Latest mGear 3.7 Focuses on Games and Real-Time Pipeline Integration

mGear 3.7 is a pretty big release for the open-source rigging & Animation framework.

The mGear team recently released a new version for the popular open-source rigging framework for Maya. mGear 3.7 improves the video games and real-time pipeline integrations and workflows by introducing a new set of shifter components called “EPIC components.” The feature is specially designed to work with Unreal Engine and other game engines.

The latest mGear also adds two new biped templates to match the names and joint structures of the Unreal Engine Mannequin and MetaHuman.

 

The mGear Dev team is proud to announce the release of version 3.7.

This point release includes many updates with the focus of improving the video games and real-time pipeline integration. This release is also one of the more significant releases in several bug fixes and enhancements made to date.

The key updates for the mGear’s modular rigging system “Shifter” are:

  • New naming convention rules for both controls and joints. This will allow mGear to integrate into any pipeline with pre-existing naming conventions.
  • A new set of shifter components called “EPIC components” specially designed to work with Unreal Engine and other game engines.
  • New joint orient offset options to define the joint orientation of any component.
  • Two new biped templates to match names and joint structure of Unreal Engine Mannequin a MetaHuman.

Other significant enhancements include:

  • Plebes, a tool that generates character rigs. Based on various character-generated templates that can be used with Shifter. (Mixamo, Character creator 3, Daz Studio, and Make Human character FBX can be used to generate a mGear rig and hooked up to the skeleton provided).
  • New tools and options for Anim_Picker.
  • New tool for Xgen Interactive Grooming splines to speed up the creation of curve-based grooming.
  • Easy Drag and Drop install.
  • Rigbits facial rigging tools have been updated to work in conjunction with Shifter’s Game tools.
  • Easy to use in combination with NXT (Node eXecution Tree) https://nxt-dev.github.io/.

About mGear.

mGear is a free, open-source Rigging & Animation Framework released under the MIT license. The framework includes many tools for both riggers and animators. Some of which are best known for the modular rigging system “Shifter.”

The core framework has kept growing over the past 8 years. Many tools have been added to offer a complete suite to cover a wide range of technical needs to create CG animated characters which have made mGear more than just a modular rigging system.

Combined with the Data-Centric Rigging workflows, mGear offers a robust backbone to create, animate and maintain an extensive array of CG characters to suit any demanding pipelines.

Why use mGear?

  • mGear is a production-proven tool that can be used in movies, games, TV series, VR, VFX, advertisement, and many more.
  • mGear is open-source and completely free under MIT license. This makes it ideal for modifying to suit any pipeline needs in which outsourcing and collaborations between studios can be done without the burden of complex licensing systems or cost increases.
  • mGear is easy to use for beginners while offering a deep level of control and flexibility to Senior TD’s.
  • mGear’s community has been growing steadily and continues to do so, as we see more riggers using mGear within their productions.
  • mGear is a dependable and reliable open-source project with 10+ years of history.
  • mGear rigs are compatible with Rumba Animation Software.