Mixamo Retarget (via Blender MCP)

Retargets skeletal animations between armatures inside Blender, driven entirely through the already-connected Blender MCP. The engine is the retargeting module extracted from Dev-GOM's blender-toolkit (Apache-2.0; attribution below) — the valuable 700 lines, without the plugin's WebSocket server, CLI build, hooks, or second Blender addon.

Status: EXPERIMENTAL — extracted and syntax-checked, not yet fixture-validated. Before first production use, run the fixture at the bottom and record the result.

What it does

• auto_map_bones(source, target) — fuzzy bone matching with a Mixamo alias table (works on mixamorig:-prefixed and bare names).
• get_preset_bone_mapping("mixamo_to_rigify") — known-good preset.
• store_bone_mapping / load_bone_mapping — persist a reviewed map per armature pair (scene-level), so the fuzzy pass runs once and the corrected map is reused.
• retarget_animation(source, target, bone_map, action_name) — bakes the retargeted action onto the target rig.
• import_fbx / import_dae, list_armatures, get_bones, list_animations, play_animation, add_to_nla.

How to run it (through the Blender MCP)

The two modules in scripts/ are plain Blender-Python. Load them once per session by exec-ing them in Blender's interpreter, in dependency order:

1. Read scripts/bone_matching.py and scripts/retargeting.py from this skill.
2. Send each through execute_blender_code (bone_matching first — retargeting imports fuzzy_match_bones from it; when exec'd into the same namespace, replace its from bone_matching import … line with nothing, or exec bone_matching's source first so the names already exist).
3. Then drive the workflow:

# inside execute_blender_code, after both modules are loaded
import_fbx(r"C:\path\to\Walking.fbx")          # brings in the Mixamo armature + action
print(list_armatures())                          # e.g. ['Armature', 'MyDayZRig']
bm = auto_map_bones("Armature", "MyDayZRig")    # fuzzy pass — REVIEW THIS DICT
print(bm)

4. Two-phase discipline (kept from the original design): never retarget straight off the fuzzy map. Print it, review/correct it (the human or a reasoned pass), store_bone_mapping the corrected version, then:

retarget_animation("Armature", "MyDayZRig", bone_map=bm, action_name="Walking_retarget")
play_animation("MyDayZRig", "Walking_retarget")

references/bone-mapping-guide.md (653 lines, from the original project) covers alias logic, naming conventions, and fixing bad matches — read it when the fuzzy map comes back with gaps.

Rest-pose caveat (the classic failure)

Mixamo rigs are T-pose; many targets (including game rigs) are A-pose or custom. A retarget across mismatched rest poses bakes a permanent offset into every frame. Align rest poses first (apply rotation on the Mixamo armature; or pose-match the target's rest to the source) before judging the result. Symptom: arms floating ~45° off on every frame.

DayZ integration note

For LFPG work, the output of a retarget onto the DayZ skeleton is source keyframes, not a game-ready animation: it feeds dayz-animation-pipeline Layer 2 (Blender keyframes → SEAnim → DayZATool → .anm), and the player/creature anim-graph wall still applies (one animation mod per server). Use it to harvest mocap for creatures, poses, and reference motion — not as a shortcut around the pipeline.

Fixture before first real use (AGENTS-R26)

Positive: import any Mixamo FBX, retarget onto a copy of its own armature with the identity map — the result must visually match the original (render 3 frames via blender-visual-review). Negative: retarget with an empty bone map must raise/return an error, not silently produce a frozen action. Record both outcomes; only then drop the EXPERIMENTAL label.

Attribution

Retargeting engine: retargeting.py + bone_matching.py from Dev-GOM/claude-code-marketplace plugins/blender-toolkit, Apache License 2.0. Modified: relative imports flattened, logger replaced with stdlib logging. The original project additionally offers a WebSocket CLI control plane and UI confirmation panel not included here.

Assets

This skill redistributes no Mixamo or Adobe mocap, FBX, or character assets — only the retargeting workflow. Download Mixamo clips yourself; they stay on your machine and are not part of this pack.