Monday, August 22nd, 2016 Posted by Jim Thacker

Lucas Veber releases Auto-Rig Pro


Illumination Mac Guff character animator Lucas Veber – whose movie credits include Minions and The Secret Life of Pets – has released Auto-Rig Pro, a self-explanatorily titled commercial add-on for Blender.

Create detailed, production-ready body and facial rigs semi-automatically
Veber describes Auto-Rig Pro as providing “essentially all” of the features of free Blender rigging add-on Rigify, plus more advanced functionality like separate male and female rig types, IK-FK snap and a stretchy spine.

As with similar systems, users append the rig to a 3D character, adjust its proportions to match that of the model, and the software generates the finished rig automatically.

To judge from the demo above, set-up is a relatively lengthy, but straightforward, process.

Aside from the fact that it’s designed by a professional character animator, the main selling point of Auto-Rig Pro looks to be the facial animation rig that it generates, including detailed eye, brow and mouth controls.

The add-on also comes with creation tools for creating shape key drivers. You can see the facial rigging workflow from around 09:00 in the video above.

Pricing and availability
Auto-Rig Pro is available for Blender 2.7x running on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X. The add-on is available through Blender Market, and costs $10.


Read more about Auto-Rig Pro on the add-on’s page on Blender Market