Hello developers,
We are excited to introduce a new property ‘Workspace.Retargeting’ to enable opt-in support for animation retargeting.
With this feature, we aim to reduce the need for adjusting animations to fit different character rigs (currently supporting R15) with the vision that a single animation should by default, work well on characters of various proportions and rest poses.
For this rollout, we are starting small with enabling just a subset of our default animations (walk & run).
Here are some comparisons:
Arm Correction: Shoulder and elbow of any character will have the same animated position as that of the character used to author the animation.
Before (left) vs. After (middle) vs. Original(right):
Side by side comparison of the rig for which the animation was authored on (left) and the rig which the animation is applied to (right):
Leg Correction: Leg direction matches original animation and feet will not slide on the ground for different limb proportions.
Before (left) vs. After (right):
Original walk on the rig for which the animation was authored on:
How to try it out
We are enabling opt-in for default animations walk and run.
The property can be set under: Workspace > Behavior > Retargeting
The options are:
- Default - This will set it to the default state specified by Roblox.
- Disabled - This will disable the feature.
- Enabled - This will enable the feature.
The default will start as ‘Disabled’ for the initial release but will change later on to ‘Enabled’ during the opt-out phase.
Note: Workspace.AnimationWeightedBlendFix being enabled is a prerequisite for this feature.
To verify that the feature is active, you can check the asset ids of the walk and run animation within the animate script which should be (note that this will only happen automatically for the auto-generated animate scripts, otherwise the asset ids will need to be manually applied for the feature to work):
- Walk: 8082693111
- Run: 8082691629
Coming soon:
- Expanding to more catalog animations:
- We will increase the set of enabled animations from our catalog prioritized by popularity.
- Enable retargeting on animations authored by you the developers
Coming later in the year:
- Opt-out phase: Live as of August 23, 2022, see update below
- We plan to switch the ‘Workspace.Retargeting’ from opt-in to opt-out. Right now is a chance for you to enable retargeting and report any issues to us before we make the switch. If you do not want retargeting, it can still be disabled via the property during this phase.
[Update] June 9, 2022
We are happy to announce the beta for saving a rig with animation data.
This will allow the creation of custom retargetable animations for R15. The system will currently support leg retargeting with upper body support on the way. Animations exported with this beta feature now should also be compatible with future retargeting system updates.
To enable the feature, head to File > Beta Features:
[Update] August 23, 2022
Hello developers,
With the beta test for retargetable animations having been out for a while, we are going to move into the opt-out phase of the retargeting rollout .
This means that experiences with the default setting for retargeting will now have it enabled, and players joining those experiences will have lower body retargeting applied to their animations (which should improve the way their movements look).
Please reach out to us if you encounter any issues with your animation (technical or visual) and we will promptly investigate. The feature can still be opted out of by going to:
Workspace > Behavior > Retargeting > Select the ‘Disabled’ setting.
If opting out, we’d appreciate a comment on the thread or a DM to let us know why, or any other feedback that you’d like to share so that we can continue to improve this feature!
Thank you for your continued support!