Root Motion Cleaner add-on for Blender

This add-on removes selected X, Y, and Z movement from a root bone so an animation can play in place. It can clean either the currently active Action or every Action in the file.

In Blender, imported Mixamo motion may appear on a root bone such as main, or on the armature object's own location curves. The add-on supports both.

Files

• Add-on: blender_root_motion_cleaner_addon.py
• Panel location: 3D View > Sidebar > Animation > Root Motion Cleaner
• Operator: Clean Root Motion

Basic workflow

1. Install and enable blender_root_motion_cleaner_addon.py.
2. Open the character file that contains the imported Actions.
3. Select the armature, or choose it in the add-on panel.
4. Set Root Bone. For the current Mixamo workflow this is usually main.
5. Choose Active Action or All Actions.
6. Choose which axes to remove: X, Y, Z.
7. Enable Also Clean Object Location if the armature object itself is moving through the scene.
8. Click Clean Root Motion.

Settings

• Armature: the armature whose active Action should be used.
• Root Bone: the bone whose location curves should be flattened.
• Scope: clean only the active Action or all Actions in the file.
• Mode: choose whether to keep the first keyed value or force the value to zero.
• X/Y/Z: axes to flatten.
• Also Clean Object Location: also flatten the armature object's own location curves.

Keep First Frame vs Zero

Keep First Frame is usually safer. It keeps the character's starting offset and removes movement away from that starting point.

Zero forces the selected root motion axes to 0. This is useful when the starting offset itself is unwanted.

Active Action or all Actions

Use Active Action when testing on one animation. Use All Actions after confirming the settings are correct. For a Mixamo batch-import file, All Actions is usually the intended final pass.

When to enable object location cleanup

Some Mixamo imports store forward movement on the armature object, not the root bone. If cleaning the root bone does nothing, enable Also Clean Object Location and run the cleaner again.

In the current Mixamo workflow, the main bone may already be stationary while the object-level location curves carry the walking translation. In that case, object location cleanup is the part that makes the animation stationary.

Export notes

The add-on edits the Action F-curves directly. After cleaning, the animation is ordinary Blender animation data and can be exported through glTF/FBX like any other Action.