Animation

The tool plays the motion baked into your imported character, and it can also manage a small library of extra animation clips — added from FBX files or USD motion clips — so you can switch between motions on the same character.

Using a clip from a different character?

A motion clip carries the skeleton and proportions of the character it was exported with. Clips made for this same character play back directly. For a clip authored on a differently-proportioned Character Creator character, turn on Retarget Animation — it remaps the motion onto your character, and the facial performance (expressions, visemes, blinks) comes along automatically.

The body and the face are chosen separately, so you can keep one character's body motion while driving the face from a different clip — or freezing it.

Body Animation Source

Where the character's body motion comes from (the skeleton — torso, limbs, head):

Embedded Animation — the motion baked into the character's own FBX.
Animation Database — the active clip from a library of clips you've added.
No Animation — freezes the body in a static pose, held at the timeline's start frame. Use this for stills, look-dev, or any time you want the character motionless without removing its animation.

Facial Animation Source

Where the face comes from — expressions, visemes, blinks, eye gaze, wrinkle response — independent of the body:

Embedded Animation — the facial performance baked into the character's own FBX.
Animation Database — the active database clip's facial performance.
Bypass Animation — freezes the face in its neutral expression while the body keeps moving.

The headline use is Body = Animation Database + Facial = Embedded: borrow a body performance (mocap, a clip from another character) while keeping this character's own facial animation. When the two sources differ, the chosen face is grafted onto the body and Retarget Animations turns on automatically, so the body first conforms to this character's skeleton — otherwise the face would sit on a mismatched skull.

Bypass note

Bypass freezes the facial blendshapes (visemes, expressions, blinks). The head, jaw and eye bones still follow the body clip, so they can still move — it calms the face rather than freezing it outright.

Retarget Animation

A motion clip is normally tied to the proportions of the character it was made for. Retarget Animation lets you drive this character with a database clip authored on a different Character Creator character. Off by default.

Off — leave it off for clips made for this character. They already match its skeleton and proportions, so they play back correctly as-is, at no extra cost.
On — turn it on for a clip from a different character. The body is proportion-matched to the source motion, and the teeth, tongue and eyes are corrected so they stay seated instead of clipping. The facial performance transfers automatically — every Character Creator character shares the same blendshape set.

Which one do you need?

If a database clip makes the character look broken — teeth or eyes clipping through the face, distorted proportions — it almost certainly came from a different character. Turn Retarget Animation on and it snaps into place.

It matters most when Body Animation Source is Animation Database with a clip from another character. It also turns on automatically in two cases: whenever Facial Animation Source differs from Body Animation Source, and whenever a database clip's format (USD/FBX) differs from the Import mode — the two exports bind different rest poses. Retargeting costs some extra cooking, so leave it off for a clip made for this character in the same format.

If this character has rig parts the clip's character doesn't — hair spring bones, accessory rigs — those can't receive motion from the clip. They follow along rigidly instead (hair rides the head with no secondary motion).

Even with automatic retargeting, the result is approximate: proportions may distort if the characters are different enough (eg. a stylized animal getting animation from a humanoid). Keep serious animation authoring in Character Creator/iClone.

Building an animation library

Add extra motion clips — FBX or USD — and switch between them.

Add Animation

Opens a file browser to add a motion clip: an FBX animation export, or a USD motion clip (the Motions folder Character Creator writes beside every USD character export). The first clip you add creates a small animation database — a green container node placed next to the Reallusion Importer. Adding a clip switches the source to Animation Database and makes the new clip active.

USD clips are the light option — instant to load, very little memory, while each FBX clip costs significant RAM. A USD clip binds to the character's USD export, found automatically next to the clip; you're only asked to point at it if none is found.

Both formats mix freely in one database, and either works in either import mode. Driving an FBX-imported character with USD clips is a particularly good combination — you keep the FBX-only features (expression wrinkles, full hair re-dye) while the clips stay featherweight. When a clip's format differs from the Import mode, Retarget Animation turns on automatically.

Select Animation

Choose which clip in your library plays on the character. Switching clips is instant.

Current Animation

A display-only field showing the name of the clip currently playing.

Remove Animation

Removes a clip from the library and frees its memory. Remove the last clip and the source falls back to Embedded FBX Animation.

FBX animation is the biggest driver of memory use in the whole tool, and the cost scales with a clip's length — Houdini holds the expanded character for every frame in the range. Often several gigabytes per clip, more for long, multi-thousand-frame clips. Keep frame ranges to what you actually need, add only the clips you'll use, and use Remove Animation to free clips you're done with (it also clears the scene cache). USD motion clips don't have this problem — as stored clips they stay light regardless of length. See Performance & Caching.

Workflow tips

Prefer USD motion clips when you have them — instant to load, near-zero RAM, and they work on FBX-imported characters too.
Keep your FBX clip library lean. Two or three active clips is comfortable; a dozen will eat your RAM.
Remove an FBX clip once you're done with it rather than leaving it loaded.
If you're only using the character's own baked motion ("Mesh + Motion" FBX export in CC), skip the database entirely — leave the source on Embedded FBX Animation.