New Version – Zoo Tools Pro 2.9.3

We’re excited to announce the release of Zoo Tools 2.9.3d.

Introducing the Brow Facial Component for the Hive Autorigger! This versatile, fully-featured tool supports various characters, from realistic human brows to creatures of all kinds. It’s designed to work seamlessly in diverse scenarios, making creating expressive and detailed brow rigs easier than ever.

Natalie’s face rig is now all Hive driven! With a mouth blend shape setup.

Hive facial controls now include the joint-based brow and eye components.

The new Biped Universal Builder is our latest tool for quickly constructing biped rigs. Whether you’re starting with a universal mesh or a custom design, this tool simplifies the process:

Add any generic mesh.
Tag the key pivot locations.
Sculpt or deform the mesh as needed.
Instantly rig the mesh.

Hive automatically generates a rig that perfectly matches a mesh, or if nothing is selected, it’s ideal for rapid biped rig creation, even without a universal mesh.

With the 2.9.3a patch release on October 30th, we have further stress-tested Hive and started rolling out various fixes to make Hive even more bulletproof from user-generated issues.

Patch release, 2.9.3b and 2.9.3c, adds more Hive bug fixes with new animation features, hotkeys and the new tool Zoo Speedometer.

Patch Release 2.9.3d released 18th of November fixes a few Hive regressions from the 2.9.3c patch, including twist and bendy breaking in Hive.

OVERVIEW – HIVE AUTO RIGGER

Hive Enhancements (2.9.3 Release Oct 21)
– A beta version of the Complex Brow (Face) Component has been added.
– The new tool, Universal Biped Builder, automatically creates rigs that match universal mesh proportions.

Hive Enhancements (2.9.3a Release Oct 30)
– The Hive Templates Biped_Face, Head_Face, and Natalie now include components for brow, teeth, tongue, and nose. (2.9.3a Patch)
– The Hive UI now features a validation process that identifies potential rig issues, alerting the user beforehand to prevent errors. (2.9.3a Patch)
– Added a convenient tool for exporting Hive rigs, including animation to new Maya files, similar to Maya’s File > Export Selection. (2.9.3a Patch)
– FBX Export Tool now includes a validation process that checks for potential errors and alerts the user. (2.9.3a Patch)
– Hive now locks non-control groups so artists cannot accidentally modify unwanted transformations for Guides Mode and Rigged characters. (2.9.3a Patch)

Hive Enhancements (2.9.3b Release Nov 12)
– FK component joint guides can be deleted in the right-click menu.
– Hive FBX now checks for non-deformer history

New Component: Brow (Facial)
The new brow is a complex component that accommodates humans, creatures and cartoon designs. This is a joint-driven component and full game engine FBX compatible.

– Four main intuitive controls shape the brow, with the inner and outer controls automatically positioning the inner controls.

– Brow controls can be rotated, and the tangents of the brow curve can be adjusted.

*The controls can be rotated and have channel box tangent settings.*

– The Rail Control orients the whole brow with a single control.

– Secondary controls allow for precise adjustments to each CV in the brow curve.

– Brows can move in arcs that you can set with three rail curves to fit any head shape.

Brows move along rails that fit any head shape.

– Joints can align with the curve for cartoon floating brows.
– Joint Rotation Follow Curve: On (Hive UI > Brow Setting)

Edgeloops follow the direction of the curve for toon floating brows.

– Or joints/edge-loops remain oriented to the head for realism.
– Joint Rotation Follow Curve: Off (Hive UI > Brow Setting)

Edgeloops follow the head skin for more realistic brow types (default).

– Fully modular brow covers many character and creature types.

New Tool – Universal Biped Builder
The Universal Biped Builder quickly creates a rig from an optional universal mesh.

Universal meshes share topology and can be any proportion. The Biped Builder automatically places pivots. Mesh proportions can easily be changed, sculpted, or matched to another mesh using a program like R3DS Wrap.

Hive Skin Proxy Mesh (Included) instantly creates pivots on various proportions.

The tool doubles as a fast biped rigger if no mesh is selected. Rig with three modes:

1. Proxy Pivots: Instantly create locator pivots that can be adjusted.

Pivots Mode. No mesh selected builds default proportions.

2. Proxy Joints: This builds a temporary skeleton; finger joints can be oriented and further tweaked.

Proxy Joints: Easily orient and refine pivots. Neck and finger pivots can be changed here.

3. Hive Rig: This final stage constructs a Hive rig using the Proxy Joints. Open the Hive UI for additional adjustments.

Hive Rig: Rig is built and can be further modified in the Hive Guides mode.

Add and save Custom Universal Meshes for later use. You can also download and use base meshes such as Character Creator Free Base Mesh (Not Included).

Save custom meshes by tagging vertices. The centre pivots are recorded.

New Tool: Zoo Speedometer (2.9.3b Oct 30)
Zoo Speedometer measures the speed of an animation object in km/hr miles/hr or another unit of your preference. This helps with comparing speeds in the real world or to see numerically how fast your animation is for reference purposes.

The tool creates a null that stores the expression and a HUD to view your object’s speed. Be sure to delete it when you finish, as the HUD remains in new scenes.

