Auto rigging is a process in 3D animation that saves time and effort by automating the creation of a character’s skeleton and control systems. In this article, we will be discussing the best auto rigger options for various 3D software programs.
These tools will help you quickly and easily set up your characters for animation, allowing you to focus on the creative aspects of your work. Whether you’re a professional animator or a hobbyist, these auto riggers will help you bring your characters to life.
Related: 7 Free Best Blender addons for modeling
3D Rigging Software (Free and paid)
Auto-Rig Pro (Blender)
Auto-Rig Pro is an addon for Blender to rig characters, retarget animations, and provide Fbx export, and this is not only for humanoid characters, but also for animals like dogs and horses.
It has some smart features that saves quite a lot of time when you use it in human character, but its easy even without smart features.
RIGGER (Autodesk Maya)
Rigger includes the most important tools for quickly and efficiently creating 3D characters in Autodesk Maya. Make your own rigs or use auto rigging templates.
It’s simple to use and does ik and fk rigging with ease, so feel free to use it for your own character rigging.
Auto Character Setup (Dedicated Software)
The Auto Character Setup (ACS) 2 kit is a production-ready solution for autonomous rigging of bipedal characters. You can rapidly change the adjustable, general-purpose biped rig to fit with a variety of characters, and you’ll appreciate the faster processes for binding, weight painting, and applying corrective morphs.
With the provided library of poses and actions, you may reuse animation data throughout scenes or even different characters. Utilizing an efficient retargeting technique, apply motion capture data with a few clicks and animate on top using both FK and IK controls.
Maximo Auto Rigger (Online)
Price: Free
Miximo is a free online library of mocap animation with a variety of characters, but this has the option to upload your own character and rig it with easy setup and easy to use features, and it does not even need to be installed in your computer to work, and it has a blender plugin, so it may be the easiest auto rigger on this list.
InstantRig (3DS Max)
InstantRig is a modular auto rigging solution for 3DS Max users that are interested in keyframe cartoon animations. It enables riggers to quickly design versatile, animator-friendly, and production-quality rigs.
Also, while this is a paid product, you can sample it for free.
AccuRIG (Dedicated Software)
Price: Free
This is one I can honestly recommend to everyone because it is free and simple to use, plus it is a dedicated software, which means you can use its rig for any software, whether it is blender, c4d, or maya. It is intended for quick and easy character rigging, with the goal of reducing production work for character artists through model design with automation and simplicity. In 5 simple steps, you may achieve accurate and superior rigging results for models in A/T/scan postures or with low/high/multiple meshes.
IKMAX (C4d, Maya, 3DS Max)
Another amazing plugin-based auto rigger for practically every major 3D software, and this does humanlike as well as animallike animations such as cats and dogs.
