What is Auto-Rig Pro?

Auto-Rig Pro is an addon for Blender 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 it expanded quickly thanks to great support from the community!

Want to try first? Download Mike, free character rig here.

Rig features demo

Getting Started with Auto-Rig Pro:

Youtube Channel - Documentation - Frequently Asked Questions

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 documentation and the youtube channel for more informations.

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 informations.

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 Featured

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!

Video tutorial, rig a centaur with the multi-limb feature: Centaur Rig

Wings limb for advanced feathers rig: 

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

Advanced Spline IK

3 bones IK for quadrupedal creatures:

Fingers IK-FK:

Intuitive tool to edit the bone shapes, with automatic mirror:

Customizable UI: fully editable layout, buttons positions, colors, background pictures... The picker panel dynamically updates, so you can select any bone from the separate panel easily.

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. It's universal: works with Auto-Rig Pro, Rigify, custom rigs... 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

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

• "Soft-Linking" for cheap stretchy bone effect, Fbx compliant
• Actions are baked to the simplified rig
• Animated shape keys (blend shapes) support
• Selective/multiple action export
• Root motion support

Note: Glb/Gltf export is not yet embedded with Auto-Rig Pro, but the Cascadeur to Game Engines addon supports it!

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:

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...

Tell Me More!

Extensive list of what the addon has to offer:

• Automatic bone placement solver based on mesh recognition for bipeds characters. Asymmetrical models supported.
• 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 rig what you need. Fingers, toes, ears, breast, adjustable amount of spine, neck, twist bones, tail, and neck bones... Duplicate, 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 controller shape edition
• Bone picker: Can be turned on/off, import/export presets. Customizable.
• Colors customization
• Cartoon compliant: stretchy spine, legs, arms...
• IK-FK snap autokey compliant, snaps properly when unlocking all the leg/forearm rotation axis
• IK-FK controllers auto hide
• Hybrid IK pole / IK arrow vector
• 2 or 3 bones IK chains for legs
• 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
• Improved skinning based on Blender's heatmaps. Auto-splitting of multiple elements + voxelization. Compliant with the Voxel Heat Diffuse Skinning addon.
• Shape keys drivers creation tool
• Game engines support, FBX: Unity - Unreal Engine. Generic, Humanoid and Universal rig type
• Bone remapper to retarget any armature action to another one, with different bone names and bone orientations. IK support. BVH, FBX files compliant, e.g. Mixamo animations.
• Compliant with X-Muscle System for 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.

Updates-Support period:

Updates, maintenance of Auto-Rig Pro and support is granted for at least 3 years (from now on).

 

Users Cases:

Auto-Rig Pro is actively used in the film and video-game industry, a few examples:

Usurpator: Video-game (Unreal Engine)

Trail of Nanook: Video-game (Unity)

Team Dronix: TV serie

Gus: TV serie

Julie Jamrock: TV serie (in progress)

Escape Legacy: Ancient Scrolls: Video-game

Mythfits: TV serie (trailer)

And many more!...

Updates:

Make sure to uninstall the current addon before installing the new one and restart blender.

--[3.65.25]--

New/improved:

• Remap: Multiple animation retargetting
  
• Remap: New "Fake User" setting to keep the remapped action even if not used. Always enabled when retargetting multiple animations
• Remap: New modes for IK poles: "Absolute", "Relative:Target", "Relative:Chain". So far it was always set to absolute, which means evaluating the true IK pole vector (which could lead to IK flipping in case of straight angles) unless "Auto-Pole" was checked, which is the equivalent of "Relative:Target". The new "Relative:Chain" mode operates as if the IK pole is a child of the first bone in the IK chain, which can lead to better results.
• Remap: Improved the IK pole position
• Remap: "IK World Space" setting to compute the IK positions in world space, works better if the character is spinning by 180° at some point
• Remap: Added an Auto-Rig Pro preset
  