*Zoo Speedometer measures the speed of an object.*

Graph Editor Toolbox: Enhancement (2.9.3b Oct 30)
The Graph Editor Toolbox includes new buttons in the patch b release.

– Nudge Keyframe
The Nudge Keyframe section allows you to easily nudge keys in several modes, either from the scene or the selection. It will also work on any selected graph keys or the selected timeline.

Hold shift or alt on the buttons for a faster nudge.

*Nudge keys by various increments, holding keyboard modifiers. Hotkeys are also shown.*

Note: When using hotkeys and selecting nothing, the nudge will default to affecting the entire scene.

– Nudge After Keyframes 1 Frame: shift + left/right arrows
– Nudge After Keyframes 5 Frames: ctrl + alt + left/right arrows
– Nudge After Keyframes 10 Frames: ctrl + alt + shift + left/right arrows

– Nudge Before Keyframes 1 Frame: shift + up/down arrows
– Nudge Before Keyframes 5 Frames: ctrl + alt + up/down arrows
– Nudge Before Keyframes 10 Frames: ctrl + alt + shift up/down arrows

*If upgrading manually, please update the Zoo Hotkeys in the Zoo Preferences Window by going to Zoo Hotkey Editor and selecting Update Zoo Hotkeys.

– Sel Graph Keys From Time
The Timeline Selection in the Graph will select keyframes based on the current time or a specified timeline selection.

*Sel Graph Keys From Time, selects the graph keys from the timeline. Hotkeys also shown.*

– Hotkey: ctrl + shift + alt +x

*If upgrading manually, please update the Zoo Hotkeys in the Zoo Preferences Window by going to Zoo Hotkey Editor and selecting Update Zoo Hotkeys.

– Anim Hold Reverse
The new button, “Anim Hold (Reverse)”, creates an animation hold between two keyframes. This button complements the “Make Anim Hold” button and inverts the behaviour, reverse-copying the animation from the next keyframe to the previous one.

Anim Hold (Reverse) inverts the behaviour of Anim Hold

Animation Toolbox: Enhancement (2.9.3b Oct 30)
The Animation Toolbox also includes new nudge buttons in the patch b release. Refer to the Graph Editor Toolbox notes above.

*Nudge can also be found in the Animation Toolbox.*

Bug Fix: Hive 2.9.3 (Released October 21)
– Eye control and group name conflicts have been resolved. This may impact existing animations during rebuilds.
– The issue with the eye undoing joint counts has been resolved.
– Neck joints are not included in the deformer selection set when twists are active.
– The Eye Scale joint has been added to the set of deformation selections.
– Resolved the issue where the head and neck components failed to auto-align due to added twists.
– The leg component fixed a ball and ball roll name clash. It may affect existing animation when upgraded.
– Fixed the twisted joints, which were not constrained by scale without using bendy joints.

Bug Fix: Hive 2.9.3a (Released October 30)
– Eye joints now support default non-uniform scales, allowing for non-round eyes.
– Guides can no longer be non-uniformly scaled, which caused various build issues unless otherwise supported.
– Brow fixes a critical mirroring issue for the right-hand side rail curve.
– Brow Tangent Attributes can now invert and go below zero values.
– Eye Lid curve colours (guides) have been modified for clarity.
– Fixed an issue regarding incorrectly placed Twist Joints in Maya 2020 & 2022, which caused skinning issues.
– Fixed rig name issues with unsupported characters/letters.

Bug Fix: Hive 2.9.3b (Released November 12)
– Brow Fix allows the brow to be created with a selection of less than four vertices.
– Fix guide annotations that were not always being deleted
– The FK component has improved stability while joint guides are added.
– Fixed bug that caused the ik handle to sometimes become visible.
– Eye Component: A single set of eye curves can be created and rigged.
– Fixed an issue where the right brow flips while moving the head.
– The Eye blend shape locator has attributes exposed for set-driven-key corrective setups.

Bug Fix: Hive 2.9.3c (Released November 13)
– Default arm component twist joints now have the correct twist spacing.
– God node small layout improvement in the Hive UI.

Bug Fix: Hive 2.9.3d (Released November 18)
A fix introduced in version 2.9.3c caused Hive issues that are now resolved in 2.9.3d, particularly affecting Maya 2025.

– Fix the ik/fk foot match, but do not reset extra attributes, e.g., the heelside. Which resulted in a constant shift between matches.
– Fix the ik/fk match undo, not undo foot curls.
– Bendy fixed issues related to incorrect twists and bendy joints in 2025.
– Brow controls were not flipping correctly in 2025 but are now fixed.
– Fix pupil and iris scaling incorrectly when its parent (head) is rotated.
– Locked attributes on the brow_railsMain_anim control that could confuse animators.
– Spline Spine: Fixed individual volume attributes with more than six joints.
– Fixed the polevector in guides mode to prevent it from being disconnected after unparenting components.

Bug Fix: Hive Characterizer & Skin Proxy To Rig
– Hive Characterizer and Skin Proxy To Rig tools are more robust at importing the Skin Proxy skeleton.

Bug Fix: Hive FBX Exporter
– Fixed Up Axis and FBX Format UI are used again in the exporter.
– 2.9.3c fixed a regression in 2.9.b that stopped blend shapes from exporting.
– 2.9.3c non-deformer history check now ignores sets.