Advanced Skeleton for Maya is generally considered highly worthwhile for fast, high-quality rigging, allowing users to create functional, animation-ready characters in shorter amount time. It is particularly valuable for complex facial setups, biped/quadruped, and game engine exports.

Key Benefits

• Industry Standard Toolset: It has over 15 years of maturity and is used by top professionals and studios worldwide.
  
  
• Robust Facial Rigging: Many users consider it to have one of the best and most robust facial auto-riggers available, which is critical for expressive characters.
  
  
• Native Maya Nodes: Rigs created with it use native Maya nodes, meaning you don't need custom plugins to open or animate the rigs on other machines, making it more future-proof and easier for outsourcing.
  
  
• Versatility: Beyond standard humans, it includes templates for quadrupeds, birds, fish, vehicles, and even props.
  
  
  

Limitations to Consider

• Performance: Rigs can become "heavy" or slow in scenes with multiple characters.
  
  
• Customization Difficulty: While simple to start, deeply customizing the rig logic can be complex if the standard templates don't fit a niche requirement.
  
  
• Rigging Knowledge Required: Although it automates the "grunt work," it is not a "magic button." Experts recommend still learning manual rigging fundamentals to troubleshoot when the auto-rigger produces unexpected results.
  
  

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Workflow

Before you get started

• Freeze transformation
• Delete history
• Symmetry
• Save the file with a new name every time you apply changes. (e.g.“cleaned”, “ver1”, JointReady1, etc)
  
  
  

Advanced Skeleton - Biped

• Preparation
  • Model
    • Model Clean: Highlight all meshes of the character
      
      
      • Notice that the pivot point is located at the midpoint of the feet, rather than at the center of the model.
        
        
    • Model check
      
      
      • Select mesh > Duplicate > Channel box > Scale x: -1
        It must be exactly the same even if it’s flipped.
        
        
      • Select vertices of one side where not symmetrical (e.g hand)
        To use Maya's Symmetrize tool, select the modified vertices, go to Edit Mesh > Symmetrize, and click a central edge to mirror details to the opposite side. It works best on topologically symmetrical meshes by copying specific, selected changes rather than mirroring the entire object, making it ideal for fixing broken symmetry
        
        
    • Save as "reference"
      
      
  • Rig
    • New scene: this will get rid of the current scene.
    • Reference: this asks you where the “reference” (the file you’re referencing) is located.
    • Skin: excluding eyes
    • All
    • Right eye
    • Left eye
      
      
  • Settings: GUI colors
    
    
    
    
• Body
  • Fit
    • Biped: good for any basic humanoid
    • BipedBendy: for more cartoony characters
      
      
  • Edit
    For an eye, select the second circle from the last joint > whole eye ball > Modify > Match Transformations > Match Translation
    
    
    • IK label
    • Attribute
    • Display
      • Pole-vector: shows the dicrection that the elbows and knees are going to go.
        
        
    • Auto-orient
      • Update now: Hit this every time you make changes
        
        
  • Build
    • Build AdvancedSkeleton / ReBuild AdvancedSkeleton: Hit this every time you make changes
    • Toggle Fit/Adv (flip back): when fixing joints
      
      
      
  • Deform (option 1): select all geometry
    • Select DeformJoints
    • Set Smooth Bind Option (Apply)
      • Bind method: Closest in hierarchy
      • Max influences: 3
        
        
  • Deform (option 2)>
    • Cage > Create: This creates a low-resolution proxy mesh for better, faster weight painting.
    • Mirror
    • Copy Weights :select all geo first
    • Adjust
      • DeformationWidth
      • Create groin locators (Locators)
      • Adjust groin area
      • Create groin joint
    • Sliders:
      • Control of an individual joints.
      • select SkinCurves > Slides > Create
      • Can adjust Slide in Channel Box
      • If not working, select all geo first > Copy Weights
      • Once done, Delere SkinCurves
        
        
  • Deform (deltamush)
    • Harden weights
    • Apply Delta Mush
      
      
  • Geometry (Skeleton)
    
    
  • Control Curves
    

  
  

• Tools
  • walkDesigner
  • AnimationTester
    
    
• Optimize
  • Before going through, Save the file with new name
  • Delete unused nodes, ..........
    
    
• Publish
  • Model Geo with blue dot means the model is not actually in this file but it’s a link.
  • This process will permanently connect it (reference) to the skeleton for a published ready to go.
    
    
    • Set DisplyLayers to 'R'
    • Set joints to hidden
    • Publish
    • Save as a new name (e.g. ver. 11 published, etc)
      
      
      
      
      

*** Publish > Go to build Pose: to go back to the original pose (T shape)

*** FKIKBlend: Select + sign > Channel Box (0-10).

Advanced Skeleton - Quadruped

• Quardruped (cat, horse..)
• Download a (cat) skeleton image Arnold > Open Arnold render view File > Open image
• Advanced skeleton> Body > Edit> Display > geometry- Bones > Auto orient > FitMode