Contour Rig Tools vs Mixos Mold

Contour Rig Tools is a spline-based rigging system for Autodesk Maya, designed for animation production and technical directors. Contour joint chains generate splines that serve as single deformer influences, potentially reducing weight-painting work. Its volume-aware spline deformation handles bends and twists and is designed to avoid pinching and candy-wrappering. Contour Bones include length and stretch controls, and bone CVs can be used as spline control points. Built-in IK includes stretch and anti-pop features, while constraints drive transforms and relationships between Contour chains. A Python API can create, modify, and query Contour nodes, accepting strings, pyNodes, and MObjects. The tool can drive conventional Maya joints for game-engine export. Version 1.0.12.1 supports Maya 2020 through 2026, except Maya 2023.0, 2023.1, and 2024.0; downloads are provided for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Animator Mode is free for animating with rigs and adding bone CVs. Creating or modifying rigs requires Rigger Mode, starting at $40 a month billed for twelve months.

Mixos Mold is browser-based 3D sculpting software for shaping organic forms with GPU sculpting and pressure-sensitive brushes. Its toolset includes subdivision, dynamic topology, masking, symmetry, stamp alphas, brush presets, and remeshing. Users can import OBJ, FBX, or GLB models, unwrap a sculpt, and send it to Mixos Paint for layered PBR texturing. Mold runs without installation in a WebGPU-capable browser; desktop browsers listed are Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave, and Safari 26 or later. It also runs on iPad and Android in compatible browsers, and is included in the free Mixos iOS app for iOS 26 or later. Sculpting and saving to a library are free, but exporting finished meshes as GLB, OBJ, or STL requires a paid plan or perpetual license. Pro costs $8.99/mo, Max costs $17.99/mo, and a perpetual license costs $99 once. Account-saved projects can be opened across devices after sign-in. The maker says editing runs locally in the browser, but provides no equivalent security audit or uptime guarantee.