michaelharmonart/y-rig ↗

About michaelharmonart/y-rig

y-rig is a rigging framework developed by the BYU Animation Program that extends the capabilities of mGear, an established rig building system used in animation production. Rather than maintaining a separate fork of mGear, the project adds new functionality through custom Shifter components, a library of reusable tools, and custom NXT graphs designed specifically for facial rigging workflows. This approach allows animators and riggers to expand their toolkit while keeping maintenance overhead minimal.

The framework is implemented in Python and integrates directly with Autodesk Maya, requiring mGear to be installed separately. The project includes development tools such as Git hooks for automatic dependency installation and setup scripts that configure Maya to use the custom components. Developers can iteratively test changes to the yrig library without restarting Maya, and the repository supports debugging workflows through breakpoint functionality for more complex testing scenarios.

The project is aimed at professional animation production environments, particularly those already using mGear as their rigging foundation. By packaging custom components and facial rigging tools together, y-rig enables studios to standardize their rigging pipeline while maintaining flexibility to customize workflows for specific project needs.