Skeleton Inspector & Rig Shortcuts

Skeleton Inspector & Rig Shortcuts

Module: Animation · Category: Rigging · Tool ID: AutoRigRetargetWizard

A three-tab toolkit for working with skeletons and rigging assets. Skeleton Analysis loads any Skeleton, detects its naming convention (UE4 Mannequin / MetaHuman / Mixamo / Daz / Custom), and tags the role of each bone. Rig Shortcuts opens UE’s native factory dialogs for Control Rig BP, IK Rig Definition, and IK Retargeter, plus generates a Levenshtein-based bone-mapping reference you can copy into the IK Retargeter editor manually. Batch Skeleton Reassign duplicates animations and reassigns them to a new skeleton via ReplaceSkeleton() — for identical-hierarchy skeletons only (e.g., UE4 → UE5 Mannequin rebind). For different skeletons, use UE’s IK Retargeter.

⚠️ V1 scope clarification: The tool ID AutoRigRetargetWizard is preserved for Hub registration history. The display name is “Skeleton Inspector & Rig Shortcuts” and reflects what V1 actually does. Programmatic IK Rig population, IK Retargeter mapping configuration, real IK retarget batches, and Control Rig graph generation are planned for V2 — see “When not to use it” below.

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When to use it

• Onboarding to a project — quickly identifying which naming convention a skeleton uses (UE4 / MetaHuman / Mixamo / Daz / Custom)
• Setting up a new IK Retargeter — generate the auto-mapped bone reference, copy into UE’s editor
• Performing a UE4 → UE5 Mannequin rebind (or any same-hierarchy skeleton swap) — Tab 3’s batch reassign is purpose-built for this
• Quickly opening the Control Rig BP / IK Rig / IK Retargeter factory dialogs without hunting through Content Browser menus

When not to use it

• Don’t expect programmatic IK Retargeter setup — V1 generates a reference for manual entry; populating retarget chains via UIKRigController and configuring mappings via UIKRetargetController is V2
• Don’t use Tab 3 for cross-skeleton retargeting — ReplaceSkeleton only works when the bone hierarchies match exactly. For different skeletons, use UE’s IK Retargeter
• Don’t expect Control Rig graph generation — V1 opens the factory dialog; building rig graphs via URigHierarchyController is V2

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Opening the tool

1. Open the EQLabs Hub and search for Skeleton or Rig (or browse to Animation → Rigging)
2. Click the tool card
3. Use the tab bar to pick Skeleton Analysis, Rig Shortcuts, or Batch Skeleton Reassign

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Tab 1 — Skeleton Analysis

Load any Skeleton, detect convention, walk the bone tree.

Interface

Section	What it does
Skeleton picker	Drop a Skeleton asset
Analyze Skeleton button	Walks the bones and tags each with a role
Analysis Results block	Detected convention, bone count, root bone name
Bone tree list	Per-bone row: bone name, depth, detected role (Root / Spine / Head / LeftHand / RightFoot / etc.)

Detected conventions

Convention	Detection signal
UE4 Mannequin	Bone names like pelvis, spine_01, clavicle_l, thigh_l, foot_l
MetaHuman	MetaHuman-specific bone names
Mixamo	mixamorig: prefix
Daz	Daz-specific naming
Custom	Doesn’t match any of the above

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Tab 2 — Rig Shortcuts

Open UE’s factory dialogs and generate a bone-mapping reference.

Interface

Section	What it does
Source Skeleton picker	The skeleton you’re retargeting from
Target Skeleton picker	The skeleton you’re retargeting to
Auto-mapped bone pairs list	Levenshtein-based bone name matching, source → target
Build Control Rig button	Opens UE’s Control Rig Blueprint factory dialog
Create IK Rig button	Opens UE’s IK Rig Definition factory dialog
Create IK Retargeter button	Opens UE’s IK Retargeter factory dialog

Auto-mapping behavior

For each bone on the source skeleton, computes Levenshtein distance against every target skeleton bone. Best match becomes the suggested mapping. This is a reference only — V1 cannot programmatically configure the IK Retargeter editor’s chains, so you copy the mappings into the editor by hand.

Workflow

1. Drop source and target skeletons into the pickers
2. The mapping list auto-populates (read-only reference)
3. Click Create IK Retargeter — UE’s factory dialog opens with sensible defaults
4. In the IK Retargeter editor, manually enter the mapping pairs the tool surfaced

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Tab 3 — Batch Skeleton Reassign

Duplicate AnimSequences and reassign them to a new skeleton.

⚠️ Identical-hierarchy skeletons only. This is ReplaceSkeleton(), not IK retargeting. Safe for UE4 ↔ UE5 Mannequin and similar bone-by-bone identical rebinds. For different skeletons, use UE’s IK Retargeter.

Interface

Field	What it does	Default
Source Skeleton picker	Skeleton the source animations are bound to	(empty)
Target Skeleton picker	Skeleton to rebind to	(empty)
Batch Source Folder	Folder of AnimSequences to process	/Game
Batch Output Folder	Where reassigned copies are written	/Game/Reassigned
Scan Animations button	Walks the source folder, populates the list
Reassign All button	Duplicates each anim and calls ReplaceSkeleton() on the copy
Batch list	Per-clip row: asset name, frames, duration
Summary block	Count and stats of the planned operation

Workflow

1. Drop source + target skeletons into the pickers
2. Set the source folder (and output folder if different from default)
3. Click Scan Animations
4. Review the list — confirm the count matches expectations
5. Click Reassign All

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Settings reference

Skeleton Analysis

Field	Default
Skeleton path	(empty)

Rig Shortcuts

Field	Default
Source / Target Skeleton paths	(empty)

Batch Reassign

Field	Default
Batch Source Folder	/Game
Batch Output Folder	/Game/Reassigned

Settings are persisted to [Project]/Saved/EQLabs/Settings/AutoRigRetargetWizard.json.

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Output

• Skeleton Analysis — read-only display
• Rig Shortcuts — opens UE’s factory dialogs; new assets are created via the dialog (not programmatically by this tool)
• Batch Reassign — duplicates AnimSequences and writes them to the output folder; ReplaceSkeleton() is called on each copy
• No source asset edits — Tab 3 always operates on duplicates; originals are untouched

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Tips & gotchas

• Tab 3’s ReplaceSkeleton is the right choice for UE4 → UE5 rebinds — the bone hierarchies match exactly, so a programmatic rebind is safe and fast
• For different skeletons (e.g., UE4 Mannequin → MetaHuman), use UE’s IK Retargeter instead — the bone hierarchies don’t match, and a ReplaceSkeleton would corrupt the animation
• The bone-mapping reference uses Levenshtein distance — fine for similar conventions, less reliable when source and target use different naming styles entirely. Treat as a starting point, not a finished mapping
• The detected convention is a heuristic — if the tool says “Custom” but you know the skeleton is a modified Mannequin, that’s just because some bones were renamed. Doesn’t break anything; the role tags still work
• V2 will replace this with real programmatic retargeting — until then, the manual-mapping workflow is the supported path

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Related tools

• Control Rig Inspector — analyze Control Rigs that consume this skeleton
• Control Rig Dependency Navigator — deeper rig graph analysis
• Pose Library & Management Toolkit — find PoseAssets compatible with the analyzed skeleton

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