Advanced Skeleton for Maya is considered highly worthwhile for fast, high-quality rigging, allowing you 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
• symmetrize
• 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
      
      
      • Symmetrize
        
        
        1. Select the faces or vertices on one side of the character to mirror onto the other side.
           
           
        2. Edit Mesh > Symmetrize, and them click a central edge to mirror details to the opposite side.
           
           
        3. 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
  
  
  
  
• Body
  
  
  • Fit
    • Biped: good for any basic humanoid
    • BipedBendy: for more cartoony characters
      
      
      
    • For an eye, select the second circle from the last joint > and select the eye ball >
      Modify > Match Transformations > Match Translation.
      
      
    • Select the first circle > Snap to Points > then match it to the iris.
      
      
      
  • Edit
    
    
    • 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): Click this to remove half of the joints before fixing joints.
      
      
      
  • Deform (option 1):
    • Select all geometry
    • Click Select DeformJoints
    • Click 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.
    • Display: SkinCurves 1, 2
    • Mirror: Left>Right, Right>Left
    • Copy Weights: before clicking this, select all geo first
      
      
    • Adjust
      • DeformationWidth
      • Create groin locators (Locators)
      • Adjust groin area
      • Create groin joint
        
        
    • Sliders: Control an individual joints, usually around elbows and knees.
      • Select SkinCurves > Slides > Create
      • Now you can adjust Slide in Channel Box as well
      • Once done, select all geo then 'Copy weights'
      • You may go ahead and delete (or hide) Cage and SkinCurves.
        
        
        
  • Deform (deltamush)
    • Harden weights
    • Apply Delta Mush
      
      
  • Geometry (Skeleton)
    
    
  • Control curves
    • Scale
    • Color
    
    
    
    
• FKIKBlend: Select + sign > Channel Box (0-10)
  
  
  
• 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 > Go to build Pose: to go back to the original pose (T shape)
    • Save as a new name (e.g. ver. 11 published, etc)
      

• Tools
  • walkDesigner
  • AnimationTester
    
    
    
  
  

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