Find out more about it here, which also has a video about it.
Octomall
Find out more about it here.
For an animation example, check out the post on Spungella.
Tentacles are a pain but this rig does a pretty good job setup wise. The only things I was missing were Eyeblink options and some sort of IK mode between body and tentacles, so you could pose out the tentacles and move the whole body while the tentacles stay put. You do have body controllers, but they are mostly for the upper squishy head and doesn't affect the more flat base. Speaking of squishy, there's also a head squash/stretch option, which is neat.
Fuzzy
Find out more about it here.
For an animation example, check out the post on Spungella.
It's very fun rig to use, the setup is good! I wish the hip controller would just affect the hips and not rotate the spine above, unless there is some setting that I missed.
ZoomIt
Description:ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image.
Get it here.
shotView
ShotView is designed as a nice clean separate viewport window, suitable for animating a cinematic shot.
Get it here.
graphFilter
Description:
Allows the user to filter which curves are visible in the graph editor. Works with multiple selections as well as custom attributes. Saves you the trouble of scrolling through the object list and ctrl-selecting all the x-translate curves (for example).
Creates a pop-up window with a list of all keyable attributes of all selected objects.
Simply select the channel (or channels) and hit the "Filter Selected" button.
Has "replace" & "append" modes and a Graph-Editor toggle button.
Allows inclusion of locked channels.
Now you can manually select curves in the Graph Editor window, then hide all
but those highlighted with the "Filter Highlighted" button.
Get it here.
Sequence911 - image renamer
Here's a cool script that helps you with re-naming a huge amount of pictures. Head over to creativecrash for the link.
Azary
Find out more about it here. This rig is tricky because it is so similar to Bishop from Animation Mentor. I wouldn't recommend using it for a demo reel piece but practice only.
Highend3D switches to creativecrash.com
... and as a result, none of the links work anymore. Way to go Highend3D... no link forwarding?
I'll update the links on a daily basis. Thanks for your patience.
Looks like it has been updated. I will still go through the links and make sure it all works, but at least now I don't have to hurry anymore.
Kyle Balda masterclass rigs
These rigs are not exactly free, you get them with the 3D World magazine, but still, you get a lot of good material with the magazine.
More about the lip-synching can be found @ 3dworldmag.com
And more animation videos about it here.
Squirrely Rig
Find out more about it here.
Very fun looking rig and lots of information about it. Well worth a look.
Squirrely Obstacle Course Part 1 from Josh Burton on Vimeo.
Shark
Very cool looking rig! Find out more about it here. Works only in Maya 8.5, anything newer and the mesh freaks out.
Blake
Find out more about it here. Lots of info and a video. Rig discussion can be found @ the 11secondclub.
Mamooth
Find out more about it here
Great rig! Just look out for weird ear deformation when you dial in mouth shapes.
abxPicker
I added "abxPicker" to the MEL section. Definitely a handy tool to speed up your workflow. More details:
abxPicker provides artists, animators, and character TDs with an intuitive interface for creating and using custom character control interfaces. Using drag and drop, you can create, position, resize, and edit buttons to select character controls.
Features:
* Quickly create layouts using easy drag and drop interface
* Supports background image style, or simplified iconographic layouts
* Auto assign default tools like move and rotate to controls
* Key selection sets with a single button
* Create Toggle buttons for visibility or IK/FK switching or other
* Data is stored in scene nodes for easy portability
* Import/Export to other rigs
* Supports Shift-click to add to selection and ctrl-click to subtract from selection list
* Works with character referencing, rename prefixes and namespacing for pipeline integration
* Only one .mel file (easy to install)
* Includes Test Scene File to try out
Rudy
Find out more about it here
That guy is creepy! Especially without his... you know what. But cool rig for more photo real digi-double type of animation.
Pix Car
Find out more about it here
Looks like this rig was heavily influenced by the cars from Pixar's "Cars", hence the name rig "Pix Car". Not exactly demo reel friendly, but cute nonetheless.
PoseMAN 1.2.4
I added PoseMAN 1.2.4 to the MEL script section. Head over to highend3d for the download and all the info about it (including video demos). A few details:
Some functions:
- Unlimited characters, sections and poses
- Works with any character, object, node, etc..
