HIVE AUTORIGGER – PAGE CONTENTS

Overview
Training: Hive Introduction
Training: Guides Workflow
Training: Skin Workflow
Training: Pole Vectors, Spine, Fingers
Training: FK Chains
Compatibility
Road Map
Hive API
Beta Note
The Team

HIVE AUTORIGGER – OVERVIEW

Revolutionize your animation workflow with the Hive Auto-Rigger, now available within Zoo Tools Pro .

Hive’s clean and intuitive rigging with its fast and lightweight performance, will transform your animation process, and its rigging capabilities are tailored to suit the needs of users at all skill levels.

Zoo Tools Pro offers a wide range of animation tools integrated into one software package, making the rigs ideal for animators.

Hive’s game engine compatibility, paired with our Hive Export FBX tool, ensures smooth animation transfer to a wide range of software.

The Hive rig builder is designed with professional animation pipelines in mind and includes a robust Developer API. Easily upgrade or rebuild rigs within the user interface or via command line, and customize your Rig Names to align with your studio.

Hive rigs are vanilla Maya compatible, allowing easy sharing with others without the need for them to have Zoo Tools installed. However, access to enhanced features such as right-click menus and animator tools requires a Zoo Tools installation.

Status: Hive is in beta and production ready. See our Road Map below.

Compatibility: Maya Commercial, Indie, and Edu. 2020-2023.

TRAINING VIDEO 01 – HIVE INTRODUCTION

The video above showcases the Hive Auto-Rigger and includes a demonstration of the Natalie Rig and its animator features.

Learn how to build, rebuild, and customize rigs with ease.

Studio Library , a free animation browser for Maya, is also featured.

TRAINING VIDEO 02 – FAQ – HIVE GUIDES WORKFLOW

Streamline your animation workflow with Hive’s intuitive guide placement features. In this video, learn tips and tricks for quickly pinning components, aligning and snapping guides, and utilizing pole vectors for precise control.

Discover how to move guides without affecting others and disable Hive’s right-click marking menus for even more efficiency.

TRAINING VIDEO 03 – FAQ – HIVE SKIN OVERVIEW

This video provides an overview of the process of binding skin to a Hive Rig using the appropriate deformation joints. Other skinning tips are also shared. For a more in-depth look at the skinning workflow, additional videos will be made available in the near future.

Topics covered include:

– Utilizing Hive’s Skeleton Deformation Skin Sets
– Default Skin Settings
– Zoo Marking Menus
– Zoo Skinning Toolbox
– Hive Export FBX Tool
– Utilizing third-party skinning tools
– Transferring Skin Weights to clothing
– Adding/Removing Joints
– Duplicating Original Mesh
– Transferring UVs to skinned meshes.

TRAINING VIDEO 04 – FAQ – POLE VECTORS, SPINE, FINGERS

In this video, we delve into the frequently asked questions related to guide placement.

Topics covered include the proper placement of feet, the use of pole vectors, the mechanics of the spline spine, and tips for orienting fingers and utilizing the auto-align attribute setting.

See more follow-up videos on the FK Chain component below.

TRAINING VIDEO 05 – FAQ – FK CHAINS & AUTO-ALIGN ORIENTS

In this video, we delve into the versatile FK Chain component. This powerful tool can be used for a wide range of applications, including clothing, appendages, hair, props, facial features, and more.

You will learn how to:

– Create FK Trees
– Orient FK Chains
– Utilize Auto-Align and Manual Orient settings
– Match Hive joints to standard Maya joints
– Position controls and assign colors
– Apply skinning to the mustache and mirror skinning
– Match Center Pivots.

See more videos below for rigging the brows and hat components.

TRAINING VIDEO 06 – FAQ – RIG BROW FK CHAINS

In this video, we’ll dive into the process of rigging toon-style eyebrows using Hive’s FK Chain component. We’ll cover techniques such as inverting axis orientations, using FK Trees, and precise skinning.

Additionally, we’ll showcase community tools like Braverabbit’s Smooth Skin and Skin Wrangler to enhance your workflow. By the end of the video, you’ll have the knowledge and skills needed to rig brows and save them as templates for reuse in the future.

