• Maarten

  over 1 year ago

  I was making custom rigs with Rigify before and after learning the real workflow for that from a great youtube series I thought I didn't need Auto Rig Pro anymore as I could build everything with Rigify. And Rigify can create pretty advanced stuff. But after yet another error I got with Rigify I decided to give Auto Rig Pro a shot. And man, what a fresh air. Didn't regret it for a second and was instantly sold.
  
  The documentation I made for myself to quickly go through rigging and skinning processes for creating new characters is so much shorter now that I use this add on compared to the one I'd created before for using Rigify. Which had all kinds of 'if this error appears... than do this' and 'now open this tab, and than scroll to there', 'there is an issue in this template, so replace this bone and give it this rig type' etc.
  
  With Auto Rig Pro it's none of that and the experience is way more intuitive and nice. Everything you need is all in one panel. No need to click around everywhere anymore. No more rigify errors to avoid. The Smart workflow is simply amazing and speeds up the process so much. It makes rigging way more fun too.

  Although it's great Blender has Rigify included for free and in its core it's pretty great and has all features; Sure, you can achieve the same results with Rigify as with Auto Rig Pro, but the way that leeds to it when you use it is so much shorter and so much nicer to ride on IMO when using this add on. And as a bonus it also has the Voxel Heat Diffuse Skinning add on workflow integrated, which is cool, because I already used that add on.
  
  Streamlined is the word that IMO best describes this add on!
  
  Thanks for all the hard work that went and goes into this!

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Thanks for taking the time to write such an extensive review Wigglepixel, that's very appreciated. Best of luck in your rigging journey and happy blending!
• Lewis Martin

  over 1 year ago

  No matter how hard I try no matter how many YouTube videos I watch I cannot get smart rig to work as advertised... I do everything in the tutorials correctly. Step by step perfectly, and it never EVER works.

  Have tried with various 3D models (all human bipeds) can never get it to work. Have tried using various versions of Blender, various versions of the add-on, everything. I give up!

  Not saying avoid this add-on, but for the life of me all it's caused is headaches. Just paid someone to rig my models in the end, waste of time.

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Sorry to hear the addon was not a good experience for you. While it's supposed to be a helpful tool in the rigger's toolbox, it's definitely not a simple toy and requires some knowledge and minimum experience with Blender and rigging to appreciate it at its full potential. I'm all ear for any suggestion to improve it though. Have a nice day.
• Andreas Dilling

  over 1 year ago

  This is one of the best rigging and retargeting tools I have ever used!

  Usually, I use Unreal Engines retargeting system, but even that system has some significant issues. I spent a while trying to retarget 2 wolves with very different rig structures, and any result always came out looking messed up, I thought I would get similar results in ARP, but it did leagues better than UE5, so much time saved! Overall this system is a godsend and I recommend it to anyone working with animations!

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Thank you Andreas for the positive review, I hope this addon will be useful to you!
• yonlay

  over 1 year ago

  I am one of those users who have to resist the temptation of switching entirely to Houdini or C4D whenever I come across things that do not work in Blender (like cloth, for example). But when you find something that works, men, it is freaking crazy, and this add-on is one of those things that just work. Yes, it does what it says and does it very well.
  It is not perfect, though. There are more features than what I would like to start. I would suggest an "advanced" tab somewhere. The face rig from Unreal is missing (we have the body in the presets). The switching to IK/FX should be in the same ARP tab and not in "item" tab (?).
  Overall, it is top-level. Totally recommended.

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Thanks for the review! An "advanced" setting to show complex menu only when necessary would indeed be welcomed, thanks for proposing, I'll study that.
  The UE face rig is indeed not part of the addon yet.
  The rig tools (IK-FK snap and others) are located by default in the "Tools" tab, but it can be changed to anywhere else including the "ARP" tab by modifying the tab name in the addon preferences (Tools Tab entry).
• Michael Bell

  over 1 year ago

  Custom bones are not supported in the meta-rig, there is a "custom limbs" option with no documentation to explain how to use it to extend the meta-rig to cover custom cases. Rigify can do all that out of the box.
  It's a deal breaker for me, but if all you need is something simple then this addon will save you some time.

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Hello Michael. I'm not sure to understand what you want to do here, but I'd be glad to discuss it, please send a support message ("Ask a Question" button on the right). Custom bones can be added to the rig without issues:
  http://lucky3d.fr/auto-rig-pro/doc/auto_rig.html#adding-custom-bones
  And they indeed can be saved as Custom Limbs, to load them in any other rigs later quickly.
  Auto-Rig Pro and Rigify are two different ways to rig, so won't find the exact same features, but most of the time it can be done differently.
• keithkrugh

  over 1 year ago

  A must do addon for any 3D artist in my opinion! Get the whole thing, it's worth every penny. This addon has been a game changer in my work. And the product support from the developers is top notch and ongoing! Dedicated. Take the time to dig into the documentation and fully understand its capability. Beyond the rigging and the flexibility that alone has (easily editing bones, applying poses as rest poses and many rig configurations to choose from and customize etc.), it is feature rich! The remap feature is solid. And I don't think many people know that it comes with an automatic corrective shape key feature. That's right, an automatic driver setup for your shape keys. And the flexibility to mirror that easily. If you're a beginning 3D artist that alone can be a nightmare to figure out for your workflow. Again, take the time to dig into the documentation. Just because "rig" is in its name does not mean that's the only or most important feature(s) it has. It'll change your workflow in a positive way.

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Thanks for the extensive review, very appreciated. Best of luck with your Blender projects!
• Rodmuzik

  over 1 year ago

  Great add-on!!!

  but I want to ask a question

  why I export FBX to unreal
  the bone will have extra finger bone
  "metacarpal"
  how to avoid it?

  thank you

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Thanks for rating, replied by email
• Brian Ericson

  over 1 year ago

  This addon has saved me loads of time. It's super easy to use. I only have to do minor weight painting on the face usually. Super worth getting this addon.

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Thanks for rating Brian, happy rigging!
• Laurens

  over 1 year ago

  10 minutes after installation I had a working human rig and an animation exported and imported in my game engine. I barely scratched the surface of what this tool can do, but can already say that it will save me a huge amount of time.

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Thank you Laurens!
• Walter Volbers

  over 1 year ago

  Am very satisfied, and pleasantly surprised how well it works.

• 

  Artell

  over 1 year ago

  Thanks for the feedback!

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