- Works with referencing
- Capture thumbnails pose on the fly
- Rename Character, Sections and Poses
- Add / Remove controls poses
- Reorder Sections and Poses
- Mix pose slider!
- You can apply pose and MIX pose in 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%
- Easy to share, just copy and paste /poseman directory or Character directory
Chuz 0.5.7
Download it directly from here
There is no official link on Ila Solomon's site to this rig, but he provided a link on the cgsociety forum.
Andy 1.4.6
Get it here.
Release v1.4.6 includes:
-Maya 2008 compatibility (Rt. Click menus now enabled in 7.0, 8.5, 2008)
-Animatable pivots on feet, root and head embedded into Right Mouse Menus
-Stick elbows and knees in place ("lock mid" control)
-Stop-Staring type facial setup (eyebrows are displayed in the textures - see tips below)
-IK/Fk matching on arms and legs embedded into Right Mouse Menus
-Dynamic parenting (space switching) embedded into Right Mouse Menus
-IK/FK spine
-Advanced twist enabled on arms, legs and spine
-Squash and Stretch and bendy arms
-Twist and Gimble helpers
-Multiple hair styles
-Multiple textures
-More coming soon...visit www.johndoublestein.com for updates
Yakumo 0.9.0
No AB review yet.
The Yakumo rig comes with the Kia rig. Get all the info @ Michael Kiessling's site.
Kia 0.9.0
No AB review yet.
The Kia rig comes with the dog rig Yakumo. Get all the info @ Michael Kiessling's site.
Enemy Soldier 1.0.0
No AB review yet.
Comes with weapons as well. Get all the info @ Michael Kiessling's site.
Chuck Boy 1.0.0
No AB review yet.
Get all the gory details about this rig @ Michael Kiessling's site.
Travis 1.0.0
No AB review yet.
Even though the GUI makes it look like it, there are no textures for the rig, but it comes with a bike! More info @ Michael Kiessling's site
Wolverine 1.0.0
No AB review yet.
I loaded up the rig with no textures but just like Michael Kiessling's other rigs, textures are there. Here why:
SPECIAL NOTE:
The character rig uses a normal map, and high quality shading is turned on by default. If your graphics card does not support Maya's high quality shading option, you will get a critical error when opening the scene file. To work around that problem, you can import the scene file into an EMPTY(!) scene, but you will not see the benefits of the normal map. Make sure the nodes will not be renamed when importing or the UI won't work.
For more information, visit his site.
Demonlord 0.9.0
No AB review yet.
Just like the "Kasumi" rig, the Demonlord is another one from Michael Kiessling's collection. Visit his site for all the details.
TSMbiped
No AB review yet.
This rig is available @ Anzovin Studio as a .zip file here, just like their Wolf rig.
Another good rig for physical animation or to show off mechanics. If you want to see it in action, go to this CGtalk thread. Here the main post:
After slogging out all the remaining problems, I've finally got The Setup Machine 2 for Maya to the point where it can make a rig fit to be used by other people. :) So I'm posting this rig free to the net. Take a look, tell me what you think, use it for anything you want. It's designed to allow a great deal of real control over a character's shape, allowing you to squash and reshape pretty much any part of the body.
This rig is in a Maya 6.5 .ma file. It should work fine with 6.0 if you change the headers, but it won't work with 5.0.
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/guy.zip
Here's some movies I made a few weeks ago displaying some of the features of the rig. Many features have been added since then so this isn't a complete list, but it gives you a good idea of what this rig was designed for:
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/rigleg.mov
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/rigfkandik.mov
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/rigspine.mov
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/rigarm.mov
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/rigproxy.mov
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/rigtwist.mov
The Setup Machine 2 for Maya is an autorigging system that we expect to release sometime in November. Here's some videos of what the beta version looks like in action, rigging up this very same character:
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/widgetspart1.mov
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/TSM2Mwidgetspart2.mov
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/TSM2MSSPart3.mov
http://www.rafhashvideotapes.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/TSM2MSSPart4.mov
I hope you all like it!
--Raf Anzovin
Anzovin Studio
raf@anzovin.com
www.anzovin.com
Mr. Inspired
No AB review yet.
