Make Your Existing Animations Work for Every Character
You've invested in quality motion capture. Now multiply that investment by adapting those animations to work perfectly across all your character types, sizes, and styles.
Back to HomeWhat Animation Retargeting Brings to Your Project
Imagine having a library of beautiful mocap animations that work seamlessly across your entire character roster. The hero, the villain, the sidekick—each moving with the same quality and personality, perfectly adapted to their unique proportions and style. No compromises, no limitations.
That's what our retargeting service delivers. We take your motion capture data and intelligently adapt it to different character skeletons, preserving what makes each performance special while accommodating the unique characteristics of each character design.
Your Animation Library Will:
Whether you're working with realistic humanoids, stylized arcade characters, or fantastical creatures, retargeting lets you leverage your animation investment across your entire game. One capture session, multiple characters—all moving with the same professional quality.
The result is a consistent level of animation polish across your game, without the need to capture separately for every character type. Your production timeline shortens, your animation budget stretches further, and every character in your game benefits from professional-quality movement.
The Character Variety Challenge
You've captured great animations for one character, but now you're facing a practical problem. Your game has multiple character types—different sizes, different proportions, maybe even different styles. Using the same skeleton for everyone isn't realistic, but creating separate captures for each character feels inefficient and expensive.
Maybe you've tried manually adapting animations to different characters, only to find it's almost as time-consuming as creating new animations from scratch. The timing gets off, the poses don't quite work, and maintaining quality across all your characters becomes a full-time job for your animation team.
Or perhaps you've looked into automated retargeting tools, but found they produce results that need extensive cleanup. Feet sliding, unnatural poses, broken contacts with the ground—the output requires so much manual correction that you wonder if it's actually saving time.
The challenge is real: you want animation consistency across your character roster, but you also need each character to move appropriately for their size and design. Finding the balance between efficiency and quality feels like choosing between compromising your vision or exceeding your budget.
Your team is stretched managing all aspects of production. Adding extensive animation rework for multiple characters isn't realistic, but you also know that inconsistent animation quality across characters will be noticeable to players and impact the overall game experience.
Our Intelligent Retargeting Approach
At Motion Lab, we've developed a retargeting pipeline that combines automated efficiency with thoughtful manual refinement. The goal is straightforward: make your animations work beautifully on any character skeleton while maintaining the quality and feel of the original performance.
Our process begins with understanding your character designs and how they differ. We analyze proportions, joint structures, and movement constraints to create retargeting setups that respect each character's unique characteristics. This preparation ensures the automated process has the best foundation to work from.
How We Make It Work:
Character Analysis
We examine your source and target skeletons, identifying proportion differences, joint hierarchies, and potential problem areas before processing begins.
Intelligent Transfer
Our pipeline uses sophisticated algorithms that preserve motion essence while adapting to new proportions, maintaining timing and performance quality.
Quality Refinement
Experienced animators review critical animations, adjusting poses and timing where needed to ensure the retargeted motion works naturally on the new character.
Engine-Ready Delivery
Receive cleaned, tested animations in your required format, ready to drop into Unity, Unreal, or your custom engine without additional processing.
The balance between automation and manual touch is what makes the difference. Automated systems handle the bulk transfer efficiently, but our animators ensure critical details are preserved. Ground contact stays solid, weight distribution remains natural, and the personality of each performance comes through.
We handle complex cases like characters with significantly different proportions or non-standard skeletal structures. Whether you're adapting human mocap to stylized arcade characters or transferring animations between realistic characters of very different sizes, our pipeline accommodates these challenges.
This approach means you get the efficiency of automated retargeting with the quality assurance of professional review. Your animations work correctly across all characters without the extensive manual work that would otherwise be required.
The Retargeting Collaboration Process
Working with us on animation retargeting is designed to be straightforward. You provide the source animations and target character specifications, and we handle the technical complexity of making everything work together smoothly.
The process starts with a technical review. You share your source mocap data, character rigs, and specifications for your target characters. We examine the skeletal differences, discuss any specific concerns or requirements, and outline how the retargeting will proceed.
What You Can Expect:
Once we begin processing, our pipeline handles the initial retargeting pass. This automated phase transfers your animations to the new skeleton structure, adapting for proportion differences while maintaining the core motion characteristics.
After the automated pass, our team reviews the results. We identify any animations that need adjustment—typically this includes contact-heavy animations like walking or combat moves, where ground plane accuracy is important.
For critical animations, we apply manual refinement. This might involve adjusting foot placement to prevent sliding, modifying poses that don't work as well on the new proportions, or fine-tuning timing to maintain the original performance feel.
Throughout the process, we maintain communication about progress and any challenges we encounter. If certain animations present unique difficulties with your character setup, we discuss options and find solutions that work for your project.
You receive test animations early in the process so you can evaluate how the retargeting is working in your actual game environment. This feedback loop ensures the final deliverables integrate smoothly into your project without surprises.
The timeline depends on the scope of your animation library and the complexity of your character differences. A typical project with fifty to one hundred animations can be processed, refined, and delivered within two to three weeks. Larger libraries or particularly complex retargeting scenarios may take longer, but we provide clear timelines upfront.
After delivery, we offer reasonable support for integration issues or minor adjustments. If you discover that certain animations need tweaking once they're in your game, we're available to help refine those details.
