Hi there! are you trying to transfer video animations to your characters? Exciting news for Unreal Engine users! Epic Games just released version 5.4 (still in beta but everyone can access it).

In this latest update, one of the novelties is that you no longer need to retarget for your characters. Before, transferring Plask animations (and other similar programs), retargeting was necessary, meaning adjusting the skeletal structure to match the destination character. Now, the latest Unreal version does this for you. Here's how:

Plask Animation

We extract the animation from a video using Plask, selecting the T-Pose as the initial pose.

We apply it to the Plask mannequin and export it in FBX format.

IN UNREAL 5.4

Import the FBX from Plask with the animation.

Try this with any bipedal character from the Unreal Marketplace. There are lots of characters, some free.

Select the Plask Skeletal Mesh and go to the retarget animation option

And there we indicate the target character we want to use the animation on and export.

This will automatically generate what we used to do manually: Both IK Rigs (the one from Plask and the one from the target character) and the IK Retargeter, which helps us transfer the animation. We open this.

Done! Now we can export the animation onto the desired character. That's all.