This rig is quite old by now, but it's still working fine. Don't expect any fancy stretchy IKs, there isn't even a facial setup, besides a jaw up/down function. But it's light and fast and would work well for physical animation or learning mechanics.
Go to Premiere Press Books' page for "Inspired 3D Character Setup". You get the rig for free if you buy the book, but they also let you download it without getting the book. Click on the "Downloads" link and it will bring you down to a list of downloads. You get MEL scripts, Models and Rigs.
I recommend the link to the full hires (unrigged) model, here.
You have to rig it yourself of course, but there are free auto-rig setups online (there's a really good one, but the name escapes me right now... something with skeleton...).
One that I haven't tried is Supercrumbly's "abAutoRig 1.9.1".
Or you get the rigged version, which is lo-res (just do a "smooth" poly for the head).
The link for this rig is here. You can always parent the hi-res geometry to the lo-res rig, but again, no facial setup besides the jaw up/down, unless you create your own blendshapes using the hi-res head, which could be fun.
The rig file is named chapter16, so I'll just give it the lame name Mr. Inspired. :)
Mr. Brightside 1.0.0
No AB review yet.
- download it here
This rig is by Nathan Tillett and looks great. He mentions though that the arms have no polevectors and I also noticed some funky enveloping in his hip area as well as pants. Make sure to leave comments, it would be great to have a more polished version.
Soccer Ball
Go to Abel Cabrerizo's site and click on the soccer ball image for the download.
The ball has separate CONs for rotation and translation, a separate controller for squash and stretch, as well as a low, medium and hirez geometry swapping feature.
Peri Manson 1.0.0
No AB review yet.
I just did a quick render of it but it looks like this rig comes with fur. You can download it here, courtesy of Abel Cabrerizo.
Wolf
No AB review yet.
[Update] I found the official site for the download here.
This is another rig for which I can't find a link on the official site, but animationlounge got this one. If it is not for public use, please let me know.
Bob
No AB review yet.
Bob was created by Greg Towner and although his site is down you can still download the rig @ animationlounge.
Ball with Legs
You can download the file from mutinystudios. I found it @ davidelasala.com, which links to that zip file.
The mutinystudios site however does not have a page or link to that character. I didn't see any disclaimers on their site nor on David's, but if this rig is not for public use, please let me know.
The rig reminds me of the ball with leg character from Animation Mentor. This one comes with Footroll, Toepivot and Toetap controlls on the feet, as well as Stretch, Bend, Bendrotate for the body and Legstretchers.
Included as well are shaders for a nice render out of the box. Here you can see a test animation.
mrBlue
No AB review yet.
Here the info from mrMotion.net:
The BlueLayout rig is based on the MrMotionRig. It is a biped rig designed for intuitive animation. It can be used to exercise your animation skills.
The difference from the MrMotionRig:
All the animation controls are nurbs-curves.
BlueLayout uses the Character Layout script.
You can not adjust this rig to fit inside another character.
Ralph
No AB review yet.
You can get the Ralph Demo Rig by coing to character-setup.com. It is part of a character setup tool. Once you follow the link you will get prompted to enter a username and password. This is the only pic of Ralph so far.
mrMotionRig 1.5.0
No AB review yet.
mrmotion.net has a description on how to adjust the rig. You can also watch a tutorial video here.
LowDog
No AB review yet.
You used to be able to download the rig of Miguel Gonzalez Vine's site Lichiman, but the site is a bit funky right now. Until then, get it from here. Animation examples can be found @ Rodri Torres' site.
lowRobo 2.0.1
No AB review yet.
- find out more about it @ Ila Soleimani's site, under "Downloads".
The rig comes with textures and is available for 3D Studio Max as well.