The Value of Efficient Animation
Professional animation retargeting represents an investment in production efficiency and consistency. Consider the alternative: manually adapting animations for each character, or capturing separately for every character type. Retargeting delivers quality results while making efficient use of your animation resources.
What's Included in Your Project:
Additional Services:
The economics become particularly compelling when you need animations for multiple characters. Instead of capturing separately for each, you capture once at $8,900 and retarget for $2,800 per additional character. For a game with five character types, that's significant savings compared to five separate capture sessions.
Beyond direct cost savings, consider the time value. Retargeting a complete animation set takes two to three weeks instead of the months that manual recreation would require. Your team can focus on gameplay refinement, visual polish, and other aspects of development rather than being consumed by animation production.
Project Scope Flexibility
Whether you have a small set of hero animations or an extensive library covering all gameplay actions, we can structure the project to fit your needs and budget. Pricing scales with animation count and complexity, not arbitrary session limits.
The animations you receive are production-ready assets that become part of your game's foundation. They can be used across future projects, adapted for sequels, or serve as reference for additional hand-keyed work. The investment continues providing value throughout your development cycle.
Why Professional Retargeting Makes a Difference
Animation retargeting works because it leverages sophisticated algorithms that understand joint relationships and motion characteristics. When proportions change, the system intelligently adapts poses and timing to maintain the natural feel of movement on the new skeleton.
The challenge in retargeting isn't just mathematical transformation—it's preserving the artistic intent of the original performance. A punch should still feel powerful on a different character. A jump should maintain its arc and timing. This is where professional oversight makes the difference between acceptable results and excellent ones.
How Quality Is Maintained:
Foundation Setup
Proper skeletal mapping and proportion analysis creates the foundation. Getting this setup right means the automated process starts with accurate information about how characters differ.
Intelligent Processing
Our retargeting algorithms preserve motion curves and timing relationships. When a character has longer arms, the system adjusts reach while maintaining the speed and arc of the original movement.
Critical Review
Experienced animators identify which animations need manual attention. Ground contact, weight distribution, and timing all receive scrutiny to ensure natural results.
Integration Testing
Before delivery, we test animations in engine to verify they work correctly. This catches potential issues with collision, blending, or gameplay integration.
We've been providing retargeting services since motion capture became common in game development. Over those years, we've encountered virtually every character setup and proportion challenge imaginable. This experience means we can anticipate issues and know how to solve them efficiently.
Extensive retargeting experience across game types
Most animations work well with minimal adjustment
Fast delivery without compromising quality
Our pipeline supports all major game engines and animation formats. Whether you're working in Unity, Unreal, or a custom engine, we deliver animations that integrate smoothly into your existing workflow. Format conversions, naming conventions, and metadata are all handled according to your specifications.
The combination of automated efficiency and professional oversight creates results that work reliably. You receive animations that look natural on your characters, maintain gameplay responsiveness, and integrate smoothly into your project without extensive additional work.
Working Together with Complete Confidence
We want you to feel assured that retargeting is the right choice for your project. That means transparency about what to expect, clear communication throughout the process, and support to ensure the animations work as they should.
Initial Assessment
Before committing, we review your source animations and target characters to identify any potential challenges. You'll know upfront if retargeting will work well for your specific setup.
Test Samples Provided
Early in the project, we deliver sample animations so you can evaluate quality in your game environment. This ensures you're satisfied with the approach before full processing.
Revision Rounds
If animations need adjustment after delivery, we include reasonable revision rounds. Minor tweaks to timing, poses, or technical issues are addressed without additional charges.
Technical Support
Our team helps with integration questions, format issues, or pipeline setup. We're here to ensure the retargeted animations work seamlessly in your production environment.
Quality Commitment
If the retargeted animations don't meet professional quality standards or don't work properly on your characters, we'll refine them until they do—at no additional cost. We've built our reputation on delivering animations that work correctly and look natural.
Many clients work with us repeatedly as their projects expand or new games begin development. We become familiar with your character setups and animation standards, making future retargeting projects even more efficient. You're not just hiring a service—you're building a relationship with a team that understands your animation needs.
Getting Started is Simple
Beginning an animation retargeting project with Motion Lab follows a clear, straightforward path:
Share Your Details
Contact us with information about your source animations and target characters. Even rough details are fine—we can discuss specifics during our initial conversation.
Technical Review
We'll examine your files to understand the scope and identify any technical considerations. You'll receive a clear project plan and timeline based on your specific requirements.
Processing Begins
Once you approve the plan, we begin work. You'll receive sample animations early for feedback, ensuring we're on the right track before completing the full library.
Delivery and Support
Receive your complete retargeted animation library with documentation. We provide integration support to help ensure everything works smoothly in your project.
Questions About Your Specific Setup?
Every character setup is different, and you may have specific technical considerations. Reach out to discuss your particular situation—we're happy to explore whether retargeting is the right approach for your project.
There's no pressure to commit immediately. We're here to answer questions, provide information, and help you make the best decision for your animation pipeline and production timeline.
Multiply Your Animation Investment
Let's discuss how animation retargeting can help you leverage existing mocap across your entire character roster, maintaining quality while improving efficiency.
Discuss Your ProjectOr call us at +1 (818) 573-9264
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