, as shown here (The shown animation uses the UE4 Mannequin, which Animation Importer already has a prebuilt avatar for):

   

2. If you're using the standard UE4 or UE5-simple skeletons, the Animation Importer already has well-configured Avatars for these cases, so you can skip to step 5.

3. If you already have your skeletal mesh in T-pose or an Animation Sequence of that skeleton in T-pose, export it as FBX as shown here( Exporting Mesh from Unreal Engine ). If the skeletal mesh is not in T-pose and/or no Animation Sequence exists of that skeleton in T-pose, one easy way to acquire this is:

   a. export the skeletal mesh to FBX, then use mixamo.com's "Upload Character" to bring that character into Mixamo

   b. search for Tpose in the animation search and select it (your character should now be in Tpose in the viewer)

   c. export that animation clip as an "FBX for Unity" without skin.

4. Import the T-pose FBX into unity (this can be done by dragging the FBX file into the Unity project window). Select the T-pose model prefab, right click and select Threepeat Animation Importer -> QUICK: Auto-Humanoid and Create Avatar

5. Select all the animations you'd like to bring to unity and Bulk export them to FBX with default settings.

6. Import all of the FBX's into unity (this can be done by dragging the FBX files into the Unity project window)

7. Select all of the model prefabs (the FBX files), right click and select Threepeat Animation Importer -> FULL: Auto-Humanoid and Use Other Avatar. When the Avatar Popup appears, select the Avatar you just created in step 4 or the appropriate pre-existing Avatar from the list.

Why don't I just create avatar from each model?

That is inefficient and can lead to a lot of retargeting error as Unity has to attempt to build an avatar off of whichever pose the skeleton happens to be in for each animation, which is a lot less high-confidence than using a single T-posed avatar. Using the single T-posed avatar will ensure consistent retargeting quality across all of your same-rig animations.

Mixamo.com

1. Pick a character to use for your avatar (Ideally one that closely matches your in-unity character, but it doesn't really matter)

2. Export that character in TPose and import it into Unity (see Unreal Engine steps 3b-4 using that character)

3. For each animation you wish to export, select it and click Download and use the following options:

1. Import all of the FBX's into unity (this can be done by dragging the FBX files into the Unity project window)

2. Select all of the model prefabs (the FBX files), right click and select Threepeat Animation Importer -> FULL: Auto-Humanoid and Use Other Avatar. When the Avatar Popup appears, select the Avatar you just created in step 4 or the appropriate pre-existing Avatar from the list.

ActorCore

1. Select the animations you wish to export and click Download

2. You can use any character you wish and follow Unreal Engine steps 3 and 4 to use that Avatar. Animation Importer comes with the Default Male Robot (MaleMotionDummy) with high retargeting quality, which is recommended (and easiest) to use. The following steps assume Male Motion Dummy is being used.

3. In the Download Settings Popup, select Male Robot, Enable Export Motion Only and click Next

1. Another Popup will Appear: Target Application should be Unity and everything else can be left at defaults. Click Download

2. import the downloaded FBX's (which may be in a zip file that will have to be extracted first) into Unity (this can be done by dragging the FBX files into the Unity project window)

3. Select all of the model prefabs (the FBX files), right click and select Threepeat Animation Importer -> FULL: Auto-Humanoid and Use Other Avatar. When the Avatar Popup appears, select ANIM_IMPORTER_ActorCoreMotionDummySkeleton from the list

Specific Tasks

Exporting a Skeletal Mesh from Unreal Engine