Step by Step Guide at the end of the page!

Installation

Retargify is installed like any other plugin. Go to File, Preferences, Addons and click on "Install", select the plugin, and it'll enable automatically.

Toggles

Expanding the Retargify panel, you'll find additional settings. Retargify works as is, but if you are not planning to export to other software, these settings can expand the capabilities of the animation armature and make it easier to animate overall.

Bone Display Type

How bones will be displayed in the Armature Builder, up to preference.

Allow Bone Scaling

Enables bone scaling for animation armatures, as well as bone stretching if the base armature has connected bone chains. Disabled by default as it causes export issues due to how scale inheritance works in game engines and other software.

Animation Armature Driver Control

Allows the animation armature to control the base armature's position, rotation and scale, instead of the other way around.

Disable Problem Autosolving

Functions used before and after generation to automatically solve common Rigify problems. Do not disable unless there are Retargify errors while generating.

Keybinds

You're free to modify them to something that suits you better.

Armature Builder

While selecting an armature, go to the Objects tab in the Properties panel and click "Enter Armature Builder", this will hide the base armature and create a duplicate armature which can be modified as you wish; and will also display many Rigify and Retargify options for you to setup your armature.

The duplicate armature (Called setup armature) will be in the rest position and isn't posable, as it is intended to be used for marking bones for generating the animation armature. You can do any changes to it including adding, moving and removing bones, changing bone parenting, adding constraints, etc. The base armature will remain untouched.

Generate

Generates a Rigify armature from the setup armature, which the base armature will attach to through constraints automatically. If the button is grayed out, make sure at least one bone is marked with a Rigify type.

Delete

Removes both the setup armature and the animation armature if possible, alongside all constraints and additional objects generated by Rigify and Retargify (such as widgets and scripts to make the armature function)

Update

Shown after the animation armature has been generated. Sends you back to the Armature Builder so you can continue editing the setup armature. Any animation data in the animation armature will be safely stored before entering the Armature Builder and will be restored once the animation armature is generated again.

Armature Builder Toggle

Toggles the Armature Builder state, allowing you to toggle between the base and setup armature.

Active Rigify Types

Displays all active Rigify types in the armature by their name and color. You can also select or deselect specific types through this list.

Rig Type

Allows you to mark currently selected bones with a Rigify type through a search menu. There are also a few additional toggles next to it.

Mirror Rigify Properties

Toggles mirroring of both Rigify type and Rigify parameters, so the pair of bones selected (if available) will copy their type and parameters.

Copy Rigify Properties to Selected

Pastes the Rigify data (Type and parameters) of the active bone to all selected bones.

Ignore During Bone Linking

Disables the rig type entry. Avoids constraints from being added to the selected bones during generation, so other constraints handle their movement instead. It is intended for helper bones which aren't manually controlled.

Bone Parameters

Custom Name

Custom name that the current bone will be renamed to in the animation armature. Can be used to allow for pose mirroring if the original naming scheme doesn't allow for it, or to share animations between animation armatures if they share the same names. If mirroring is enabled and a pair is detected, a side differentiator will be added to the current bone and its pair. 

Parent

The parent of the selected bone, can only be edited in Edit Mode.

Connected

If the selected bone is connected to its parent, can only be edited in Edit Mode.

Rigify Parameters

List of Rigify parameters for currently selected bones based on the active bone's Rigify type.

Armature Operators

A set of function that can automate a few processes during setup.

Regenerate Setup Bones

Allows the setup armature to match the bone structure of the base armature if they mismatch during the setup process. Can be utilized for regenerating bones if they were deleted previously, or to revert bone positioning changes. (Bones not part of the original bone structure will remain)

Connect Close Bones

Connects any bones that have their tail in the same position as their child's head.

Validate Collection References

Vanilla Rigify function. Meant to be used when merging 2 different metarigs together.

Rigify Bone Collections

Presets

Collection presets which can be used to save time when working with similar armatures. You can create your own presets and share them with other people. The location of the presets can be found in %APPDATA%/Blender Foundation/Blender/addon_data/retargify_presets. New presets can be added to that folder and used right away.

Bone Layer List

Displays data about the current collection such as the color, row and title they'll have in the animation armature, among other things.

Distribute Bones to Collections

Moves bones marked with certain Rigify types to collections based on the collection's name. Works best with humanoid armatures and the default Rigify preset. This will also move the marked bones' FK and Tweak bones.

Preset Options

Where you can create your own presets, remove any non default preset, or clear all current collections from the setup armature.

Operators/Functions

Connect Chain

Activated with Alt C. Allows you to connect the selected bone to its child in order to create bone chains quickly. If the bone is attaching to the wrong child or you want to override the parenting to another bone, select the desired bone after the current one to force that connection.

Extend Chain

Activated with Alt X. Allows you to extend the current bone's length by dragging with the mouse. Useful in places like the hands where you don't want to connect the bone to any finger bones. Keep in mind it uses the selected bone's parent to extend, so it won't work if the current bone has no parent.

Length Scale

The length of the bone when using Extend Chain.

Lock Tail Axis

Locks the extended bone from moving in the selected axis.

Change Bone Collection

Enabled with Alt M. Displays a list of bone collections in the armature, can be used to assign a collection for the selected bones, including for their FK/tweak variants.