• Rig: New teeth and tongue settings for facial
  
• Rig: New Arm Lock setting to change the FK upperarm parent space
• Rig: Fingers Rot From Scale setting for the thumb
• Rig: New Sticky Lips feature to keep the lips sealed when the jaw is raising
• Rig: Send an error message when creating a corrective driver with 0 angle
  
• Export: Bone renaming using a custom file
• Export: Support for UE5 humanoid skeletons
• Export: Display the Root Motion setting for Unity as well
  
• Smart: Presets for UE4 (4 spine bones, 1 neck, 1 twist) and UE5 skeletons (6 spine bones, 2 necks, 2 twists)

Fixed:

• Version: Fixed frame range values being float types in Blender 3.1 instead of integer, leading to an error
• Version: Fixed the mesh conversion error in Blender 3.1.2
  
• Export: Fixed error with UE4 legacy option
• Export: Error with relative file path for bone renaming
• Export: Error when exporting fingers to Unity humanoid, introduced by the new UE5 humanoid settings
  
• Rig: Duplicating facial bones was leading to incorrect bone names
• Remap: Throw an error if the root bone has no target
• Remap: Straight IK bones chain were not fixed automatically in some cases
  
• Remap: Retargetting while it's already bound was not working
  

--[3.64.20]--

New/improved:

• Rig: New facial sub-limbs, eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, cheeks, chins can now be enabled or disabled individually from the "Limb Options" menu
  
• Rig: New "Duplicate Mirror" button to duplicate and mirror a limb to the other side (left>right or right>left)
• Rig: Dog and Horse preset updated with 3 bones leg
• Rig: Tail limbs have now a side setting (left, right, or middle), and an "Update Transforms" toggle in case bones transforms must not be initialized when clicking Limb Options
• Rig Layers: the show and hide buttons have been merged into a single toggle. It's more convenient to instantly see what layer is hidden or revealed, however the only drawback is it may get out of sync if objects or bones in the rig layers are shown or hidden using other features that the Rig Layers list.
• Rig Layers: Support for animated visibility (Rig Layers dropdown menu > Animated Layers).
  
• Rig layers: added a select toggle to select bones belonging to the layer
• Rig layers: toggles to show or hide the exclusive and select toggles
  
• Rig Tools: Bones custom properties are now displayed in the Rig Main Properties tab for convenience. Properties can also be pinned to remain always on display, regardless of the selection
• Rig tools: New "Snap Child Of" tool to quickly switch from one Child Of constraint to another, while preserving the original coordinates of the bones. Includes a keyframe button to keyframe all Child Of constraints influence, and support automatic keyframing.
• Rig tools: The "Snap IK/FK" and "Bake IK/FK" buttons were renamed (Snap FK > IK is now Snap IK > FK) in order to be more understandable and intuitive (eventhough the FK chain is actually snapped onto the IK when clicking Snap IK > FK).
• Remap: New Interactive Tweak (Bind) mode to apply interactive tweaks in binding mode only
  
• Remap: New Character Creator preset
  
• Remap: Improved the Unreal Mannequin preset with FK leg bones and c_spine_03.x
  
• Remap: New Perception Neuron preset
  
• Smart: Cosmetic, the green markers circles are now anti-aliased
  
• Smart: Knees could still have inverted pole angle if character models had legs curved backward, a better routine now ensures that knees point frontward.
  
• Export: New settings to export actions as multiple Fbx files
• Misc: New "Check for Updates" button in the Misc tab

Fixed:

• Rig: import-export custom shapes Blender 3.0 compatibility issue
• Rig: Apply Pose as Rest pose didn't support ear bones
• Rig: Apply Pose as Rest Pose was not supporting shape keys drivers with other shape keys as variables
• Rig: When Secondary Controllers are in "Bendy Bones" mode, switched leg bendy bones to "Tangent" end handle for better twist results
  
• Skin: Specials > Two Eyballs still gave incorrect skinning for the given eyeballs
  

> Older Releases Logs