Kangaroo Builder for Maya now supports topology transfer
Rigging artist and tools developer Thomas Bittner has released Kanagaroo Builder 5.19, the latest version of his all-round toolset for creating character rigs for Maya.
The update adds Landmark Warp, a neat new topology transfer tool that makes it possible to warp all of the blendshapes for a 3D character to another character with different topology.
An all-round toolkit for creating character rigs for animation, VFX and games
Bittner describes Kangaroo Builder as his attempt to “create the one ultimate rigging system”, based on his experiences working as a TD and rigging artist at some of the world’s leading VFX and animation studios, including MPC, DreamWorks, Digital Domain and Scanline VFX.
The software has been around for some time – Bittner started work on it in 2019, and it’s now up to version 5.x – but somehow, we’ve never written about it on CG Channel before.
It’s an all-round rig builder, including tools for building full-body rigs and facial rigs, a pose editor, and tools for managing skinning, weight maps and geometry.
The software comes with a set of customizable readymade base rigs, including full-body and facial rigs for human characters, plus horse, dog and bird rigs.
Kangaroo Builder is designed for use in a studio environment as well as on personal projects, providing a pipeline for managing updates to shared assets, and creating backups.
The software is written in Python, and many of the tools can be run individually in Python.
It can also export rigged characters in formats compatible with game engines, including Unreal Engine MetaHumans.
New Landmark Warp tool warps one character into another with different topology
To that Kangaroo Builder 5.19 adds Landmark Warp, a new topology transfer tool.
With it, you can place markers on the surface of a source mesh, identify the equivalent point on a target mesh, and have Kangaroo Builder automatically warp one mesh to match the other.
As well as creating morphing animations of the type shown at the top of the story, it can be used with Kangaroo Builder’s Shape Editor to transfer all of the facial blendshapes for one character to another with different topology, rather than having to resculpt them individually.
Dedicated topology transfer software is often used to create 3D characters from scan data, so potentially, it could even be a quick alternative to tools like Wrap.
Price and system requirements
Kangaroo Builder is compatible with Maya 2023+ on Windows and macOS, and Maya 2024+ on Linux. The new Landmark Warp tool is available from version 5.19 onwards.
The software is free for use on non-commercial projects.
For commercial work, perpetual Indie licenses, for individual artists with less than $85,000/year in revenue, cost $220. Perpetual Studio licenses start at $400.
Read more about Kangaroo Builder for Maya on the product website
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