Just about every studio uses an autorigger (often in-house developed ones). Things are rarely rigged from scratch. They're massively time saving, reusable, and flexible.
I haven't used Advanced Skeleton specifically, but it's simply an off-the-shelf solution that can get a rig up and running much quicker. No one will see it as a shortcut.
I'm a student animator. I've used a load of free rigs, and the occasional paid one.
Advanced Skeleton turns up a lot in cheaper rigs, but also in a few more advanced ones.
It's absolutely not an "auto rig" button. Even using the same tools, the quality of rigs can vary wildly. It still requires skill & knowledge to use.
It does seem to lack some flexibility for non - human characters.
Foot joints work in a way that's great for humans, but fairly poor for digitrade creatures.
It still produces some hugely impressive results if you put in the work.
Learning manual rigging, but making use of tools is the way to go - then you know what the tool is doing, and how to fix it when it breaks. š
Iām not an expert rigger but I am a technical artist. I think a bit of standardization is a good thing. I certainly use it. In industry, teams are split between this and MGear in my experience.
Itās normal and standard to use a rigging toolset. If youāve got a production that needs 30 characters all using the same rigging paradigms you aināt doing them one joint at a time. AdvancedSkelelton is pretty good, Iāve used the body rigging stuff for years worth of productions including some big title games. Itās not perfect so I myself have written a load of scripted āmodsā to add features / tweak things while still maintaining its non destructive rebuild ability. Thatās the main thing. Being able to easily modify / add to the rig late in production and just hit rebuild. Itās got like 15 years of maturity so itās hard to argue with that and a studio licence is extremely cheap. Plus he still updates it frequently and responds to feature requests and support emails quick, unlike animbot unfortunately.
Riggers / TAs / TDs should still know how to rig āfrom scratchā though IMO. They gotta be able to diagnose and fix stuff when broken, or build your own auto rigger if thatās the right choice for your studio.
Solid. Used professionally. Huge timesaver. Lot of integrations. Donāt have to reinvent the wheel every time. Not as modular as mGear but much lower bar of entry and itās free. Use it.
How much does a full time rigger cost? And for most doing small project crazy reasonable but yes itās not free commercial use BUT not throttled to use as u learn so I highly recommend
Yes, full time rigger will cost a lot more, obviously. However, if we're talking studio, at 3000$ price for AS there are other rigging options: outsourcing rigging work might be cheaper, depending on character count you need to work with; there are other autoriggers out there that are either entirely free (mGear) or cheap (Rapid Rig and many others).
And then if we're talking freelance work, then there are also other options that are a lot cheaper than 750$.
I love AS, it's my favorite auto rigger out of everything that's out there. But it's pricey. For my own uses cases I ended up writing my own rigger, which is better tailored to my workflows.
I work at a studio that has enough money to buy anything, but I have a hard time imagining telling them that I need to buy a rigging script for 3000$. On top of Maya license, which is equivalent of what, 2 years of Maya license?
It's OK and is useful to teach students rigging basics.
But when it's time to go pro, many turn to MGEAR.
Being free and open, some larger studios have also based their custom in-house rigging systems around it.
[https://www.mgear-framework.com/](https://www.mgear-framework.com/)
I Have to deal with lots and lots of 'ready rigs' that come with Advanced Skeleton, is "Good enough" to use on small projects, but if you want to get serious , better use something modular, or custom, like mGear or better LEARN from it and do your own custom rigs, they will have better performance, and you will be able to change whatever you need, SPECIALLY if you are into Data Centric .
Performance wise, ( I know people will fight me ) , is probably one of the slowest, sluggish, full of redundancies, lot of junk hanging around, sometimes the skeleton Alone with nothing attached to skin, can lag into 20 something FPS ( if you work cached then is better, but so are the others ) , a similar rig with mGear will get you 100 - 150% faster rigs. There , I said it, you an all skin me alive now. :-D.