Assign FK and Tweak Layers

Will try to find a fitting collection for FK/Tweak bones that may be generated from the current bone. If no layer is found, they will be added to the same collection as the selected one.

Baking

Once your armature is generated, a new panel dedicated to baking will show up.

Bake to Base Armature

Transfers animation data from the animation armature onto the base armature.

Bake to Animation Armature

Transfers animation data from the base armature onto the animation armature.

Bake Current Action

Bakes the current action from the selected armature.

Bake Selected Tracks

Bakes all selected NLA tracks from the selected armature.

Bake All Unlocked Tracks

Bakes all NLA tracks from the selected armature except for locked tracks, which will be ignored.

Quick Bake and Export 

Available for all 3 types of bake. Bakes and displays the option to save to FBX right away.

Additive Track Baking

Allows NLA Tracks above the selected one to affect the baked result. Useful when working on with additive actions.

Pre 4.0 Elements

Layers

Armature layers for the setup armature are displayed here, changing icons depending on what type of bone is occupying them, if any. There are 3 types of icons that can show up. A big filled in circle for the currently selected bones, a hollow circle for non selected bones, and a small filled in circle for extra bones (FK and Tweak layers).

Rigify Bone Collections

Since Blender Pre 4.0 uses layers, the UI is different. Presets will still work regardless of version.

Step by Step Guide

If you've never worked with Rigify (and by extension, Retargify) before, this quick guide should help you understand how it functions and how you can make the most out of both of them.

I'll use Mixamo's Y Bot model, which you can get in Mixamo's website. To get started, select the character's armature, go to the Objects tab in the Properties panel, and click on "Enter Armature Builder" in the Retargify panel.

Once you click on it, a lot of new parameters will be displayed, but you'll also notice a new armature. This is the setup armature, a duplicate of the current armature which you can extensively modify. There are zero limitations to it, as it's not connected to the base armature, so feel free to add, move and remove bones as you see fit. This armature will be used for generating the animation armature. In this case, We'll remove some bones which do not actually interact with the character.

I've removed the following bones:

• fourth fingers
• head top
• toe end

You may notice the first pelvis bone is now colored, that's because i've added a rig type, or bone type. Rigify works with preset types that create specific animation controllers once the animation armature is generated, there are many to choose from and they all have their own parameters you can modify. It is worth noting that only the first bone of a chain needs to be marked, not the entire bone chain. Additionally, Bone chains need to be connected so Rigify is able to know which bones are part of which bone type when generating the animation armature. 

For the purpose of this guide, we'll keep the bone type parameters default. The most common types begin with "spines" or "limbs", and in this case, the spine has been marked with "spines.basic_spine", now we'll go ahead and mark the rest of the body. If your character has a symmetrical armature, you can enable the bone type mirror (the first icon after the rig type input) to mark both sides at the same time, or select multiple bones at once and mark them.

As you mark more bones, you'll notice the list above the rig type filling up. The list contains all the bone types being used in the setup armature, so if you're looking for bones with a specific type, you can easily find them and select them.

For this character, i've marked:

• Spine as "spines.basic_spine"
• Neck as "spines.super_head"
• Arms as "limbs.arm"
• Legs as "limbs.leg"
• Fingers as "limbs.super_finger"

Rigify requires the armature to have bone collections in order to generate, and thanks to Retargify's bone collection presets, you can easily get a standard list that has all collections needed for a standard humanoid character. By default only the "Rigify Default" preset is available, but you can make your own presets to reuse for the future!

Click on Use Preset to fill the list, and then click on "Distribute Bones to Collections" which will move bones (alongside their variants such as FK/Tweak bones) to their respective collection based on their bone type.

The Mixamo armature has a few gaps between bone chains which can cause problems for Rigify. Thankfully, these gaps can be connected with the "Connect Chain" feature, which you activate with Alt C. Select the beginning of each colored bone, and repeatedly use Alt C to connect bone chains together. In cases like the hand bone where you don't want to connect the hand to the fingers, use Alt X instead to simply extend that bone along its axis. After that, use "Connect Close Bones" in the Armature Operators panel to close any remaining gaps which may not be visible at a glance.

On the left side is the armature with gaps, and to the right would be the armature once all bone chains have been connected.

This same rule applies for disjointed armatures, armatures that don't have any connecting bones since they use a different bone axis system. So make sure to connect the bone chains properly to have an optimal setup armature.

In order for Rigify to properly detect where to bend the arm (Since the Mixamo arms are perfectly aligned on the X axis, it causes problems with IK movement), move the middle of the chain very slightly to the back, creating a slight curvature in the chain. Not all armatures require this step, but Mixamo armatures do.

We're almost done! There is only one more step. Some bone types require additional bones in order for them to work properly. In this case, "limbs.leg" requires a heel bone, so select both toe bones in edit mode, duplicate them and place them appropriately.

Click on Generate at the top of the panel and we're done! You now have a complete Rigify armature which you're able to animate with right away. You can hide bone layers depending on which types of bones you need, and play around with the parameters of each bone.

Not all of Retargify features have been used, but for humanoid armatures, this is generally enough. I'd really encourage you to look at Rigify's documentation in order to know more about each bone type and their properties.

As for baking, create your pose or animation, and after you're done, click on Bake Current Action to transfer the animation data to the base armature. It's that simple! And with the NLA editor, if you have multiple animations, you can select which to bake.

The pose is now in the base armature! And you can now export this to other software!