How to Remap Bones in Blender: MoCap Retargeting Tutorial

What Is Bone Remapping in Blender?

Bone remapping is the process of establishing correspondences between the bones of a source skeleton (your QuickMagic mocap data) and a target skeleton (your custom character rig), then transferring animation data across those correspondences.

When you capture motion using QuickMagic AI motion capture, the output uses QuickMagic's internal skeleton structure with its own bone naming conventions. Your target character in Blender — whether it's a MetaHuman, a Mixamo character, or a custom rig — will have different bone names and potentially different hierarchies. Bone remapping bridges this gap.

Without proper bone remapping, you'd see issues like:

• Limbs twisting or stretching unnaturally
• Feet floating above the ground or sinking through it
• Animation data assigned to the wrong body parts
• Character appearing in T-pose despite having motion data

Auto Rig Pro (v3.68+) is the premier Blender add-on for this workflow, providing a dedicated Remap panel that visualizes source-target bone pairs, applies automatic scaling, and handles complex retargeting operations with a single click.

Both source and target files opened in Blender — ready for bone remapping

Prerequisites & What You'll Need

Before starting the bone remapping workflow, make sure you have the following ready:

Software Requirements

• QuickMagic account (free sign-up available) — to generate and download mocap data
• Blender 3.0 or later (Blender 4.0+ recommended for best performance)
• Auto Rig Pro v3.68+ — the paid add-on that provides the Remap panel

Files You'll Need

• A source FBX file — your motion capture animation downloaded from QuickMagic
• A target character rig — the Blender file containing your custom character with its armature (ARPed or manually rigged)

Complete 10-Step Bone Remapping Workflow

Follow these 10 steps in order for a successful bone remapping from QuickMagic to your Blender character. Each step builds on the previous one — skipping steps will result in broken animation.

Step 1: Download Animation Data from QuickMagic

After processing your video in QuickMagic, navigate to the export panel. Select FBX format for Blender compatibility. QuickMagic supports multiple export options including Default, Mixamo, Unreal, VMD, and BIP — for Auto Rig Pro workflows, choose the Default FBX export which provides the cleanest bone hierarchy.

For hand and finger motion: QuickMagic supports full-body capture including finger tracking — make sure to enable finger export if your animation includes hand movements.

QuickMagic export panel — select FBX for Blender compatibility

Step 2: Open Source and Target Files in Blender

Launch Blender and open your target character's .blend file. Then use File → Import → FBX to import the QuickMagic FBX file into the same scene. You should now see two armatures in the viewport:

• The source armature (your QuickMagic mocap skeleton — will be in T-pose or with the recorded motion)
• The target armature (your custom character rig — should be in a rest posture)

Verify that both armatures are visible in the Outliner. If the source FBX imports at a very large or very small scale, don't adjust it manually — Auto Rig Pro's proportional scaling will handle this in Step 5.

Step 3: Open Auto Rig Pro — Remap & Select Source Armature

In Blender's 3D Viewport, press N to open the side panel, then navigate to the Auto Rig Pro tab. Click on Remap to open the bone remapping interface.

In the Remap panel, locate the Source dropdown and select your QuickMagic armature. This tells Auto Rig Pro which skeleton contains the animation data you want to transfer.

Auto Rig Pro Remap panel — select your source armature first

Step 4: Select Target Armature

In the same Remap panel, locate the Target dropdown and select your custom character's armature — the one that will receive the animation.

At this point, Auto Rig Pro will display both armatures in the viewport with color-coded bones, making it easy to visually verify that you've selected the correct skeletons before proceeding.

Select your target character armature — note the color-coded bone display

Step 5: Apply Proportional Auto Scale

This is one of the most important steps in the entire workflow. Click the Auto Scale button in the Remap panel. Auto Rig Pro analyzes both skeletons' proportions and calculates the correct scale factor to match them.

Why Auto Scale Matters

If the source skeleton (QuickMagic) is 1.8m tall and your target character is 1.2m tall, directly copying animation data would result in a comically distorted character — arms stretching to impossible lengths, legs clipping through the floor, and overall unnatural proportions. Auto Scale normalizes the skeletons so that motion transfers at the correct relative proportions for your target character.

Step 6: Build & Verify the Bones List

Click Build Bones List to have Auto Rig Pro automatically pair source and target bones based on naming conventions and spatial relationships. The panel will populate with a table showing each source bone mapped to its corresponding target bone.

