Using motion capture files is not always easy. In most cases, we can use them directly (after exporting them to an FBX file) for characters using the Generic rig type. But we almost always want to use our motion capture files for humanoid characters. The problem occurs when our motion capture rig is not a standard Unity Humanoid rig (and again, it is almost always the case). We can expect all kinds of errors—bones rotating with an offset, deformations in the mesh, and so on.
This recipe shows how to retarget motion capture files onto a rig suitable for Unity humanoid animations. We are going to use Blender 3D.
To follow this recipe, you will need a humanoid character ready to be rigged to a proper Unity Humanoid rig. We also need a motion capture animation. You can find a huge free-to-use library of motion capture data on the Carnegie Mellon University's website at http://mocap.cs.cmu.edu/. We are going to use the 01_01.bvh...
