Rigging & Animation Tools

Auto-rig, retargeting, and animation middleware.

• AccuRIG. Free application designed for fast and easy character rigging.
• AdvancedSkeleton Free, non-commercial. Maya rigging tool that builds rebuildable rigs for bipeds, creatures and props.
• Animation Layers Paid. Blender add-on for layer-based animation with blending, merging and baking.
• animBot Paid. Maya animation toolset for key editing, tweening, mirroring and graph editor helpers.
• AnimKit Paid. Dockable Maya toolbar of selection-aware animation tools for tweening, key manipulation, and workflow cleanup.
• APEX (Houdini) Paid. SideFX's procedural node-based rigging framework.
• Auto-Rig Pro (Blender) Paid. Automatic rigging and retargeting.
• BlenRig 6 (Blender). Free Blender auto-rigging system from the open movies with guided setup, body and face rig and muscle-like deformation.
• CC Auto Setup (3ds Max). Free 3ds Max plugin that imports Character Creator and iClone characters as Biped or CAT rigged, shaded characters.
• Character DNA Free tier. Blender add-on that imports, edits and exports MetaHuman DNA files with RigLogic expressions.
• CloudRig. Blender Studio rig generator that builds production character rigs from a metarig.
• CvWrap. Open-source wrap deformer for Maya that binds one mesh to another, faster than the built-in wrap.
• EasyMocap. Open-source toolbox for markerless human motion capture and novel view synthesis from RGB videos.
• Faceit Paid. Blender add-on that generates facial shape keys for any character and imports ARKit and Audio2Face capture.
• GS CurveTools Paid. Maya plugin for building curve-driven hair cards, braids and tubes for real-time hair.
• Hive Auto-Rigger (Zoo Tools Pro) Paid. Modular Maya auto-rigger for body and joint-based facial rigs, part of Zoo Tools Pro.
• Mesh2Motion. FREE & open-source web application to animate your 3D models. Supports humanoid, four-legged, and bird creatures.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Mocap & Animation Libraries
• mGear. Open-source modular rigging and animation framework for Maya, with the ueGear Unreal bridge.
• ngSkinTools. Maya skinning plugin with weight layers, mirroring and smoothing brushes. Free since the Autodesk acquisition.
• Onion Skin Renderer. Onion Skin Renderer for Maya.
• ossos. A complete character skinning & animation library for the web.
• Ragdoll Dynamics Paid. Physics-based posing and animation: pose characters by dragging a simulated ragdoll. Maya, Blender, standalone.
• RealMotion Pro Paid. Blender add-on with a 450+ clip built-in library and 1,700+ mocap animations, retargeting to Auto-Rig Pro, Rigify, Mixamo, and Daz rigs.
• Rigify (Blender). Blender's bundled modular auto-rigger: generates human and animal control rigs from metarig templates.
• Studio Library Free tier. Maya pose and animation library for saving, mirroring and blending poses.
• trigger. Operational code-driven rigging tool for Autodesk Maya.