Auto Rig Maya Tool & Procedural Bug Locomotion
Although the tool is primarily designed for humanoid characters, it's flexible enough to adapt to non-humanoid creatures as well. This alien bug is a great example of how the tool can be customized to rig more unique character designs.
Auto Rig Tool Demo with basic humanoid setup.
Custom modules let users create any number of joint chains and define the IK start, end, and pole vector joints.
The Snap IK/FK feature automatically matches the IK and FK poses for seamless switching.
The tool speeds up skin binding by storing a selected mesh for quick bind/unbind operations using the generated joint chains, with options to switch the mesh display between Normal, Template, and Reference.
I explored procedural animation in Unreal Engine using the custom bug rig. The setup uses Control Rig locomotion with Full Body IK, combined with sphere traces to allow the legs to detect surfaces and dynamically adapt their placement on the ground.
The result! The only animation I did was the idle animation – the walking movement is fully procedural. I set the control rig in an animation blueprint and actor blueprint so that I can move it around with WASD.
My Auto Rigging Python Tool for Maya.
Users simply choose the rig modules they need, and placement locators are automatically generated. Once the locators are positioned, the tool builds the corresponding joint chains. After selecting the desired control settings, the tool generates the rig controls for each module, creating a clean and customizable rigging workflow.
