Download a free anime-style Maya character rig

Technical animator Chonlawat ‘Takki’ Thammawan has released a neat anime-style Maya character rig based on Reimu Hakurei from Team Shanghai Alice’s Touhou Project games.

The rig was created by Thammawan – whose resume includes work at Nintendo Software Technology and on Pixar virtual reality project Coco VR – as a personal project, and is free for non-commercial use.

A versatile Maya rig for anime-style animation with a readymade toon material
The rig is intended for offline animation work – Thammawan notes that it’s too heavy to be used in-game – ideally with stepped tangents to give a more anime-like result.

It features a hybrid FK/IK spine and limbs, facial controls and controls for animating the hair and clothing, and includes an AnimSchool picker for both the face and body.

Although you can render out using Maya’s Hardware renderer, the character is designed to be animated in Maya’s Viewport 2.0, and comes with a ShaderFX toon material, including an attribute for outline width.

The download also includes a non-toon-shaded version of the character; and the toon version can be switched to use casual modern clothing, making it suitable for use in projects with a range of visual styles.

Licensing and system requirements
The Reimu Hakurei rig is available for Maya on Windows, Linux and macOS. It is free for non-commercial use.

Thammawan also has two other free Maya character rigs to download in his Gumroad store: another fantasy female character and a warrior mech.

Download the free anime-style Maya character rig from Chonlawat Thammawan’s Gumroad store