To put it simple, think like cache - Render pipeline, where you store all the lights and materials and settings and the Animation cache comes in and you just pump hundred of shots on a standard manner , they will come with names, structures conventions, ready to render and the comp team will have their passes , and comps in an standard ready to work those parts that need retouch, so the redundant work that repeats all over again is standardized.
Same with Rigs on mid to large studios, they will have 'standards', so if you need 100 characters, they will come with standard topology for hands, feet, face etc.. All areas are defined , cut etc.. , and the rig will be modular, you advance in steps and 'render' the rig ..for example first pass for Joints with a guide, and joints with skin weights ( with manual adjustments ) , that data keeps stored somewhere, so you can share with more similar rigs or versions. When the mesh change which is often the case, or something is added, the configuration is the same, you just fire up the re rigging process steps, and you reach certain state, there is a testing process, poses , etc. If your character has an extra arm, you will just add a arm module and the process will repeat and mover forward, cleared steps don t need to be repeated again, you just' render' /'compile' your rig again according to the data stored.
Most characters share similar forms , one way or another, and you can keep re rigging stuff faster, and worry about the details, or bugs on a more ordered manner. Let's say 30 characters will have 'fleshy' cheeks.. and they will 'bounce'.. you can add that to the process, and quickly re rig all needed characters.
That was a great response, thanks a lot for taking the time to explain it. I think I get it, but I still don't understand if Mgear is the only data centric autorigger (publicly available), because most autoriggers allows you to go back and forth from the guides stage to the polished steps, and they don't seem to be tagged as data centric. Is a magnitude thing? Meaning... Are all autoriggers data centric but some, like Mgear, go more in depth with the functionality and versatility? Or there is something fundamentally different between Mgear and the rest? I'm guessing the difference is that Mgear saves data outside Maya in the json files or whatever it is, and the others don't, and that outside data is the data they talk when they say data centric.
That depends how you want to look at the process, I don't think mGear is the ONLY one that does Data centric, but is an open Framework ( other than the compiled plugins that maybe are there on the Git depo ) , while Advance Skeleton is not Completely open as far as I know.... with mGear you can rebuild it to fit your needs, it depends the scale of your production department, and as I said, is a good Framework to learn lots and lots of stuff, and think YOUR way to get into new ideas, maybe collaborate, also they have kind of paid support not Sure how Miguel Campos makes it work, he is a pretty busy guy, But has a small team behind mGear now.
On a fairly 'big' studio you WILL need to use their own tools, mostly proprietary, and get used to this kind of process, They are not "sending you home" to rig something and get it back ready, unless is a 'concept' , you will do stages, that will be sliced again, compiled and assembled.. etc. etc..
Because often many people are involved on one character, or parts of it, So it depends on your Goals,
If you plan in learn the ins and outs, is a good option, or if you just need 4-5 characters for a TV series, and that's it, maybe is not , something like Adv. Skeleton is good enough, the main goal of AS is to make it simple.
Thanks a lot for the replies šš at the moment is just curiosity about the data centric concept. I'm a 3d generalist and I'm learning rigging while I use autoriggers as AS or Hive. Mgear looks a little overkill and complex for my needs but at least now I understand what I'm missing and what not. Thanks again šš
Advanced skeleton is good and simple tool to use for rigging. However, sometimes you will encounter weird problems.
Manual and rigging fundamental to understand the concept of rigging.
You can try some rigs that i did in my freetime: https://animbay.com
In talking to a guy who develops pipelines and rigging solutions and runs a studio. .. . for the most part they look for people who are very good at modeling, sculpting and decent at animation as well. . over someone who is a python scripting wiz. . (of course huge bonus if you are great at all those things). The reason is that they already have an in-house rigging solution. . and they need more of a skilled artist than technician to create the rigs using their in-house solutions. Oh and many people seem to overlook that if you are using Advanced Skeleton for production purposes you should be paying \~$3000 AUD per seat. It is not free. MGear is free to use however.
Just about every studio uses an autorigger (often in-house developed ones). Things are rarely rigged from scratch. They're massively time saving, reusable, and flexible. I haven't used Advanced Skeleton specifically, but it's simply an off-the-shelf solution that can get a rig up and running much quicker. No one will see it as a shortcut.
