Auto-Rig Pro

By

artell

There are currently two versions available for download:

• 3.40 is the latest stable release for Blender 2.79, with all features.
  
• 3.41 is an experimental release for Blender 2.8, it's not production ready! There are missing features, bugs. It's only for testing and experiments, for informed users who want to play with the rigs in the not-finished-yet Blender 2.8. Please read carefully the doc here.
  

What is Auto-Rig Pro?

Auto-Rig Pro is a set of tools to rig characters, retarget animations, and provide Fbx export for Unity and Unreal Engine.

Want to try first? Download Mike, free character rigged with Auto-Rig Pro here.

Rig features demo

Getting Started with Auto-Rig Pro:

Youtube Channel - Documentation - Frequently Asked Questions

Important note about skinning: If possible, use water-tight geometry for best auto-skinning results. Knowing the bases of Blender's skinning tools, weight painting, to fine tweak the bones influences is recommended. For character made of multiple separate parts, it's best to use the Voxel Skinning addon.

Due to recent API changes, Blender 2.79 is required.

If you encounter any bugs please report it, be assured you'll receive support/bugfix quickly. Updates are free and will remain free. Also make sure to read the FAQ and the documentation .

Rig fast with the Smart feature

Position the reference bones so that they match the character proportions. To speed up this process, a built-in solver will automatically try to find the body (bipeds only so far) and place the bones accordingly. The result can be edited if necessary (if the character is not a biped or fore more accuracy). Generate the final rig. The armature remains easily editable anytime. Check the product documentation and the youtube channel for more informations.

Plays fast, 25fps on these characters (using standard hardware): Anna, Kevin

Modular

Customize the rig definition in a few clicks: fingers, toes amount, spine and neck bones amount, tail, breasts, ears, duplicate or remove limbs to rig spiders, centaurs, or whatever...

Finally, add your own bones over to complete (hair, or any specific needs...)

Video tutorial, rig a centaur with the multi-limb feature: Centaur Rig

The picker panel dynamically updates: select any bone from the separate panel easily.

Intuitive tool to edit the bone shapes, with automatic mirror.

Customizable UI: fully editable layout, buttons positions, colors, background pictures...

Remap

The Remap feature allows retargetting of any armature action to another one, with different bone names and bone orientations, supporting imported .bvh/.fbx armatures for example. Define the source armature, the target armature, and the animation will retarget according to the bones names matches and bones original orientation.

It support IK feet, hands for accurate motion tracking, and an interactive offset tool to remap to different characters proportions.

Video: Remapper demo

Additionally, to animate over a motion capture action on an additive layer, check the additive keyer addon (free)!

Game Engine Export

Auto-Rig Pro allows export to FBX format via a dedicated module, to proven engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine, and probably others not yet tested relying on the Fbx format. Shape keys are transferred as well. 

Three export types: Universal to export a simplified bones hierarchy for any creature, Humanoid for bipeds only, with options for easy retargetting and root motion, and Generic to export the deforming bones and the non-deforming ones if they are parent of the deforming bones.

• Twist bones included in option
  
• Unit conversion to initialize the scale transforms to 1.0
  
• Unreal Mannequin bones hierarchy and naming
  
• Full facial, and advanced bones such as tweak bones
  
• Actions baked on the simplified rig
  
• Selective action export
  

Bring your poses to the next level!

The additive weights controllers offer a unique control over the pose. Located all along the limbs, they've been developed using an innovative system to operate on a second layer of deformation, for fine pose sculpting, cartoon effects, bending, stretching, etc.

Just use them instead of corrective shape keys, or as a complement. Below a typical leg bent before and after tweaking the secondary controllers.

Tell Me More!

Extensive list of what's in the box:

• Automatic bone placement solver based on mesh recognition for bipeds character
  
• Edit Reference Bones feature to modify the rig anytime you want. No need to redo everything if a bone is not where you want it to be.
  
• Modular: only use what you need. Choose the number of fingers, toes, add optional tail, ears, breasts. Duplicate or remove limbs to rig multi-peds creatures.
  
• Easy bone shape edition
  
• Custom colors
• A clear, easy to use and colorful bone picker
  
• Fully cartoon compliant: Stretchy spine, legs, arms...
  
