HandForge
A hand-pose library you can carry from rig to rig.
Hand poses get rebuilt for every new character, one finger control at a time. A library tied to one rig doesn't help on the next show.
One library, different rigs.
Poses are stored as anatomical values (curl, spread, twist, thumb opposition), not raw rotations. HandForge calibrates each rig's controls first, so the same library works across different naming, axes and proportions.
When you'll need to set a rig up by hand.
Auto Detect maps fingers from names and from the hand's shape. When the two disagree, or a finger can't be read, it turns yellow or red and nothing is animated until you confirm it in Rig Setup. Custom-attribute rigs are probed automatically; thumbs with a single axis only approximate opposition.
How it works.
Detect
Select a finger or the hand control and press Auto Detect. One selection usually maps both hands.
Preview and blend
Click a pose to preview it. Blend it with the current hand, per finger if you like.
Apply, mirror, key
Apply in one undo step, mirror to the other hand, and key it.
Also in the box.
48 built-in poses
Basic, gestures, grips and expressive hands, each with its own joint-level values.
Anatomical mirroring
Mirrors through each hand's own calibration, so it works when left and right controls use different axes.
Your own poses
Capture poses with thumbnails, edit built-ins, and export libraries to share.
Keys and layers
Choose what gets keyed, key onto an animation layer, or write a correction layer.
Details.
- Maya versions
- Autodesk Maya 2022–2027 (separate packages for 2022–2024 and 2025–2027)
Designed for compatible five-finger rigs. Some rigs need manual setup.
- Current version
- 0.9.1
- Dependencies
- None. Pure Python with Maya's own API and Qt.
- Installation
- Put the HandForge folder somewhere permanent.
- Drag install_handforge.py into a Maya viewport and choose a shelf.
- Known limitations
- No collision checking: crossed-finger poses can intersect on rigs with tight limits.
- Twist, cup and opposition need degrees of freedom the rig may not expose; those sliders are greyed out.
- Fingertip contacts depend on the rig and are fitted only when Fit contacts is on.
- What’s new
0.9.1
- Basic and Advanced interface modes.
- Auto Detect from a single finger, the hand or the wrist control.
- Rig Setup no longer blocks Maya; manual fixes are kept on re-detect.
- New thumbnails for all 48 built-in poses.
- Licence
- One-time purchase. Freelancer and studio-seat licences are listed on Gumroad. See the options
- Support
- levent.animtools@gmail.com
Get HandForge.
Apply, blend and mirror hand poses across compatible five-finger rigs.
