Auto-Rig Pro

Auto-Rig Pro is currently unstable in Blender 4.4 (may crash)
Blender 4.3 is recommended

What is Auto-Rig Pro?

Auto-Rig Pro is an all-in-one solution to rig characters, retarget animations, and provide Fbx export, with presets 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.

Rig features demo

Useful links:
Documentation- Learn here!
Frequently Asked Questions
Youtube Channel - Tutorials and demos
X (Twitter)- Follow development
Joris' Rig Library for Auto-Rig Pro - 24 animated rig presets
Quick Rig - Turn a skeleton into Auto-Rig Pro control rig

Rig fast with the Smart feature

For humanoid characters, 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 documentationand the youtube channelfor more informations.

The rig system itself is built for performances, allowing fast animation playback.

Character examples: Mike (free), Anna, Kevin, Nina and Alex

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 information.

If you encounter any bugs please report it. Updates are free and will remain free. Also make sure to read the FAQ and the documentation to solve common issues.

Modular - Fully Feature

Customize the rig definition in a few clicks: fingers, wings, toes, spine bones, multiple neck bones, tail, breasts, ears and much more. Duplicate or remove limbs to rig spiders, centaurs... or whatever!

Advanced, customizable facial:

Wings for advanced feathers rig:

Kilt limb to rig kilt, dresses, skirt-like clothes

Spline IK limb to rig ropes, tentacles, IK spine...

Advanced Spline IK

3 bones IK for quadrupedal creatures:

Fingers and Toes IK-FK:

Foot Roll Break

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.

2 export types: Universal to export the skeleton of any creatures, and Humanoid for bipeds only, with options for easy retargetting and root motion.

• 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, for UE4/UE5
• 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:

Joints Fans are helper bones in option, allowing correct volume preservation in tricky areas such as elbow, wrist, thigh, knee, even if "Preserve Volume" skinning (Dual Quaternions) is disabled.

ChildOf Constraints Switcher

Easily switch and snap from one ChildOf constraint to another with the automatic ChildOf switcher (universal tool, compatible with any rig)

Rig Layers

Store bones, armature layers, objects and collection in custom rig layers to easily manage the character features: hide or show clothes, hair, bones controller...

Built to Last

Blender is constantly improving and updating, and so is Auto-Rig Pro. But even though upgrades are nice, we don't want to miss the old rigs because of compatibility issues with newer versions. That's why backward-compatibility is always ensured at all costs, even if it involves a lot of maintenance on the code side. A legacy menu takes care of preserving features from the past. And if necessary, an "Update" button will upgrade the rigs automatically to the latest requirements, no loss!

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
• Compliant with X-Muscle Systemfor realistic muscles simulation
• 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.

Users Cases:

Auto-Rig Pro is actively used in the film and video-game industry.
Games:

Eternight

Fabledom

Manor Lords

Usurpator

Trail of Nanook

Escape Legacy: Ancient Scrolls

Movies:

Magic Campers

Gus

Team Dronix

Pachyderme

CoopTroop

Updates:

Make sure to uninstall the current add-on before installing the new one and restart blender

--[3.74.45]--

New/improved:

