Rig tab

The settings on the Rig tab define how Unity maps the deformers to the MeshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info
See in Glossary in the imported Model so that you can animate it. For Humanoid characters, this means assigning or creating an Avatar. For non-Humanoid (Generic) characters, this means identifying a Root bone in the skeleton.

By default, when you select a Model in the ProjectIn Unity, you use a Project to design and develop a game. A Project stores all of the files that are related to a game, such as the Asset and Scene files. More info
See in Glossary view, Unity determines which Animation Type best matches the selected Model and displays it in the Rig tab. If Unity has never imported the file, the Animation Type is set to None:

Property:		Function:
Animation Type		Specfiy the type of animation.
	None	No animation present
	Legacy	Use the Legacy Animation System. Import and use animations as with Unity version 3.x and earlier.
	Generic	Use the Generic Animation System if your rig is non-humanoid (quadruped or any entity to be animated). Unity picks a root node but you can identify another bone to use as the Root nodeA transform in an animation hierarchy that allows Unity to establish consistency between Animation clips for a generic model. It also enables Unity to properly blend between Animations that have not been authored “in place” (that is, where the whole Model moves its world position while animating). More info See in Glossary instead.
	Humanoid	Use the Humanoid Animation System if your rig is humanoid (it has two legs, two arms and a head). Unity usually detects the skeleton and maps it to the Avatar correctly. In some cases, you may need to set a change the Avatar Definition and Configure the mapping manually.

Generic animation types

Generic Animations do not use Avatars like Humanoid animationsAn animation using humanoid skeletons. Humanoid models generally have the same basic structure, representing the major articulate parts of the body, head and limbs. This makes it easy to map animations from one humanoid skeleton to another, allowing retargeting and inverse kinematics. More info
See in Glossary do. Since the skeleton can be arbitrary, you must specify which bone is the Root node. The Root node allows Unity to establish consistency between Animation clipsAnimation data that can be used for animated characters or simple animations. It is a simple “unit” piece of motion, such as (one specific instance of) “Idle”, “Walk” or “Run”. More info
See in Glossary for a generic model, and blend properly between Animations that have not been authored “in place” (that is, where the whole model moves its world position while animating).

Specifying the root node helps Unity determine between movement of the bones relative to each other, and motion of the Root node in the world (controlled from OnAnimatorMove).

Property:		Function:
Avatar Definition		Choose where to get the Avatar definition.
	Create from this model	Create an Avatar based on this model
	Copy from Other Avatar	Point to an Avatar set up on another model.
Root node		Select the bone to use as a root node for this Avatar. Only available if the Avatar Definition is set to Create From This Model.
Source		Copy another Avatar with an identical rig to import its animation clips. Only available if the Avatar Definition is set to Copy from Other Avatar.
Optimize Game Object		Remove and store the GameObject transform hierarchy of the imported character in the Avatar and Animator component. If enabled, the SkinnedMeshRenderers of the character use the Unity animation system’s internal skeleton, which improves the performance of the animated characters. Only available if the Avatar Definition is set to Create From This Model. Enable this option for the final product. Note: In optimized mode, skinned mesh matrix extraction is also multi-threaded.

Humanoid animation types

With rare exceptions, humanoid models have the same basic structure. This structure represents the major articulated parts of the body: the head and limbs. The first step to using Unity’s Humanoid animation features is to set up and configure an AvatarAn interface for retargeting animation from one rig to another. More info
See in Glossary. Unity uses the Avatar to map the simplified humanoid bone structure to the actual bones present in the Model’s skeleton.

Property:		Function:
Avatar Definition		Choose where to get the Avatar definition.
	Create from this model	Create an Avatar based on this model
	Copy from Other Avatar	Point to an Avatar set up on another model.
Source		Copy another Avatar with an identical rig to import its animation clips. Only available if the Avatar Definition is set to Copy from Other Avatar.
Configure…		Open the Avatar configuration. Only available if the Avatar Definition is set to Create From This Model.
Optimize Game Object		Remove and store the GameObject transform hierarchy of the imported character in the Avatar and Animator component. If enabled, the SkinnedMeshRenderers of the character use the Unity animation system’s internal skeleton, which improves the performance of the animated characters. Only available if the Avatar Definition is set to Create From This Model. Enable this option for the final product. Note: In optimized mode, skinned mesh matrix extraction is also multi-threaded.

Legacy animation types

Property:		Function:
Generation		Select the animation import method.
	Don’t Import	Do not import animation
	Store in Original Roots (Deprecated)	Deprecated. Do not use.
	Store in Nodes (Deprecated)	Deprecated. Do not use.
	Store in Root (Deprecated)	Deprecated. Do not use.
	Store in Root (New)	Import the animation and store it in the Model’s root node. This is the default setting.

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• 2018–04–25 Page amended with limited editorial review

• 2017–12–05 Page amended with limited editorial review

• MaterialsAn asset that defines how a surface should be rendered, by including references to the Textures it uses, tiling information, Color tints and more. The available options for a Material depend on which Shader the Material is using. More info
  See in Glossary tab added in 2017.2 NewIn20172