Auto-Rig Pro is an all-in-one solution to rig characters, retarget animations, and provide Fbx export for Unity and Unreal Engine. First developed as my own in-house rigging tool, i've released it a few years ago and many new features have been added since then.
Want to try first? Download Mike, free character rig here.
If the character is humanoid, the Smart feature can automatically place the bones to speed up the process, after adding the green markers. The result remains editable.
Non-humanoid characters can also be rigged without the Smart feature, manually (horse, dog...).
Based on a non-destructive workflow, the final rig remains easily editable anytime after its generation. Check the product documentation and the youtube channel for more informations.
The rig system itself is built for performances, allowing fast animation playback.
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. Read the doc for more informations.
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 to solve recurrent issues.
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!
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.
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.
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.
3 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.
Support of multiple twist bones for optimal volume preservation in game engines, where dual quaternions skinning is not possible (top: single twist bone, below: 4 twist bones)
Unit conversion to initialize the scale transforms values to 1.0 in Unity and Unreal Engine
Unreal Mannequin compliant: support Mannequin bones hierarchy, bone axes conversion, bones naming
Automatic A-Pose
Support full facial rig, and advanced bones. "Twist" mode for secondary controllers, wrapped on bendy-bones for smooth curves effects, leading to 1:1 export compatibility in Fbx format
Actions are baked to the simplified rig
Animated shape keys (blend shapes) support
Selective/multiple action export
Root motion support
Bring your poses to the next level!
The secondary controllers offer a unique control over the pose. Located all along the limbs, they're dedicated to fine pose sculpting, cartoon effects, bending, stretching, etc. Three deformations mode in option: Twist (exportable to Fbx and bendy-bones based for best compatibility), Additive (exportable to FBX), Bendy-Bones (Blender only).
Just use them instead of corrective shape keys, or as a complement. Below a typical leg bent before and after tweaking the secondary controllers.
Corrective shape keys can be created easily with a dedicated tool supporting IK-FK bone chains:
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.
Apply Pose as Rest Pose feature to quickly change the rest pose of the character, aligning reference bones on it and applying armature modifiers in a single click
Modular: only use what you need. Fingers, toes, ears, breast, adjustable amount of spine, twist bones, tail, and neck bones. Duplicate or remove limbs to rig creatures with multiple arms and legs.
Fingers auto-rotation option: bend when scaling the first phalange, pre-defined fist pose
Easy bone shape edition
Bone picker: Can be turned on/off, import/export presets. Customizable.
Colors customization
Cartoon compliant: stretchy spine, legs, arms...
A clear, easy to use and colorful bone picker
IK-FK snap with autokey working, and snaps properly when unlocking all the leg/forearm rotation axis
IK-FK controllers auto hide
Hybrid IK pole / IK arrow vector
Knees and elbows pinning
Head rotation locked or free
Bend all fingers in one click (fingers grasp), fist pre-defined pose, auto rotation of fingers phalanges from scale
IK/FK eyes
Auto-eyelid rotation
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 with automated placement
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
By buying this addon you support my work and the Blender foundation, its developers financially. A part of each sale is donated to them. It's worth a big thank you from the open source community, helping Blender remaining free and accessible for everyone! And obviously 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
--[3.50.23]--
New/improved:
Rig: Custom Limbs are in! The selected bones can be saved as a custom limb, so that they can be easily added in any armature later. This is the first phase of the implementation, only custom bones are fully supported. Auto-Rig Pro limbs (arms, legs...) as custom limbs will be supported later in the second phase of the implementation.
