The Setup Machine 2 Review

I hate rigging,most folk do.So soon as I had to animate a character model I built the first thing I did was google "Maya auto rigger".There is actually a fair few available for free on Creative Crash but the results are hit and miss,first one I tried was Creature tools which rigs both biped and quadruped characters but didn't seem to work at doing either that well.I had heard a few mentions of Anzovin studio's "the setup machine" and decided to give it a go.Installing it was straight forward and the manual actually was pretty clear for once and after playing about I actually had a rigged character in about 5 minutes,yeah it actually works!.
To rig a character you define the mesh you want to rig and then place a series of tubes over the limbs to set the legs/arms etc,a few adjustments and you hit rig.


Defining the characters limbs before rigging.



Initially its a pretty simple setup but it offers various options for paint weighting in order to get limbs moving correct and a basic character can be done in no time.
The project i used the rigged character was for university which meant that I would be working both at home on windows PC and in class on a Mac which didn't have the program installed,luckily characters rigged and saved in Maya scenes work on either and I had no problems with compatibility,I also upgraded my version of Maya and had no problems bringing the rig into the newer version.

Final rig for my clown character.Colin Kaszynski 2011.

Overall a definite recommend for anyone who has little or no knowledge about rigging or simply hates doing it and there is also an auto face rigger. Check it out here -The Setup Machine