Kiel Figgins' Rig Set 13
Get this rig set @ 3dfiggins.com
Rig Set 13 contains the rig:
- Soldier v 1.0
Kiel Figgins' Rig Set 6
Get this rig set @ 3dfiggins.com
Rig Set 6 contains the rigs:
- Gunship
- Joesgun (Gattlin Gun)
- Rocket
- Turrent
Kiel Figgins' Rig Set 5
Get this rig set @ 3dfiggins.com
Rig Set 5 contains the rigs:
- Airship
- Dragon
- Panther
Kiel Figgins' Rig Set 3
Get this rig set @ 3dfiggins.com
Rig Set 3 contains the rigs:
- Ninja
- Cartoony (guy)
Kiel Figgins' Rig Set 1
Kiel Figgins has an awesome collection of rigs, from vehicles, to creatures, to realistic humanoids.
This one's a bit tricky to post (in terms of individual rigs), so I'll post each rig set separately. I'll put down labels for each though for the rig list and search function.
I've used the jet/chopper type of rig (rig set 6) and the mecha walker (MechV4 / rig set 1 - currently featured on the Animation Buffet Banner) and they're great. Once my workflow tutorial is done (don't laugh!) I can put up reviews of those two rigs.
Head over to 3dfiggins.com for the rig sets and plenty more.
Rig Set 1 contains the rigs:
- Flea
- MechV4
MEL scripts
This post will serve as some sort of master post regarding MEL scripts.
___________________________________________________________
- zoom and drawn on your screen
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- separate viewport window for cinematic camera options
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- Graph Editor Curve managing tool
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- quick way of re-naming images sequences
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- create custom character control interfaces
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- saves your file automatically with a preset interval option
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- easy switching between parented objects
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- awesome script for managing your poses
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- A must have is of course. Do a right-click on that link and save-as (it's a zip).
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- Kiel Figgins has a nice collection of scripts, like IKFK matcher, but one of them stood out. I may sound trivial, but it's just one of those things I got used to and love to have. From Kiel's site about the script :
Options to Save regularly, Open Save As window or, most importantly, Save the existing file with a "_01" at the end or if the file already has an integer, it adds plus 1 to it. (ie "MyFile_46.ma" becomes "MyFile_47.ma")
Nice.
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Creates a small interface to manage zooming and traking in x y and z, using the overscan and offset values of a chosen camera.
It helps animators and trackers get in close, or back up far from objects independent of the actual tranlates and rotates for the camera.
You also have zoomify lite, but I haven't used that one yet.
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Follow the links and download it from highend3d. The download comes with a handy PDF for instructions.
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Here's a huge collections of character animation scripts by Aaron Koressel. ackNewGraphEditor sounds good (any tool that improves the graph editor is worth a look), then ackSliceCurves sounds awesome. It "inserts a key at the current time into the currently selected curves while preserving tangents". Good to have. Much more there, go check out the list.
There's tons of good stuff out there, so stay tuned.
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Supercrumbly has a nice collection of scripts as well, ranging from Auto Rigging scripts to "Bookmark your Curves" and many other useful ones.
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Norman
"Norman" is a very popular and versatile rig and the successor of "Hogan". You can download it here.
Updated Oct. 14th 2009: The AAUanimationclub has another great tutorial on how to modify Norman. Look for Part One, Part Two, ...
If you want to see animation examples, visit the critique section on my AAU Character Animation Blog or Spungella. There are also many animation portfolio's online which showcase this highly tweakable rig, for instance Guiherme Jacinto's animation site.
Nair Archawattana wrote this fantastic tutorial on how to modify Norman. If you know of another way or want to add more tips and information, please do so in the comments section.
Thank you Nair for the time and effort you put into it! It's highly appreciated!
Nair Archawattana wrote this fantastic tutorial on how to modify Norman. If you know of another way or want to add more tips and information, please do so in the comments section.
Thank you Nair for the time and effort you put into it! It's highly appreciated!
______________________________________
HOW TO MODIFY NORMAN
- To be able to select Norman’s geometry, unparent gA1_WorldGeo group from Char_Norman_1 group.__________
Head/Face
Head/Face
- duplicate head geometry, unlock all attribute channels and put it wherever you like. (I prefer to place it right next to the original one)
- select a new head, original head and add Blend Shape, make sure that you have Front of Chain selected in Create Blend Shape options (Advanced tab).