Skin: Multiple corrective shape keys per bones are now supported
Export: Selective action export using checkboxes in option
Rig: The custom shape edition has been improved to ensure the edited custom shape is always linked to the selected bone
Export: Allows custom bones export as masters controller (parent of the "root.x" bone)
Export: For humanoid export, allows location values different from 0 for the spine, neck and head bones
Fixed:
Smart: Error fixed when setting facial
Rig: Some sub-limbs (toes) had missing custom shapes
Rig: the picker buttons were set in one layer only
Rig: Bones used for the rotation of corrective shape keys don't inherit scale anymore from their parent since it was leading to incorrect rotation evaluation
Rig: Some picker buttons were locked after applying changes
Rig: Set all picker buttons in layer 0
Rig: Removed the Reset All button from the picker, since it's already included in the Rig Main properties interface
Smart: The fingers detection was broken with the Blender 2.83 update
Remap: Unbinding could lead to an error if the rig has animation data
Export: Ensure animation export without errors in case meshes have multiple armatures modifiers
Export: Spline limbs could be incorrectly parented
--[3.49.13]--
New/improved:
Preferences: The addon main UI and tools UI (IK-FK snap...) can now be displayed in a custom tab name
Smart: Knees are now in line with the feet, for better legs rotation
Rig: To visualize the IK direction of reference bones, a line can now be displayed in option for the selected bones chain
Rig: New armature presets can now be added in the "armature_presets" directory of the addon, they are loaded into the list on Blender startup
Rig: New "Roll Cursor Distance" to adjust the visual c_foot_roll_cursor distance from the foot
Rig: The hand fist controller now allows negative scale values to spread the fingers, and limit constraints have been added, [0.5 - 1.5] scale range
Rig: The stretch length default value of feet and arms is now 1.0
Export: The shaky bones issue should now be gone with a better evaluation of bone matrices and rotations
Export: Since Unity can support twist bones using scripts, twist bones export for humanoid is now added in the interface
Fixed:
Skin: If "Split Parts" was disabled, two armature modifiers could be added
Rig: The ChildOf constraints of the arm IK pole were not reset when Match to Rig, leading to an offset when snapping IK-FK
Rig: Setting the arm ik pole distance could fail
Rig: The hand fist constraints was missing from "c_thumb1_base"
Smart: Cancelling facial setup could lead to an error
Rig: Disabling facial bones was leading to an error since the latest update
Rig: Non-parallel or not vertically aligned eyes were not properly aligned after Match to Rig. This is now fixed by default, however there is an option in the "Legacy" menu for backward-compatibility with older files.
--[3.48.24]--
New/improved:
Rig
Bendy bones chains
Remap
Automatic IK constraint setup if the target rig has no IK constraint
New tool to Freeze the target armature
Export
The Generic export has been removed, leaving only Humanoid and Universal: it was leading to many problems and was not that used.
Multiple neck bones are now supported for the humanoid export
20% speed improvement when exporting humanoids for Unreal with Mannequin bones orientation
Mannequin spine bones orientation issues
Fix
Duplicating ear bones was only duplicating 2 bones
Issue with the new tail settings
Error when changing the side of Spline IK
Smart
Meshes with delta transforms were not compatible
Export
"Initialize Armature Rotation" was broken
The dummy mesh when exporting the armature only was no more added in the Fbx file
Exporting multiple actions with root motion could lead to incorrect root position
The custom bones list was not initialized
Disabling the humanoid action only for export was leading to an error when baking shape keys
--[3.47.15]--
New/improved:
Rig:
New "Spline IK" limb, to add generic spline ik chains. Adjustable amount of bones, bendy-bones per bone, and the side can be set (left, right, middle). Useful to rig ropes, strings... Can be used to replace the current FK spine: it's recommended to keep one spine bone for the pelvis area ("c_root_master.x" and "root.x" bones), and parent the Spline IK to it.
New "3 bones leg" in option, adding another leg bone at the root. New property "3 Bones IK" to enable IK on 3 or 2 legs bones. Made it compliant with IK-FK snapping.
Duplicate limbs now works with duplicated limbs as well (was restricted to original limb before)
After adding a new limb, the reference bones are now selected
Skin:
The Corrective Shapes tool is now universal, it can be used for any bones, not only arms or legs bones. If one bone is selected, it must be an arm or leg bone since this is optimized for these limbs. Otherwise, two bones must be selected as input for the driver angle setup.
The Bind button is now compliant with any armature, not only Auto-Rig Pro armatures
New "Scale Fix" button to automatically fix the scaling issue (as mentioned in the FAQ). If binding does not work, enable it.
Smart:
Added 3 fingers detection
Remap:
New frame range option to Retarget only a specific frame range
New "Bind/Unbind Only" options to test the retargetting before baking it, to save some time
Fix:
Apparently identical class names could cause installation error in some cases, the classes have been renamed to avoid it.
