We originally released Runtime Retargeting to Roblox back in 2022. At that time, we had updated some, but not all, of the Roblox platform animations to work with the new system (Animations require embedded rig data to retarget, which all new animations, including creator-published clips have included for some time).
We are now finishing that update to our existing Roblox platform animations to fully support retargeting, beginning with default locomotion and style packs, and then moving on to emotes and other Roblox content. We have also tuned the heuristic for when and how retargeting gets applied to minimize or eliminate changes to some avatars (read on for more details). This work allows existing animation content to play on more diverse characters and supports our new Avatar Auto Setup feature so that avatars move great no matter how creatively they are built.
There are a few things to know regarding this rollout:
This update should be seamless and automatic, but it could subtly affect the way animations look on some avatars. In this example below, the newly retargeting avatar on the left is better representing the intent of this clapping emote, which is a clear improvement from the prior behavior.
In the following walk animation, the retargeted avatar on the left has more accurate arm angles relative to the original animation design, so while this is intended and more accurate, it may be unexpected or less desirable if you were used to how it plays without retargeting, on the right.
All Roblox platform and UGC characters will continue to retarget by default.
We will be staging the update of the animation bundles and emotes. We have only updated the default Roblox locomotion animations and the pirate animation style pack at the time of this post. So don’t be alarmed if you don’t see it update on everything right away.
A studio/client restart may be required.
Again, we expect these changes to be subtle and low impact, however please let us know if any serious issues crop up. As a reminder, retargeting can be disabled in the workspace as a stop-gap measure, but if you do this and find it solves your issue, please reach out and let us know so that we can investigate and address it.
Our plan is for retargeting to eventually become automatic and to seamlessly transfer appealing animation onto any avatar asset with further enhanced retargeting features. Because of that, we want to work with the community to address any specific concerns and use cases blocking you from adopting it in your experiences.
This is a nice improvement to animations that look “flimsy” or “weird” sometimes on specific rigs. I’d say this is a pretty welcomed change and I’m all for it. Nice.
This sounds like an awesome compatibility feature! some character animations on certain packages don’t look desirable so this is a good change!
I hope that more Animation oriented updates can be made in the future for instance like “Animation Easing” or “Animation Blending” Which I begged for long time so that 2 or more animations work together
Now that you mention it, animation blending / easing would be a really nice feature instead of it being defaulted to simply linear.
Perhaps replacing the variables of Play and Stop functions of AnimationTracks to include TweenInfo instead? Honestly, that would be a lifesaver for those trying to make their easing unique instead of relying on (really, really undocumented) third-party solutions that don’t entirely have a guarantee of working.
I was thinking moreso how “Intense” one animation is over layed on another so that it effects the character more or less, Same idea Blender has had as a feature for a while.
Yes, I was mainly seeking for the first one. Currently Roblox R6 and R15 animations fully influence the parts of the characters completely. I was looking for if animations can influence the character together based on any sort of value of “influence”
This is noticeable on the older R6 characters, As if you animate the torso, Your idle animation completely has zero influence even if both animations are set to “idle”
I think this blender tutorial shows what I mean regarding Animation blending
Do you have a rough idea for when all the Roblox animation packs will have retargeting support, so I know when to test the behavior & file any relevant bug reports?
We’ve now updated the Default, Rthro and Realistic bundles. We’re going make sure no serious issues crop up with those for another day or so. Please go ahead and let us know if you see any problems with those sets.
After that we intend to do the rest of the locomotion bundles followed by the emotes. However, if problems do arise we might hold off on doing the full update until the bugs can be fixed. So, I can’t give a firm date when all this will be complete but I will post updates here as we go.
Probably not possible, but I kinda wish this could be optional on marketplace animations, because I’m worried this will ruin some of them.
I used to use the “Oldschool Idle” with the “Woman” bundle because it looked closest to how the default idle looked before retargeting, but now the Oldschool animations use retargeting as well. Notice the different arm orientation.
Granted, the slight difference in arm positioning isn’t the end of the world, though I guess it’s just something I’ll have to get used to. To be fair, it used to be a lot worse.
But this is also just one example. There are so many different bodies and animations in the marketplace, that it’d be impossible to test all of them.
Excited to see retargeting come to emotes though, since a lot of the emotes were designed for taller avatars and don’t work that well on some of the classic ones.
Retargeting seems to cause issues when using Humanoid:ApplyDescription() to change your avatar. I haven’t managed to get this to happen reliably with a specific set of steps, but the animation errors only get resolved after resetting your avatar. Turning retargeting off removes the issue.
Before this clip, I was changing stuff like animation packs and body parts before putting my avatar back to its default appearance with ApplyDescription.
@Extuls, this is likely the same issue as reported here. We’ll try to get a fix in for that as soon as we can. In the meantime, disabling retargeting or streaming should work around the issue. Let us know if you have any further problems.