- Now, it’s time to play with your new head! You can sculpt it or use deformers to modify his face. Make sure that you turn on your Blend Shape so you can see how it looks on the original head. (To turn on Blend Shape, go to Window > Animation Editors > Blend Shape, the Blend Shape you just add should be “blendShape3” look for it and scroll it up)
______
Notes
Notes
- make sure that you didn’t add more polygons to the head; it might cause some problems with facial rigging. (This applies to the whole body)
- try to avoid an area around eye sockets, too much deformation can make eye lids stick into the eyeballs. (You can check it by using eye control, moving eye lids UD, pull/push and rotate eyeballs to see if you mess up anything or not)
- For shaping the eyes, you can use Lid Micro channels in the eye controllers.
- try to avoid an area around eye sockets, too much deformation can make eye lids stick into the eyeballs. (You can check it by using eye control, moving eye lids UD, pull/push and rotate eyeballs to see if you mess up anything or not)
- For shaping the eyes, you can use Lid Micro channels in the eye controllers.
______
Brows
Brows
- duplicate another head from the original head, unlock it.
- select face that you want to turn it to eyebrows, then press shift key and crop the whole head to invert the selection. Delete the rest of faces.
- extrude and smooth the brows (this is your choice; you can even use deformers to reshape it.) then, place your new brows on the original head.
- We will attach brows to the head using Wrap Deformers, select brows and head. Go to Create Deformers > Wrap. Use brows control to check it.
______________
Nose/Ears/Hair
Nose/Ears/Hair
- First, you need to have a replacement for nose, ears and hair. Try to find better models from school library (just cut them off from generic human models or look into the internet)
- delete Norman’s nose/ears, replace them with your new models. Import new hair into your scene and place it on the head.
- parent everything to head control.
_____
Cloth
Cloth
- Same method with eye brows, though you need to have your cloth models with you. (Build it or copy it from other free rigged characters)
- Import the new cloth into your scene. Place it on Norman’s body.
- This is a bit tricky since the shirt covers more than one geometry. So we will use Add Influence for other parts.
- First, select shirt > select geometry (any geometry that shirt covers it) > go to Create Deformers > Wrap.
-Next, select shirt > select geometry (other geometry that shirt covers it) > go to Edit Deformers > Wrap > Add Influence. Repeat this process till the last geometry underneath the shirt.
- For pants, you have to separate your pants for each leg because Norman’s legs are too close to each other. If you wrap it with single pants model, wrap influence on both legs will overlap and mess up your pants.
- Making wrap for pants is the same process as wraps for shirt.
- First, select pants > select geometry (any geometry that the pants covers it) > go to Create Deformers > Wrap.
- Next, select pants > select geometry (other geometry that the pants covers it) > go to Edit Deformers > Wrap > Add Influence. Repeat this process till the last geometry underneath the pants. Do the same process with another leg.
_______
Notes
Notes
- If you get a warning “No points were weighted to the wrap. Try increasing the maxDistance setting.” Select the geometry that contains that wrap, go to wrap output channel and change the number on Max Distance.
______
Arms
Arms
- If you don’t like his thick arms you can reshape it by go to component mode, select edge loop (using tool Select > Select Edge Loop Tool in Polygon mode) and scale it down one by one. Or you can model a new arm and use wrap to attach it.
_______
Hands
Hands
- You can scale up/down his hand with the hand controller.
________________
Body Proportion
Body Proportion
- Scale Up/Down spine controllers to reshape body proportion.
_______________
Tip for Shaders
Tip for Shaders
- Sometimes when you wrap your shirt and try to rotate your arm, you’ll get body stick out from the shirt. To fix this problem, select geometry face that sticks out and assign shirt shader to it. Or go to wraps input and change value on Weight Threshold.
- Also, in shader attribute window, you will see Incandescence setting, try adding some color on this attribute will help your object looks more colorful rather than all-grey shaders.
- Nair
_________________________________________________
Great Dane
No AB review yet.
- find out more about it here and at rigging101.
Newest release has facial rigging as well.
Pixo Jr. 2.0.0
No AB review yet. This is an obvious hommage to Pixar's lamp, so I suggest you use this rig as a prop only.
- find out more about it here
Bull Creature 1.0.0
No AB review yet.
- find out more about it here
There's also another version called Triceratops Type Creature, which seems to be the same one, just tweaked.
