In Atoms, you can retarget animation sequences from different characters at runtime.
In order for the retargeting to happen correctly you will have to set up a Character asset per Agent Type and set the “Compatible Agent Type” (Atoms Anim Clip User Data) field on each animation sequence you want to reuse.
You can create a new Character asset, by right-clicking on the content browser and then click “Atoms Crowd > Atoms Character“. Alternatively, you can drag and drop a “.atomscharacter“ file on the content browser and the asset will be created and populated automatically.
Once you have created a character asset, you can define the rules for retargeting.
First, you need to provide the name of the “Root Bone” of your skeleton.
After this point, you can add new “Chains”. Each chain has different parameters:
Type: root, spine, clavicle, limb, effector
Subtype: arm, leg, foot, neck, head, thumb, index, etc. (only for limbs and effectors)
Horizontal: horizontal position of the chain, Right, Left or Center
Vertical: vertical position of the chain, Top, Bottom or Center.
Depth: depth position of the chain, Front, Back or Center.
Index: number to distinguish between different chains with the same configuration of the other tags (use 0 as default)
Bones: the joint names belonging to this chain
The “Retarget Base Pose“ contains the data of the retarget pose of your character.
In order not to fill all this data manually, you can create a standard retargeting Unreal setup on your Unreal skeleton, then in the content browser right click on the Character asset, then click on one of the following:
Update from Skeleton
Update Chains Map from Skeleton
Update Retarget Pose from Skeleton
Then select the skeleton and the Character asset settings will be filled for you.