TRAINING VIDEO 07 – FAQ – RIG & SKIN THE HAT

In this video, you’ll learn how to rig a hat using the FK component. Specifically, you’ll see how to properly orient the joints and disable auto-orientation to achieve the desired angle. The video covers the following key points:

– Using FK Trees for rigging the hat
– Aligning the controls with a Y-up orientation
– Utilizing Skin Wrangler and Braverabbit Smooth Weights for skinning

This concludes the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) training series.

MORE HIVE TRAINING MATERIALS

We are currently in the process of releasing our Hive training materials. Additional videos will be available soon and will cover comprehensive character rigging and deformation methods.
 
 

HIVE COMPATIBILITY

Hive is designed to work with Maya 2020 and later versions, as it utilizes new matrix attributes not available in previous versions of Maya. As a result, it is not compatible with Maya 2019 and earlier.

Zoo Tools Pro and our other tools are compatible with Linux, OSX, and Windows, and are functional on versions of Maya ranging from 2017 to 2023.

ROAD MAP

The Hive rigging system is currently in its second stage Beta testing phase.

The focus during the previous Alpha stage was on user-friendliness for artists, as well as the ability for TD’s and riggers to easily extend functionality. The Alpha stage also included an emphasis on creating lightweight rigs and support for game engines.

With the Alpha stage now completed, we are now in the process of developing and enhancing our rig components during the current Beta stage.

Upon completion of the Beta phase, we will continue to add additional animation tools, support for motion capture, and facial rigging components.
 
 
Alpha (complete 2.6.9 and below)
– (complete) FK (handles multi chain fk)
– (complete) FK Spine (with space switching)
– (complete) Simple Neck/Head
– (complete) IK/FK Arms with FK fingers, stretch and twists (bendy is part of Beta)
– (complete) IK/FK Legs rev foot, stretch and twists (bendy is part of Beta)

– (complete) Space Switching frame/key/bake
– (complete) Gimbal switching frame/key/bake
– (complete) IK/FK Switching frame/key/bake
– (complete) Game Engine FBX Export (Hive Export FBX Tool)
– (complete) Inbuilt reference model/skeleton. (Hive Reference Model Skeleton Tool)

– (complete) Fast intuitive builds
– (complete) Custom Joint Orients (stage one)
– (complete) Easy control curve modification, and controls save with templates
– (complete) Rebuilds while maintaining skin weights
– (complete) Build and match symmetry in guides mode.
– (complete) Duplicate components.
– (complete) Save templates saves modified proportions and controls.
– (complete) Dynamic Naming for engines and studios (Hive Naming Convention Tool)
 
 
Beta (2.7.0 and above)
– (complete) Spline Spine
– (complete) Limb Lower/Upper Stretchy Update
– (complete) Mirror pose and animation tooling.
– (next up) Bendy for arms and legs, soft ik.
– (next up) Limb guides build improvements.
– (coming soon) Quad Leg component
– (coming soon) Spline Tail component
 
 
Official Release (Coming Soon)
– (outstanding) More animation tooling,
– (outstanding) mocap/support with other rig systems
– (outstanding) Face components
– And more.

PRODUCTION USE & API

Hive is designed to be highly customizable and adaptable for production use. It features its own Hive API , built on top of Maya’s API 2, to facilitate extension and modification.

Our development efforts are currently focused on adding additional rigging and animation functionality to the platform.

If you are a technical director and are interested in extending Hive’s capabilities, please contact us at info@create3dcharacters.com.

Hive is built on Python and Open Maya 2, and provides the option to create rig parts using both cmds and pymel.

BETA

Beta denotes that the selection of components for the rig is still undergoing changes, with additional parts being added.

The rigs are relatively stable and can be considered suitable for production use with caution. Minor low-level bugs are still being resolved.

WE APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT

Thank you for your interest in our project. We hope you find it enjoyable.

Please note that this is only the beginning, as Hive is an extensive ongoing project designed to evolve and expand.

TEAM

David Sparrow:
– All backend code and code design
– Rig design

Andrew Silke:
– UI Design
– Workflows
– Rig & Animator direction

Special thanks to Keen Foong for his work on the Hive UI.