Automatron
This is free now
http://www.lotsofrobots.com/automatron/Automatron_FS.htm
Haven't heard about it before, but it looks/sounds awesome
http://www.lotsofrobots.com/automatron/Automatron_FS.htm
Haven't heard about it before, but it looks/sounds awesome
Replies
the most hilarious UI I have ever seen for a script or plugin
I played around with it a year ago and Most of the time you won't have the first 2 windows expanded, except for a few min to preform specific tasks then they to on ignored.
The main window is what you spend most of your time in and it's actually fairly well organized and meant to be "all out in front" not tricky little settings burred in sub menus like so many other rigs.
Everything after the main skeleton control is mostly ignored unless you're working with the hands you might have that one open, then its mostly a pose library mixed with some quick ways to select and rotate the digits. The hand UI has always seemed grotesquely over sized and fugly for what it does. He could probably cut it in half and get the same functionality out of it but a lot of rigs use something similar for the hands, just because its a pain in the ass to select the right digits when they're all balled up, twisted and wagging all over the place.
I liked the procedural walk, mostly because it took into account placing the footsteps on another object so if you had the character walk/run over a hilly piece of mesh it would account for all of that fairly well. I THINK* he even had it able to follow a spline path...
I still prefer to use biped because of the reduced rig clutter, fast work flow, Motion Mixer, its pose library and its portability. But I have to tip my hat to him for cooking it all up and sticking to it for so long.
For non-bipedal aniamtion I would put CAT above puppetshop, and both above biped, but for bipedal, its biped all the way. I passed on this when it wasn't free, now that's its free I would still probably pass, its just not my cup of tea, and CAT and Biped are included with Max and fill the role of of light and quick rigs really well.
The main thing I like about biped is that it doesn't have 2-3 skeletons doing their own thing (IK, FK, resulting) it's all handled on the one rig. If you want to position an arm by grabbing the hand and moving it you can, if you want to rotate all the joints into that position thats fine too, you don't have to manage one IK (position) skeleton and one FK (rotation) skeleton or snap one to the other its all the same thing. I love that simplicity and quickness. Which is something CAT PuppetShop, and even this one fail to do, but biped does well.
Ironically I've seen a few "new and amazing" rigs created for Maya that feature this type of easy work flow but its been in Biped ever since it was Character Studio (Max3.5). Going back to IK/FK snapping and managing it all is a pain in the ass and just needs to die out.
This rig is a step backward to the traditional IK/FK blending days, and I'd rather not go back.
Why they haven't taken the time to cook up a fast flexible rig for Maya yet I'm not sure...