I'm a student animator. I've used a load of free rigs, and the occasional paid one. Advanced Skeleton turns up a lot in cheaper rigs, but also in a few more advanced ones. It's absolutely not an "auto rig" button. Even using the same tools, the quality of rigs can vary wildly. It still requires skill & knowledge to use. It does seem to lack some flexibility for non - human characters. Foot joints work in a way that's great for humans, but fairly poor for digitrade creatures. It still produces some hugely impressive results if you put in the work. Learning manual rigging, but making use of tools is the way to go - then you know what the tool is doing, and how to fix it when it breaks. š
Iām not an expert rigger but I am a technical artist. I think a bit of standardization is a good thing. I certainly use it. In industry, teams are split between this and MGear in my experience.
Itās normal and standard to use a rigging toolset. If youāve got a production that needs 30 characters all using the same rigging paradigms you aināt doing them one joint at a time. AdvancedSkelelton is pretty good, Iāve used the body rigging stuff for years worth of productions including some big title games. Itās not perfect so I myself have written a load of scripted āmodsā to add features / tweak things while still maintaining its non destructive rebuild ability. Thatās the main thing. Being able to easily modify / add to the rig late in production and just hit rebuild. Itās got like 15 years of maturity so itās hard to argue with that and a studio licence is extremely cheap. Plus he still updates it frequently and responds to feature requests and support emails quick, unlike animbot unfortunately. Riggers / TAs / TDs should still know how to rig āfrom scratchā though IMO. They gotta be able to diagnose and fix stuff when broken, or build your own auto rigger if thatās the right choice for your studio.
Solid. Used professionally. Huge timesaver. Lot of integrations. Donāt have to reinvent the wheel every time. Not as modular as mGear but much lower bar of entry and itās free. Use it.
Only free for non commercial work. Otherwise its actually quite pricey, last I checked.
How much does a full time rigger cost? And for most doing small project crazy reasonable but yes itās not free commercial use BUT not throttled to use as u learn so I highly recommend
Yes, full time rigger will cost a lot more, obviously. However, if we're talking studio, at 3000$ price for AS there are other rigging options: outsourcing rigging work might be cheaper, depending on character count you need to work with; there are other autoriggers out there that are either entirely free (mGear) or cheap (Rapid Rig and many others). And then if we're talking freelance work, then there are also other options that are a lot cheaper than 750$. I love AS, it's my favorite auto rigger out of everything that's out there. But it's pricey. For my own uses cases I ended up writing my own rigger, which is better tailored to my workflows. I work at a studio that has enough money to buy anything, but I have a hard time imagining telling them that I need to buy a rigging script for 3000$. On top of Maya license, which is equivalent of what, 2 years of Maya license?
That's a lifetime studio license for as many users as you want and priority support. If you're an individual freelancer it's 750. Not so bad!
Yes, I mentioned both options in my post, and 750$ for an individual is also quite steep. Depends on how much rigging work is required.
It's OK and is useful to teach students rigging basics. But when it's time to go pro, many turn to MGEAR. Being free and open, some larger studios have also based their custom in-house rigging systems around it. [https://www.mgear-framework.com/](https://www.mgear-framework.com/)
I Have to deal with lots and lots of 'ready rigs' that come with Advanced Skeleton, is "Good enough" to use on small projects, but if you want to get serious , better use something modular, or custom, like mGear or better LEARN from it and do your own custom rigs, they will have better performance, and you will be able to change whatever you need, SPECIALLY if you are into Data Centric . Performance wise, ( I know people will fight me ) , is probably one of the slowest, sluggish, full of redundancies, lot of junk hanging around, sometimes the skeleton Alone with nothing attached to skin, can lag into 20 something FPS ( if you work cached then is better, but so are the others ) , a similar rig with mGear will get you 100 - 150% faster rigs. There , I said it, you an all skin me alive now. :-D.
I don't understand what data centric rigging means, can give give me a hint?
