Animated models: keep a skeleton or bring your own

ContentTool has no general animation retargeter. Choose the route by deciding which skeleton owns the result.

Replace a mesh on the shipped skeleton

A rigged replace[].mesh keeps the target prefab, skeleton, Animator controller and shipped clips. Your GLB supplies geometry, skin weights and bone names.

Before editing, list the target skeleton:

ct_list bones mutoid_assets_all.bundle Geo_Head02_V01

The replacement GLB must satisfy all of these conditions:

• its joint count equals the target's bind-pose count;
• every target bone name appears exactly once and there are no extra or duplicate names;
• joint order may differ because binding is by name;
• vertex count and skin data cover the replacement geometry;
• the mesh is already posed on the shipped skeleton.

A bind pose is the skeleton's reference transform set that attaches mesh vertices to bones before animation. ContentTool reads the GLB inverse bind matrices but deliberately uses the shipped bind poses. It reduces four glTF influences to the two strongest per vertex and renormalizes them. Inspect joints that depended on the discarded weights.

This complete manifest uses the strict rigged replacement path:

{
  "id": "yourname.riggedhead",
  "bundle": "RiggedHead.bundle",
  "replace": [
    {
      "bundle": "mutoid_assets_all.bundle",
      "asset": "Geo_Head02_V01",
      "mesh": "rigged_head"
    }
  ]
}

Put rigged_head.glb under Content\Meshes, then run:

ct_project RiggedHead
ct_route7 apply RiggedHead

Missing, added or duplicate bones are named in the refusal. Do not “fix” one by renaming the target in the manifest; the mismatch is inside the GLB armature.

An OBJ, or a GLB without a compatible skin, uses the geometry/nearest-bone fallback. That is useful for a rigid accessory. It is not a way to make an unrelated humanoid deform correctly.

Bring the model's own skeleton and clips

The creature route ships the complete rig below Content\Models. Bone names, order and count are free because nothing is retargeted. The model must contain:

• a skeleton with a single rig root;
• a skinned mesh below that root, which ContentTool imports as a SkinnedMeshRenderer;
• the source clips you will map to ContentTool roles.

glTF has no Unity Animator component. ContentTool creates one on the generated rig-root GameObject, installs the donor's runtimeAnimatorController there, and substitutes your clips into its available slots. The donor state machine remains the behavior ceiling. Read the clone model and the animation contract before choosing art.

Start with a minimal complete manifest:

{
  "id": "yourname.creature",
  "bundle": "Creature.bundle",
  "scale": 1.0,
  "play": "Idle",
  "loop": "Idle, Walk",
  "creature": {
    "clips": {
      "Walk": "walk",
      "Idle": "idle",
      "Attack": "attack",
      "Death": "death"
    },
    "events": {
      "attack": "ActionDo 0.30, ShootShot 0.55, ActionEnd 0.85",
      "death": "Ragdoll 0.90"
    },
    "name": "Creature",
    "model": "creature",
    "donor": "Swarmer_TacCharacterDef",
    "up": "0,1,0",
    "lift": 0,
    "health": 40,
    "speed": 16,
    "climbPitch": 0
  }
}

The normal workflow begins with an empty creature object and lets ct_project write the actual clip names. The explicit list above illustrates the final shape; never rename source clips merely to match it. Continue with A new creature.

What name matching does and does not mean

For a shipped-skeleton mesh replacement, bone names are a strict structural contract and clip names are irrelevant because shipped clips continue playing. For a creature with its own skeleton, bone names are free and clip names are arbitrary, but every useful clip must be mapped to a role.

Matching a downloaded clip name to a Phoenix Point clip name does not connect it to a state. The game substitutes clip objects into slots and selects states with parameters. ContentTool refuses to guess a role because a walk and a death are indistinguishable as raw animation data.