Critical Bones to Verify

Before proceeding, manually verify these critical bone pairs — a mismatch here will ruin the entire animation:

• Hips / Pelvis — the root of all body movement; must be paired correctly
• Spine chain (spine_01, spine_02, spine_03) — controls torso rotation and bending
• Upper arms (left_upperarm, right_upperarm) — critical for arm animation
• Forearms (left_forearm, right_forearm) — for wrist positioning
• Upper legs (left_thigh, right_thigh) — for walking and running
• Lower legs (left_calf, right_calf) — foot placement accuracy
• Neck & Head — controls look direction

The bones list — verify every mapping before proceeding

If Auto Rig Pro misses a pairing (e.g., the source has "LeftArm" and your target uses "arm_L"), use the manual mapping function to connect them individually.

Step 7: Set the Root Bone

The root bone is the foundation of your skeleton hierarchy. In the Remap panel, designate the root bone — typically the hips/pelvis bone — to establish the animation hierarchy.

Why the Root Bone Matters

All other bones in the skeleton are children of the root bone. This means their transforms (position, rotation, scale) are calculated relative to the root. If the root bone is set incorrectly, all child bones will inherit the wrong coordinate space, resulting in the entire character sliding, floating, or rotating erratically during animation playback.

Step 8: Redefine Tweaks

Use the Redefine Tweaks tool to adjust individual bone orientations. This step is crucial when source and target bones have different default rotations — for example, if your QuickMagic arm points forward but your target character's arm points downward at rest.

The tweak tool lets you visually align each bone pair, ensuring that when the animation is applied, your character moves correctly in its own coordinate space.

Step 9: Copy Selected Bones Rotation

With all bone pairs verified and tweaked, use the Copy Selected Bones Rotation function. This copies the rotation data from each source bone to its matched target bone, ensuring that the animation curve shapes are preserved during transfer.

How to Fix Pose Offset

If your target character appears in an awkward pose after rotation copy (e.g., arms rotated 90° wrong), you have two options:

1. Go back to Step 8 and use Redefine Tweaks to adjust that specific bone's orientation
2. Apply a rest pose fix — set both armatures to rest pose, then manually rotate the offending target bone to match the source bone's rest orientation

Step 10: Execute Bone Remapping (ReTarget)

This is the final step. Click ReTarget to execute the full bone remapping operation. Auto Rig Pro will transfer all animation keyframes from the source to the target skeleton using the bone mappings you've configured.

Execution complete — your target character now has the mocap animation

Post-Retargeting Verification

After retargeting, immediately verify the result:

• Play the animation — does the character move naturally?
• Check foot placement — are feet planted on the ground properly?
• Verify hand positions — are hands positioned correctly for the action?
• Look for jitter — any bone jittering indicates a mapping issue
• Check extreme poses — scrub to the most extreme frames and verify nothing breaks

QuickMagic Export Formats for Blender Retargeting

QuickMagic offers multiple export formats. Here's how they compare for Blender workflows:

Pro Tips for QuickMagic → Blender Retargeting

Troubleshooting Common Bone Remapping Issues

Issue: Character Slides or Floats After Retargeting

Cause: Root bone not set correctly, or auto-scale factor is wrong.
Fix: Verify the root bone in Step 7. Re-apply Auto Scale in Step 5. Check that both skeletons have a consistent root hierarchy (no extra transform nodes between root and hips).

Issue: Limbs Bend in Wrong Direction

Cause: Bone roll angles don't match between source and target.
Fix: Use Redefine Tweaks (Step 8) to manually adjust bone orientation. For arms, verify that the elbow points in the same direction on both skeletons.

Issue: Animation Is Jittery or Shaky

Cause: Incomplete bone mapping or scale mismatch.
Fix: Go back to Step 6 and verify every bone pair. Missing bones (especially spine chain links) cause interpolation gaps that manifest as jitter.

Issue: Fingers Don't Move

Cause: Finger bones not included in FBX export or not mapped.
Fix: Re-export from QuickMagic with finger tracking enabled. Verify finger bone pairs exist in the bones list.

Issue: Character Appears in T-Pose

Cause: Retargeting didn't execute, or source has no animation.
Fix: Verify the source FBX actually contains animation keyframes. Re-run Step 10 (ReTarget). Check the timeline — animation may start after frame 1.

Frequently Asked Questions

Pre-Retargeting Checklist

Run through this checklist before clicking ReTarget to avoid common issues: