charRigger
This script takes a bunch of specific pointHelpers and auto creates a nice bone and control rig for character animation. This includes custom attributes and a stretchy bone and stretchy arm system - custom finger setup and more.
The pictures here show one of the sample scene files included with the ZIP download - and how the rig looks after just pressing the 'Create All' button.
The Auto-Generated character rig and script has the following features (some are optional):
-Set up half the point helpers - and automatically mirror the helpers to the other side so you only have to lay out half the rig.
-Supports both Biped and Quadruped setups.
-Easily moveable 'placementCTRL' for moving the entire rig or rotating the entire rig at once - even after animation has been done.
-Feet and Arms can be rigged at angles - so that the feet do not have to point exactly forward when rigging. Arms can be angled downwards during rigging as well - for better skinning results.
-IK Leg and Arm Setup.
-Pseudo-FK Arm setup. It gives you FK controls - but you can still take the hand and move/offset it from the regular FK arm rotation.
-Automatic Shoulder/Clavicle bone that works with IK hand animation to automatically rotate as needed. Can be blended on and off.
-Automatic Wrist Twist bones that allow manual override if desired.
-Hands can be 'local' or relative to the upper body - or can be locked down to the world placementCTRL in 'world' mode. Blending between the two is supported.
-Optional stretchy legs and arms.
-Three spine rig options including simple FK - FK with a reverse independent hip - and a look-At IK system.
-Independent head control - so that you don't have to counter-animate the head.
-Finger setup on a separate control than the hand - for easier keying. Attributes to drive each finger - thumb - and spread is automatically wired. Individual override finger controls are also created.
-Auto-wired finger curl can be controlled during Rigging so that fingers farther down the chain rotate more/faster than earlier ones by setting percentages.
-Control and bone and color can be user specified.
-All control objects are spline shapes. This means they can be easily modified or scaled in Edit-Spline sub-object mode - to make them fit or look however you like. The can also easily be hidden using Max's built in display tools.
-Selection sets for Bones - Controls - and other items are automatically created for easy selecting - and hiding or un-hiding of the rig.
NOTE: This requires MAX 5.00 for the new spine lookAt-IK stuff...although other basic features will probably work in 4.20. However fingers and other items may also be wrong if ran in r4 vs. r5. Note too that the orientation of the 'helper' objects has changed from r4 to r5 sample files - so that you need to use the new r5 helpers to get things like feet controls created properly.