Mixamo, the first online character animation service, today made available free scripts for Maya and 3DsMax users that allow a 3d artist to realize a fully rigged 3D character in less than a minute starting from any bipedal character model.
Press Release from Mixamo
San Francisco– Mixamo, the first online character animation service, today made available free scripts for Maya and 3DsMax users that allow a 3d artist to realize a fully rigged 3D character in less than a minute starting from any bipedal character model. The scripts add further functionality to Mixamo’s first-in-industry Auto-Rigger service, an online service released in June 2011, that automatically fits a skeleton and calculates skinning weights on an uploaded character model mesh.’
"The Auto-Rigger is, no doubt, a great addition to make our 3D pipeline workflow leaner and more efficient." says Vivid Savitri, VP and Creative Director at Trigger Global, the makers of Evil Dead and Tintin 'Secret of The Unicorn' games among many others.
“Until now the automatically rigged character could be animated in Maya and 3ds Max using forward kinematics or by setting up a custom control rig,” commented Mixamo CEO Stefano Corazza. “The released scripts automatically convert the automatically rigged character into a Biped system or CAT rig in 3ds Max while creating a custom IK/FK control rig for Maya users, making the animation editing process much faster.“
The scripts were developed out of an extensive research Mixamo conducted to identify the best solution for rigging game-ready characters. Although the primary focus of the feature is game characters the rigs can be used for a variety of applications including pre-visualization, simulation, design, and ergonomics. The scripts can be downloaded free of charge for 3ds Max Biped, 3ds Max CAT and Maya.
Characters that are created with the CAT, Biped or Maya custom control rig can be easily animated. Mixamo also provides a large collection of motions that can be automatically applied to the Auto-Rigger characters or any other character. Mixamo recommends the use of layers when external animation data is used and provides several tutorials on the Mixamo website describing the use of layers in Maya or 3ds Max. Auto-Rigger characters are also 100% compatible with the Motionbuilder control rig.
About Mixamo
Mixamo Inc. is a Silicon Valley, VC-funded company founded by 3D pioneers Stefano Corazza, CEO, and Nazim Kareemi. Based on research from Stanford University’s Biomotion lab, Mixamo offers the first online character animation service that provides game developers the power to customize and create professional-quality character animations at unprecedented speeds. Mixamo currently employs a team of outstanding animation and machine learning experts, 3D animators, software engineers and serial entrepreneurs from around the world.
For more information, please visit http://www.mixamo.com, or follow Mixamo on Twitter.
