TOI Biped Auto Rigger

Manual for the TOI Biped Auto Rigger script.

Skeleton requirements

Your skeleton must meet the following requirements to be able to use the TOI Biped Auto Rigger script:

• It must be a biped skeleton
• Arms, Legs and spine should be separated
• The skeleton must contain at least the joints shown in the example below
• Orientation (in relation to the world axes) must be as shown in the example below
• The joints may be arbitrarily named (the script can do the renaming)
• You may use an arbitrary number of Spine and Neck joints (with a minimum of 1)
• You may use your own Forearm joint, but the script can also create it for you.

Typical workflow

Getting the names right

1. Select the root spine joint (at the pelvis). Specify the number of spine and neck joints your skeleton has in the script interface. Click rename selected spine joint
2. Select the right hand Clavicle joint. Select right side at the top of the script. Click rename selected clavicle
3. Repeat this process for the left hand side (make sure you switch the script to left side).
4. Repeat the previous two steps for the legs, selecting the Hip joint and using the rename selected hip
5. Optionally do the renaming for the hands, if you have a complete hand in your skeleton.

Save your scene (make a backup in case anything in the next steps fails)

Cleaning the skeleton

• Make sure your skeleton is in T-pose. It's recommended to have the elbows pointing slightly backwards and have the hands with the palms facing down.
• Make sure all joints are oriented properly: X-axis pointing in the direction of the bone and all Y and Z axes consistently oriented (use component mode with the ? mask)
• Make sure all joints have 0 rotations. You could use the 'Clean joints' function from the Miscellaneous section.

Rigging the skeleton

1. Click Create COG joint and main controller. This will attach the legs to the spine.
2. Select the Spine joint to connect the clavicles to. Click Connect arms to selected spine joint
3. Optionally: Click Set up Spine FK
4. Select both sides at the top of the script
5. Click Set up Leg IK and FK
6. Click Set up Arm IK and FK
7. Optionally click Create Shoulder PoleVector AimConstraint to create aimconstraints for the shoulder IK polevectors.

That's it!

Hand Setup

If you want to create advanced HandControls, your skeleton must be like the image below:

Note that the Thumb has an extra joint near the Palm. This is to allow it to oppose.

In order to use the rename function, the fingers may be separated (ie: not parented to the Palm). The script will parent them automatically when you create the hand controller.

Before creating the setDrivenKeys for the fingers, find out which rotations you need and which are the proper axes. Specify them in the interface. The first column is used for the rotation 'backwards' (the 'unnatural' bending backwards of your joints). the second column is the default position (straight). The last column is for the maximum rotation of the joint.

Pay special attention to the Thumb! 'ThumbBase' specifies the rotation of the 'ThumbBase'-joint to allow the thumb to oppose.

Miscellaneous Functions

Split selected bone

splits selected bone in two equal bones. Use only before you rig your skeleton!

Create FK controller

Lets you create a basic FK controller for a joint. USefull to add FK controllers to spines, tails, etc.

Create controlCube for IKHandle

creates a cube (with zero transformations) at the position of the IKHandle and parents the IKHandle to the cube.

Position selected object to joint

Positions the selected object to the position of the joint (using zero transformations)

Clean All joints

Freezes transformation on joints (unlocking all transform attributes) and explicitly sets all rotations to 0.

Reset joint sizes

Lets you resize all or selected joints in your skeleton.