---
title: "Character Definition Tag"
url: "https://help.maxon.net/c4d/en-us/Content/html/TCHARACTERDEF.html"
section_path: "Character Menu > Motion Retargeting > Character Definition Tag"
element_id: "TCHARACTERDEF"
command_id: "1054858"
description: "This page covers the Character Definition tag in Cinema 4D. It maps a joint hierarchy to standardized body parts, creating an abstract character …"
---

# Character Definition Tag

> **Note:** **What is it about?**
>
> This page covers the **Character Definition tag** in **Cinema 4D**. It maps a joint hierarchy to standardized body parts, creating an abstract character description that enables motion retargeting between differently built rigs, including mocap data reuse.

A Character Definition is basically the abstract representation of a character hierarchy. It is used to provide a map of your character joints hierarchy that can then be assigned to specific body parts and create correlation between different hierarchies of characters. This map can be drawn once and reused at will on other characters, as long as you follow the same naming convention.

While designed for character animation, you can perfectly make up hierarchies of your own objects and draw a map of what your own hierarchies look like, along with their own naming conventions – the principles stay the same in either case.

A character definition uses two components in its workflow: the **Character Definition** Tag and the **Character Definition Manager**.

The Character Definition tag stores the definition/map of a hierarchy of joints or objects and its reference pose (T-Pose, or rest pose). How this hierarchy is set up is determined via the Character Definition Manager].

To Open the **Character Definition Manager**, you can use the **Open Manager** command in the tag's attributes, or Shift + double-click the tag in the **Object Manager**.