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FBX Animation Importer

The FBX Animation Importer bakes animation from an FBX onto your BroRig controls. It is not a mocap retargeting tool, it's designed to import animations from FBX files that contain the same skeleton and character.

Important: - This is not a retargeting tool. Use BroMocap if you need to retarget animation from a different skeleton\character. - The FBX must use the same joint names and structure as your rig skeleton.

When to use

This can be useful when working with a project that has existing FBX rig and animation files, but has no Maya rig source files - whether because it was lost or if another software was used for rigging. Or if you want to migrate it to BroRig from other rigging system.

BroRig allows you to easily and quickly generate a control rig for the existing character and then import it's animations for editing.

Steps

  1. Ensure:
  2. Your BroRig is built.
  3. Your rig controls have .controlled_joints attributes (they are created automatically by BroRig).
  4. Go to Rigging Tools → BroRig → BroRig FBX Animation Importer (or use the shelf button if available).
  5. Select the FBX file with the animation.
  6. The tool will:
  7. Import the FBX into a temporary namespace.
  8. Match imported joints to your rig’s joints.
  9. Snap and key each control frame-by-frame to the imported motion.

After import: - Your controls will have keys matching the FBX animation. - The imported namespace can be deleted if no longer needed.

Notes

  • If the FBX uses different joint names, the tool may fail to map some joints.
  • For different skeletons, use a dedicated retargeting solution.