How do I change or add new animations for my avatar?

[jbaicoianu]

I'd like to customize the animations that are used for my avatar. How do I go about doing that?

[jbaicoianu]

The easiest way to customize your avatar's animations is to use Mixamo.

• Go to https://www.mixamo.com/ and create a free account, or log in with your existing one
• Select one or more animations which you'd like to use with your avatar
  
• For each one, click "download", for Format select "FBX Binary (.fbx)" (the default), and change "Skin" to "Without Skin", then click Download
  
• Once you've got a collection of animations saved, open a new project in Blender, and delete the default cube
• For each animation:
  • Import into Blender with File -> Import -> FBX
    
  • In the Scene Collection outliner, expand the Armature object, then expand the Animation subtree. The animation will have a generic name, like "Armature|mixamo.com|Layer0" - rename it to reflect the name you'll use to refer to this animation in-game
    
• Once all animations have been imported, delete all of the Armature.### objects, leaving only one, named "Armature"
• Select the "Armature" object
• Switch from the 3D Viewport view to the Dope Sheet view (Shift+F12)
  
• Change the Mode dropdown in the top left from "Dope Sheet" to "Action Editor"
  
• Open the "Browse action to be linked" dropdown in the top center of the Dope Sheet toolbar
• Go through each animation in turn, and click the "Push Down" button (to the left of the Browse action dropdown)
  
• Once all animations have been "pushed down", export as GLB using File -> Export -> glTF 2.0 (glb/gltf). Default settings should be fine, but you can also enable Data -> Compression if you're packing a lot of animations into a single pack
  
  
• Upload your newly-created .glb file somewhere, wherever your other HTTPS-hosted assets live
• Add an <AssetObject id="your_animation_pack_name" src="https://your.domain/your_animation_pack.glb"> to your avatar definition file, and add animation_extras="your_animation_pack_name" to the <ghost> tag. You can list any number of animation packs separated by a space, to be used in addition to the defaults. For example:

player.setAvatar(`
<FireBoxRoom>
  <assets>
    <assetobject id="body" src="https://models.readyplayer.me/61443f62dae8ab132c0a62d8.glb" />
    <assetobject id="avatar_animations" src="https://assets.metacade.com/james/readyplayerme/animations.glb" />
    <assetobject id="anim_seated" src="https://your.domain/animation-pack-seated.glb" />
    <assetobject id="anim_sports" src="https://your.domain/animation-pack-sports.glb" />
    <assetobject id="anim_dancing" src="https://your.domain/animation-pack-dancing.glb" />
  </assets>
  <room>
    <ghost body_id="body" bone_head="Head" morphtarget_mouth="mouthOpen" morphtarget_eyes="eyesClosed" animation_extras="anim_seated anim_sports anim_dancing" />
  </room>
</FireBoxRoom>
`)

Note that the following animation names are used for built-in actions:

• idle
• walk
• walk_left
• walk_right
• walk_back
• run
• jump
• fly
• speak
• type
• portal

You can set these default animations by putting them all into the avatar_animations object, or you can spread them out or override them in any of your animation_extras packs.

If you have completely custom animations, for example, from motion capture or AI generation, the process should be very much the same - import into blender, name them appropriately, and then "push back" all of the animations onto the Armature object. Note that the bone names should match the bone names in whichever avatar file you'll be using them - they don't have to follow the same skeletal structure as Mixamo, unless you're trying to mix and match with animations you got from Mixamo or Ready Player Me.