• Rig: Import-Export: The custom shape translation and rotation values are now exported and imported as Rig Data
• Rig: Arm-Leg: A connection line is now drawn between the elbow-knee and the IK pole, as a visual helper. Can be disabled in Rig Main Properties menu (Show IK Pole Line)
• Rig: New Pivot controller in option for IK hand and IK foot, in order to rotate the hand/foot from a custom pivot point
• Rig: Tools: Multi limbs selection support for arms and legs IK-FK bake
• Rig: Tools: UI Cosmetic, packed some properties as stuck columns when they belong to the same group (stretch, 3 bones leg settings...)
• Rig: Tools: ChildOf Switcher: The muted/disabled constraints are now filtered out
• Rig: Tools: ChildOf Switcher: The active constraint is now removed from the list, since there is no reason to switch to it
• Rig: Custom Shape: Refactored the Apply Shape operator, using lower level functions to avoid errors related to broken hierarchy, collections
• Rig: Fist Pose: A default fist pose can now be applied automatically as a basis
• Rig: Fist Pose: The fist pose can now be edited easily after creation (similar to blink pose). It is no more necessary to reset the fist controller, more advanced ways to evaluate the bone matrices and applied constraints are now implemented
• Rig: Blink Pose: An automatic blink pose can now be added as a basis, with upper eyelids snapping onto lower eyelids perfectly
• Rig: Blink Pose: Improved eyelid controller rotations when snapping
• Rig: Blink Pose: Support for auto lower eyelids too
• Rig: Leg: The upper thigh bone vertex groups are now updated automatically when switching 3 Bones Leg Type1/Type2, no more necessary to rename manually or re-bind
• Rig: Leg: Rotation from Scale for toes in option, in order to rotate the toe phalanges when scaling the first one (similar to fingers)
• Rig: New "Parent Fallback" setting for all limbs. By default, the root bone of a limb is parented to c_traj. If this fallback is left blank, no parent is assigned.
• Rig: Kilt: Asymmetrical kilts support. "Side" setting in Limb Options: Symmetrical (.x, .l and .r bones), left (only .l), right (only .r) and center (only .x). Useful when setting up sleeves for example
• Skin: A warning message is displayed if numerous mesh islands are found (such as hair cards), while Split Parts is enabled, since Blender can freeze for a long time
• Export: New "Bones Tag Manager", to add or remove tags to bones (custom bones, soft-link, constant) using lists
• Export: Refactor: Gathered all bones tag management code into a single call with different tags
• Export: UI: Revamped the export panel with tabs (Blender 4.1+ only) for clarity
• Export: Optimized the "Units x100" function, it was adding overhead in cases involving numerous actions (50+), even if they were not exported. With 150 actions in file and 6 exported, it now goes down from 80 seconds to 49 (x1.6 speedup)
• Export: New "One Folder per Actions List" parameter when exporting multiple FBX/GLTF files. If enabled, export animation files in a subfolder named as the Actions Lists. Instead of a checkbox, it is now an Enum parameter (One File per Action, One File per Actions List, One Folder per Actions List)
• Export: Added "Open Folder" button in the popup showing after export completion, to open the exported file folder
• Export: UI: Revamped the export window settings interface with tabs instead of box (Blender 4.1+ only) for clarity
• Export: GLTF: Exposed the materials export settings, ensure backward-compatibility with older Blender versions
• Export: Version: Initial support of slotted actions export (Blender 4.4+)
• Export: Actions List: New Actions List are now renamed automatically
• Export: GLTF: Slotted actions support
• Export: Custom script: Added the globals() argument when executing a custom script to allow list comprehensions and others
• Export: The "Add Dummy Mesh" option is now disabled by default, and "Force Rest Pose Export" is enabled by default. Latest UE versions automatically detect when the FBX contains only the skeleton, then it imports only the animation
• Export: "Initialize Armature Axes" was renamed to "Convert Axes: Y up, Z forw", which is what it actually does. This setting is now only displayed when necessary (Unity and "Others" engines, and Godot if FBX)
• Export: GLTF: Humanoid skeletons can now be exported to UE as Mannequin/Manny/Quinns skeletons with GLTF too. Bone axes are now converted to comply with GLTF/UE standards. The root/c_traj export setting must be enabled.
• Remap: Added "Advanced Skeleton" preset
• Remap: New Mirror function, to mirror automatically target bones in the list, from left to right or vice versa (naming based only). Supports various side identifiers (_L, .l...) nested as suffix, prefix or inside the name.
• Remap: When building the bones list, duplicates are no more allowed since it is not supported
• Remap: Non ARP controller bones are now excluded from the bones list
• Preferences: UI: Added expandable tabs (Rig, Interface, Paths...)
• Preferences: Skin: New toggle "Parent Objects when Binding" to prevent meshes to be parented to the armature when binding if necessary. Although this is not recommended to disable it, it may be useful in some custom workflows
• Smart: Mac: A compatibility warning is now shown when starting the Smart tool. To avoid crashes on Mac systems, tick the box to disable the Smart FX (green markers, lines)
• Smart: Mac: If Smart FX are disabled, they are now replaced with static icons (empty images) to help visualizing the markers positions
  

Fixed:

• Export: The "File Names" parameter was accidentally greyed out, when "As Multiple Files" was enabled
• Export: Corrupted file path when the file name was blank, while exported one file per action with a name separator
• Export: GLTF: Incorrect shape keys animation export, due to the rig name being referenced accidentally with an "_arpbob" suffix (breakage due to recent fix in 3.73)
• Export: GLTF: The c_traj bone could export with incorrect rotations, since the transforms were not reset when looping through actions
• Export: GLTF: Typo error leading to crash the GLTF export, self.arp_ge_gltf_format instead of scn.arp_ge_gltf_format
• Export: Mac: Corrupted vertex groups pointers when transferring/creating weights. Work on a copy as a workaround
• Export: Incorrect meshes transforms when parented to bones, in non-relative parent mode, while the rig scale was not initialized
• Export: Error when exporting actions, while the rig has no action assigned at the time of the export
• Export: Some non selected actions could be exported anyway
• Rig: Add Blink Pose: The master controllers had incorrect blink pose rotation, due to Quaternion instead of Euler rotations
• Rig: Updated preset files to latest version
• Rig: Missing custom shapes from the master file. Custom shapes are now located in a separate "cs" file to avoid accidental removal
• Rig: Mac: Appending the Bird armature throws an error, due to a None collection
• Rig: Tools: Missing update trigger when snapping IK-FK, when no ChildOf constraint was found, leading to bad snap
• Rig: Limb duplication issues: error when duplication limbs, missing bone drivers duplication, foot heel constraints inverted
• Rig: More than 2 head limbs not aligning when Match to Rig
• Rig: Update Armature: bone already in collection error
• Rig: Foot fist mirror was not supported
• Rig: Incorrect meshes transforms that are parented to bones, when performing "Match to Rig" while nit Scale" was enabled. Since ChildOf constraints (such as eye controller) are reset at the end of the process, it was necessary to re-parent meshes at the end too
• Rig: Limb Options: The Soft IK LimitScale constraint was always generated, without checking if it was already there
• Rig: Limb Options: The arm setting "Update Vertex Groups" was not saved
• Rig: Limb Options: 3 Bones leg Type 1 was not enabling the c_thigh_b bone deform tag
• Rig: Joint Fans shapes were not symmetrical
• Rig: Custom shapes: Shape mirorring was not supporting extra transforms
• Rig: Tools: Fingers IK-FK snap inaccurate pole position
• Rig: Spline IK: Avoid crash in 4.4 by ensuring drivers are removed before the constraint
• Skin: VHDS: Binding with X-Mirror enabled was forcing the bones transforms symmetry accidentally
• Remap: Error "arp_smart_markers_enable"
• Smart: Markers and connection line error, preventing display
  

>Older Release Logs