Control Rig

Animation & rigging

2 operationscontrolrig

Write or read back Control Rig graphs and rig hierarchies as readable text.

What it’s for

Your assistant can turn a Control Rig Blueprint into readable text and write text back into the rig. The text holds the rig’s graph, its function library, nested subgraphs and its hierarchy of bones, nulls, controls and sockets. You can review and diff a rig change in version control like any other text file.

Use it when you want a rig built or reviewed without clicking through the Control Rig editor: add rig units, rewire pins, change the same pin across many rigs, or drop a generated graph into the editor in one step. A rig read out as text and written back lands the same nodes in the same places.

To create a Control Rig asset from scratch, build an IK Rig or set up an IK Retargeter, see Animation. This area works on the graph and hierarchy of a rig that already exists.

Limits

A few kinds of hierarchy elements (curves, connectors and physics elements) are not covered yet. They show up as TODO markers in the text and are not written back, so check the warnings your assistant reports after each change.

Things you can ask

Read a rig graph as text

Your assistant reads the rig first, so it knows exactly what the graph and hierarchy contain.

examplecontrolrig

You: Show me what's in the control rig CR_Mannequin.

Here is CR_Mannequin as text. Everything in it is supported, with no warnings.

Add nodes to an existing rig

The new nodes are added next to what is already in the rig.

examplecontrolrig

You: In CR_Mannequin, add a rig unit and auto-place it.

Added a GetTransform unit to CR_Mannequin, placed it in the graph and saved the asset.

Rewire a rig from edited text

Your assistant reads the rig, makes the edit and writes the new version over the old graph.

examplecontrolrig

You: Rewire the arm control's input to the shoulder null in CR_Mannequin.

The arm control now takes its transform from the shoulder null. CR_Mannequin is saved with no warnings.