AccuRIG vs InstantRig

AccuRIG is a guided, standalone auto-rigging tool for turning 3D meshes into animated cartoon characters and digital human avatars. It handles varied scan poses and models with different sizes, styles and postures, including realistic anatomy, exaggerated proportions, atypical limbs, obstructed shoulders and fantasy creatures with hind legs. Skin weighting supports articulation around hair, knees, elbows, hands, accessories and clothing. The tool can separate close-set fingers and rig varied finger types. Joint masking removes unwanted joints for partial rigs on incomplete limbs or non-standard poses. Finished characters can be saved in FBX and USD formats, with export destinations including Unreal Engine, Unity, Blender, iClone, Omniverse, Maya, 3ds Max, MotionBuilder and Cinema 4D. AccuRIG runs on Windows 11, 10 or 8 with 64-bit support. The free ActorCore plan costs nothing and supports one mesh in an A/T pose. Multi-mesh characters may be imported but cannot be rigged separately in that version. Advanced features are available in Character Creator 4.1.

InstantRig is a modular auto-rigging tool for Autodesk 3ds Max, intended for keyframe cartoon animation. It offers auto rigging and skinning, automatic overlapping action, and a pose manager for copying, pasting, and flipping poses. Users can configure fingers and toes and add tails, hair, ears, and breasts to rigs; characters can be resized, and body parts can be stretchy. Animation tools include IK/FK matching and sliding, soft IK, knee and elbow snapping, and customizable controllers. The maker says animations can be baked to deform bones for export to game engines, using formats supported by 3ds Max. InstantRig does not support mocap data. Once a rig is created, it can be used with native 3ds Max versions 2014 or higher without InstantRig installed on that computer. Installation instructions cover dragging the installer into the 3ds Max viewport, manual installation, and quick launch. The free plan is free and provides one license for one user; each additional user needs a separate license.