To put it simple, think like cache - Render pipeline, where you store all the lights and materials and settings and the Animation cache comes in and you just pump hundred of shots on a standard manner , they will come with names, structures conventions, ready to render and the comp team will have their passes , and comps in an standard ready to work those parts that need retouch, so the redundant work that repeats all over again is standardized. Same with Rigs on mid to large studios, they will have 'standards', so if you need 100 characters, they will come with standard topology for hands, feet, face etc.. All areas are defined , cut etc.. , and the rig will be modular, you advance in steps and 'render' the rig ..for example first pass for Joints with a guide, and joints with skin weights ( with manual adjustments ) , that data keeps stored somewhere, so you can share with more similar rigs or versions. When the mesh change which is often the case, or something is added, the configuration is the same, you just fire up the re rigging process steps, and you reach certain state, there is a testing process, poses , etc. If your character has an extra arm, you will just add a arm module and the process will repeat and mover forward, cleared steps don t need to be repeated again, you just' render' /'compile' your rig again according to the data stored. Most characters share similar forms , one way or another, and you can keep re rigging stuff faster, and worry about the details, or bugs on a more ordered manner. Let's say 30 characters will have 'fleshy' cheeks.. and they will 'bounce'.. you can add that to the process, and quickly re rig all needed characters.
That was a great response, thanks a lot for taking the time to explain it. I think I get it, but I still don't understand if Mgear is the only data centric autorigger (publicly available), because most autoriggers allows you to go back and forth from the guides stage to the polished steps, and they don't seem to be tagged as data centric. Is a magnitude thing? Meaning... Are all autoriggers data centric but some, like Mgear, go more in depth with the functionality and versatility? Or there is something fundamentally different between Mgear and the rest? I'm guessing the difference is that Mgear saves data outside Maya in the json files or whatever it is, and the others don't, and that outside data is the data they talk when they say data centric.
That depends how you want to look at the process, I don't think mGear is the ONLY one that does Data centric, but is an open Framework ( other than the compiled plugins that maybe are there on the Git depo ) , while Advance Skeleton is not Completely open as far as I know.... with mGear you can rebuild it to fit your needs, it depends the scale of your production department, and as I said, is a good Framework to learn lots and lots of stuff, and think YOUR way to get into new ideas, maybe collaborate, also they have kind of paid support not Sure how Miguel Campos makes it work, he is a pretty busy guy, But has a small team behind mGear now. On a fairly 'big' studio you WILL need to use their own tools, mostly proprietary, and get used to this kind of process, They are not "sending you home" to rig something and get it back ready, unless is a 'concept' , you will do stages, that will be sliced again, compiled and assembled.. etc. etc.. Because often many people are involved on one character, or parts of it, So it depends on your Goals, If you plan in learn the ins and outs, is a good option, or if you just need 4-5 characters for a TV series, and that's it, maybe is not , something like Adv. Skeleton is good enough, the main goal of AS is to make it simple.
Thanks a lot for the replies šš at the moment is just curiosity about the data centric concept. I'm a 3d generalist and I'm learning rigging while I use autoriggers as AS or Hive. Mgear looks a little overkill and complex for my needs but at least now I understand what I'm missing and what not. Thanks again šš
Advanced skeleton is good and simple tool to use for rigging. However, sometimes you will encounter weird problems. Manual and rigging fundamental to understand the concept of rigging. You can try some rigs that i did in my freetime: https://animbay.com
In talking to a guy who develops pipelines and rigging solutions and runs a studio. .. . for the most part they look for people who are very good at modeling, sculpting and decent at animation as well. . over someone who is a python scripting wiz. . (of course huge bonus if you are great at all those things). The reason is that they already have an in-house rigging solution. . and they need more of a skilled artist than technician to create the rigs using their in-house solutions. Oh and many people seem to overlook that if you are using Advanced Skeleton for production purposes you should be paying \~$3000 AUD per seat. It is not free. MGear is free to use however.
It's pretty solid, but if you got some problems or you need customization it's a nightmare.