• IK-FK snap with autokey working, and snaps properly when unlocking all the leg/forearm rotation axis
  
• Knees and elbows pinning
  
• Multiple Child-Of constraints support for the IK hands and feet to change their parent space any time (e.g. if the character is driving a car, hands on the wheel, then grab the car door)
  
• Complete set of secondary controllers for fine pose sculpt
  
• Advanced facial setup
  
• Shape keys drivers creation tool
  
• Game engines support: Unity - Unreal Engine FBX Generic and Humanoid rig type
  
• Bone remapper to retarget any armature action to another one, with different bone names and bone orientations. Bvh/Fbx files compliant - Mixamo animations, with IK support
  
• Compliant with X-Muscle System for realistic muscles simulation
  
• 11.869 lines of code craziness
  
• And finally, the best thing: by buying this addon you ensure the funds for this addon next new features, bugfix. I'm making my best to constantly improve the beast, based on users requests and my own ideas. Have quick look at the release log below. You receive a notification when the addon is updated, and download it for free.
  

Updates:

Make sure to uninstall the current addon before installing the new one and restart blender

----[3.41.19]----

All features have been ported to Blender 2.8

[WARNING!] 3.41 is currently an alpha version: it means it's not ready yet, there may be bugs, crashes. Especially since Blender 2.8 itself is still in alpha stage!

It should not be used for production or serious projects. It's only for testing and experiments, for informed users who want to play with the rigs in Blender 2.8. The latest stable release is the 3.40 version for Blender 2.79, download and use it for production usage.

----[3.40z]----

New or improved:

Rig: New "Empty" armature to build a rig from scratch, instead of starting from a biped/quadruped basis. New button to add limbs. New button to adjust the selected limb parameters.

Rig: Disabling a spine bone no more disables the neck and head limbs as well

Rig: Ears bones amount can now be adjusted

Rig: Neck bones amount of duplicated necks can now be adjusted

Rig: The auto-eyelid rotations are now constrained to avoid aberrant angles

Rig: Update Armature now show an informative line to warn the user to click Match to Rig afterward

Picker: Errors are now better handled, if the target bone is not found or a bone shape is missing, the error is skipped

Fbx Export: Actions can now selectively be removed before exporting

Fbx Export: Root motion option is now available for Universal type

Fixed:

Fbx Export: The simplify value is now set to 0.05 by default, to avoid rotation issues of IK chains.

Fbx Export: Some single limbs could prevent export to work

Fbx Export: "Fix Fbx Bones Rotation" could lead to issues

Fbx Export: Renaming for UE and exporting the tail could lead to wrong parenting

Fbx Export: Exporting only the armature now adds a dummy mesh for correct export

Fbx Export: Multiple ears bones are now exported as Humanoid

Rig: The ear bones could not be disabled

Remap: Cancelling the Redefine Rest Pose could not work as expected, fixed the copy bones orientations feature

Remap: Improved Auto-Scale feature

----[3.39b]----

Important note!

This update changes some bones orientations (jaw, eyelids) which breaks existing facial animations for these given controllers. It takes effect when clicking "Update Armature" to update older armatures, which is also necessary to make it compatible with the Fbx exporter.

Do not install this version and do not update the armature if you previously rigged characters and need to preserve their facial animations.

New or improved:

Rig: For easier control, the jaw and eyelids controllers are now meant to be primarily translated up/down, instead of rotated. Additional rotation on other axes is still allowed though. The jaw custom shape has been changed as well.

Rig: The tail bones amount can now be adjusted from 1 to 32. When more than 1 bone, a master controller is added as well to rotate all tail bones at once.

Adjustable ears bones will be implemented later.

Fixed:

Rig: Mirroring custom shapes was not working if the shapes were not selectable

Rig: Changing the neck bones amount was accidentally disabling the picker

Fbx Export: Objects with multiple armatures modifiers containing the same target could be duplicated several times

Fbx Export: The "knee_bend" weights are now clamped to the "leg_stretch" weights to improve deformations

Fbx Export: Transferring vertex groups could fail if the target group did not exist on the object

----[1.0]----

•  Auto Rig Pro Release!