Auto-Rig Pro v3.70.38 Free Download

What is Auto-Rig Pro?Auto-Rig Pro is an addon for Blender to rig characters, retarget animations, and provide Fbx/Gltf export, with settings for Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot.
First developed as my own in-house rigging tool, I’ve released it a few years ago and it expanded quickly thanks to great support from the community!

Tip: If you want to be notified when a new version is released, then consent to receive emails from creators.

Want to try first? Download Mike, free character rig here.

Rig fast with the Smart feature

For humanoid characters, the Smart feature can automatically place the bones to speed up the process, after adding the green markers. The result remains editable.

Non-humanoid characters can also be rigged without the Smart feature, manually (horse, dog…).

Based on a non-destructive workflow, the final rig remains easily editable anytime after its generation. Check the product documentation and the for more informations.

Built for performances, allowing fast animation playback.

Character examples:

Important note about skinning: If possible, use water-tight geometry for best auto-skinning results. Knowing the bases of Blender’s skinning tools, weight painting, to fine tweak the bones influences is recommended.for more informations.

If you encounter any bugs. Updates are free and will remain free. Also make sure to read the FAQ and the documentation to solve common issues.

Modular – Fully Featured

Customize the rig definition in a few clicks: fingers, wings, toes, spine bones, multiple neck bones, tail, breasts, ears and much more. Duplicate or remove limbs to rig spiders, centaurs… or whatever!

Video tutorial, rig a centaur with the multi-limb feature:

Wings limb for advanced feathers rig:

Kilt limb to rig kilt, dresses, skirt-like clothes

Spline IK limb to rig ropes, tentacles, IK spine…

3 bones IK for quadrupedal creatures:

Fingers and Toes IK-FK:

Intuitive tool to edit the bone shapes, with automatic mirror:

Customizable UI: fully editable layout, buttons positions, colors, background pictures… The picker panel dynamically updates, so you can select any bone from the separate panel easily.

Remap

The Remap feature allows retargetting of any armature action to another one, with different bone names and bone orientations, supporting imported .bvh/.fbx armatures for example. It’s universal: works with Auto-Rig Pro, Rigify, custom rigs… Define the source armature, the target armature, and the animation will retarget according to the bones names matches and bones original orientation.

It support IK feet, hands for accurate motion tracking, and an interactive offset tool to remap to different characters proportions.

Game Engine Export

Complies with Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot…

Export Types:
Universal to export the skeleton of any creatures
Humanoid for bipeds only, with options for easy retargetting and root motion in game engines

Support of multiple twist bones for optimal volume preservation in game engines, where dual quaternions skinning is not possible (top: single twist bone, below: 4 twist bones)
Unit conversion to initialize the scale transforms values to 1.0 in Unity and Unreal Engine
Unreal Mannequin compliant: support Mannequin bones hierarchy, bone axes conversion, bones naming for UE4/UE5
Automatic A-Pose
Support full facial rig, and advanced bones. “Twist” mode for secondary controllers, wrapped on bendy-bones for smooth curves effects, leading to 1:1 export compatibility in Fbx format
“Soft-Linking” for cheap stretchy bone effect, Fbx compliant
Actions are baked to the simplified rig
Animated shape keys (blend shapes) support
Selective/multiple action export
Root motion support

Bring your poses to the next level!

The Secondary Controllers offer a unique control over the pose. Located all along the limbs, they’re dedicated to fine pose sculpting, cartoon effects, bending, stretching, etc. Three deformations mode in option: Twist (exportable to Fbx and bendy-bones based for best compatibility), Additive (exportable to FBX), Bendy-Bones (Blender only).

Just use them instead of corrective shape keys, or as a complement. Below a typical leg bent before and after tweaking the secondary controllers.

Corrective Shape Keys can be created easily with a dedicated tool supporting IK-FK bone chains:

Joints Fans are helper bones in option, allowing correct volume preservation in tricky areas such as elbow, wrist, thigh, knee, even if “Preserve Volume” skinning (Dual Quaternions) is disabled.

ChildOf Constraints Switcher

Easily switch and snap from one ChildOf constraint to another with the automatic ChildOf switcher (universal tool, compatible with any rig)

Rig Layers

Store bones, armature layers, objects and collection in custom rig layers to easily manage the character features: hide or show clothes, hair, bones controller…

Built to Last

Blender is constantly improving and updating, and so is Auto-Rig Pro. But even though upgrades are nice, we don’t want to miss the old rigs because of compatibility issues with newer versions. That’s why backward-compatibility is always ensured at all costs, even if it involves a lot of maintenance on the code side. A legacy menu takes care of preserving features from the past. And if necessary, an “Update” button will upgrade the rigs automatically to the latest requirements, no loss!

Tell Me More!

Extensive list of what the addon has to offer:

Automatic bone placement solver based on mesh recognition for bipeds characters. Asymmetrical models supported.
Edit Reference Bones feature to modify the rig anytime you want. No need to redo everything if a bone is not where you want it to be.
Apply Pose as Rest Pose feature to quickly change the rest pose of the character, aligning reference bones on it and applying armature modifiers in a single click
Modular: only rig what you need. Fingers, toes, ears, breast, adjustable amount of spine, neck, twist bones, tail, and neck bones… Duplicate, remove limbs to rig creatures with multiple arms and legs.
Fingers auto-rotation option: bend when scaling the first phalange, pre-defined fist pose
Easy controller shape edition
Bone picker: Can be turned on/off, import/export presets. Customizable.
Colors customization
Cartoon compliant: stretchy spine, legs, arms…
IK-FK snap autokey compliant, snaps properly when unlocking all the leg/forearm rotation axis
IK-FK controllers auto hide
Hybrid IK pole / IK arrow vector
2 or 3 bones IK chains for legs
Knees and elbows pinning
Head rotation locked or free
Bend all fingers in one click (fingers grasp), fist pre-defined pose, auto rotation of fingers phalanges from scale
IK/FK eyes

Auto-eyelid rotation
Multiple Child-Of constraints support for the IK hands and feet to change their parent space any time (e.g. if the character is driving a car, hands on the wheel, then grab the car door)
Complete set of secondary controllers for fine pose sculpt
Advanced facial setup with automated placement
Improved skinning based on Blender’s heatmaps. Auto-splitting of multiple elements + voxelization. Compliant with the Voxel Heat Diffuse Skinning addon.
Shape keys drivers creation tool
Game engines support, FBX, GLTF: Unity – Unreal Engine – Godot. Generic, Humanoid and Universal rig type
Bone remapper to retarget any armature action to another one, with different bone names and bone orientations. IK support. BVH, FBX files compliant, e.g. Mixamo animations.
Compliant with X-Muscle System for realistic muscles simulation
By buying this addon you support my work and the Blender foundation, its developers financially. A part of each sale is donated to them. It’s worth a big thank you from the open source community, helping Blender remaining free and accessible for everyone! And obviously you ensure the funds for this addon next new features, bugfix. I’m making my best to constantly improve the beast, based on users requests and my own ideas. Have quick look at the release log below. You receive a notification when the addon is updated, and download it for free.