Rigging &
Retargeting Pipeline

The Problem

Animations that don't transfer are worthless

Agronova used characters rigged in Maya that needed to play animations correctly in UE5 — a process that breaks silently and often. Joint orientations, naming conventions, and root bone placement all have to match between the source rig and UE5's retargeting expectations. Every mismatch meant hours of manual correction.

What I Built

Pipeline breakdown

• Standardised rig conventions — established joint naming and orientation rules across all Agronova characters so UE5 retargeting could be applied consistently
• IK Retargeter setup — configured UE5 IK Retargeter to map the Agronova skeleton to UE5 Mannequin, enabling use of Mixamo and Marketplace animations
• Pipeline documentation — wrote an internal guide for the team covering export settings, retargeting steps, and common failure modes
• Timing correction — identified and fixed a frame rate mismatch (24fps Maya vs 30fps UE5) causing subtle animation drift on loops

Reflection

What this taught me

The most important thing I learned was that a pipeline is only as good as its documentation. The technical setup took two days; writing it clearly enough for another team member to repeat it without my help took another day — and was worth every minute.