animation/README.md

animation

Jeremy's animation-pipeline hub AND the Mac↔PC bridge for converting files and implementing animations. iClone 8 + Video Mocap live on the PC; Blender 5, the retarget tools, and the ariki-game repo live on both. This repo carries the skills, tools, and the files in flight between machines.

Bridge workflow (Mac↔PC)

1. PC: export FBX from iClone (Blender preset, Range=All, Preserve Bone Names ON) → drop into exchange/incoming-fbx/ → commit + tinqs push.

2. Either machine: tinqs pull, run the retargeter →

   blender --background --python tools/cc_retarget.py -- \
     --src exchange/incoming-fbx/<take>.fbx \
     --out exchange/converted-glb/<pack>.glb --name <ClipName> \
     --target <path-to-ariki Superhero_Male_FullBody.gltf>
   

   → commit the GLB + tinqs push.

3. Implementing machine: copy the GLB into ariki-game assets/quaternius/dancegen/ (auto-discovered by ClipCatalog as <pack>/<ClipName>), add a dance JSON, verify in the dance test bed.

4. Optional: reference footage for QA goes in exchange/reference-video/.

Large binaries (.fbx, .glb, .mp4, .task) ride Git LFS — see .gitattributes. Clean out exchange/ folders once a take has shipped into the game repo.

Layout

• .claude/skills/ — Claude Code skills (auto-discovered when running Claude here)
  • animation-creation/ — creating clips on the shared Quaternius skeleton: existing packs, Mixamo/Kevin retargeting, composite baking, dance JSON (paths reference the ariki-game repo)
  • iclone-video-mocap/ — iClone 8 + Video Mocap plugin advisory: filming rules, workflow, cleanup, FBX export, game integration
  • pose-estimation/ — MediaPipe video→pose-landmark extraction (scripts/extract_pose.py, compare_poses.py; models in models/, venv rebuilt via scripts/setup.sh)
  • retarget-animations/ — deprecated early retarget notes (kept for history)
• tools/ — Blender-headless retargeters (all bake onto the Quaternius rig and export mesh-stripped GLB, one NLA track per clip)
  • cc_retarget.py — Reallusion CC/iClone CC_Base_* FBX (60fps; TempMotion guard)
  • mixamo_retarget.py — Mixamo FBX (prefix auto-detect)
  • kevin_retarget.py — Kevin Iglesias Unity FBX (B-* rig; hardcoded target path — non-portable)
  • mocap_retarget.py — MediaPipe pose JSON → GLB (rotation solving, no source armature)
  • bake_run_punch.mjs — composite upper/lower clip baking reference
• plans/ — pipeline design docs (animation generation pipeline, skills adoption)

Canonical target rig

All retargeters default to ariki-game's assets/quaternius/base-characters/.../Godot - UE/Superhero_Male_FullBody.gltf via a repo-relative path — when running from this repo, pass --target with an explicit path to that GLTF (or a local copy). Output GLBs are consumed by ariki-game's ClipCatalog from assets/quaternius/{kevin,mixamo,dancegen}/ as <pack>/<ClipName>.

Provenance

Copied (not yet removed) from ariki-game tools/ + .claude/skills/ + .agents/plans/, and ~/.claude/skills/pose-estimation. The ariki-game originals are still in place; the Windows-side iClone FBX conversion handoff (ariki-game/.agents/handoff/iclone-fbx-conversion.md) depends on them.