This free Maya add-on adds secondary motion to characters
Soul of Puppet – aka Character TD and pipeline tools developer Cédric Nicolas – has released PuppetSoul PUPbuildDynamic: a free Maya add-on for adding secondary motion to characters.
The add-on, which is designed for use on geometry-based hair, clothing and trailing body parts like tentacles, is “meant to replace character FX by pure animation”.
The same technology is built into commercial Maya character rigging system PuppetSoul.
Automatically add controllable secondary dynamics to Maya joint chains
PuppetSoul PUPbuildDynamic automatically sets up secondary dynamics for any Maya joint chain to which it is applied, making it possible to add overlap to character animation.
Users can adjust the results by editing control parameters like Stiffness, Damping and Mass.
Although it is possible to use it with only standard Maya nodes, a custom node, PUPdynaNode, adds support for collision objects, wind and gravity, and non-25-fps animation updates.
Nicholas describes the add-on as “specifically designed for animators: easy to set up, easy to control, [and] easy to tweak”.
Also available as part of commercial autorigging framework PuppetSoul
The technology is also available inside PuppetSoul, Soul of Puppet’s commercial character autorigging and animation toolset for Maya.
You can read testimonials from animators on the product website, many from artists who worked on animated feature Richard the Stork 2, on which PuppetSoul was used
Pricing and availability
PuppetSoul PUPbuildDynamic is compiled for Maya 2023 to 2025, although Maya 2025 is recommended to use PUPdynaNode. It’s a free download.
PuppetSoul itself is priced on enquiry.
Download free Maya add-on PuppetSoul PUPbuildDynamic
Read more about PuppetSoul PUPbuildDynamic in the online documentation
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