There is little question as to the need in the After Effects community for a simple, easy to use, and fast tool that can assist in character rigging and animation.A few have stepped up to that challenge, Duik, Bones, Puppet tools, and others, all have some solution to the problem.
Adam Plouff and his BattleAxe RubberHose took a different approach. Adam wanted to make a tool that was all-inclusive both in ease and use. Anyone can use RubberHose to create a character rig in a few minutes.
RubberHose 2
Now, with RubberHose 2, Adam has built upon everything that you love with the After Effects rigging tool by making it faster, smarter and more open.
RubberHose 2 adds the ability to alter the stroke or “hose” appearance by adding a method for creating tapers. This will allow you to create variation in your characters arms and legs.
On the topic of variation, RubberHose 2 also lets you save and share hose styling. You are no longer limited to the “typical” hose shape.
Art Layer Rigging
Also new to RubberHose 2 is a more flexible way to rig with your own artwork. It does this with two new features, RubberRig and RubberPin. RubberRig lets you connect various layers with the RubberHose system. RubberPin uses After Effects Puppet Pins to create a simple rig for a shape.
Faster
The latest rigging tool also sees a speed increase. Rendering a character can be up to 125% faster. You can see even more of a speed increase by baking the animation keys. Baking can offer up to 147% speed boost to rendering.
More Open
RubberHose 2 now includes support for BodyMovin, the After Effects plugin for exporting animations to SVG, Canvas, and HTML/JS.
Availability and Pricing
RubberHose 2 will still set you back $45.00. A premium price, for the already plugin weary, starving motion artists. If you already bought RubberHose before Dec 2016, you can upgrade for $30.00.
