mGear 5.0: New Nodes, New Faces, Old Friend
The modular rigging framework mGear hits version 5.0 and keeps its habit of not charging a cent. Built for Autodesk Maya, mGear is open-source, built on Shifter, and widely used in animation pipelines. The update brings 20 new components and nodes to the already hefty toolbox. New additions include shifter_component_ik_2s, a two-segment IK (inverse kinematics) component, and shifter_component_spring, which simulates basic spring behavior in rigs. The shifter_component_ik_spline_advanced module expands the previous IK spline component, useful for spines, tails or anything long, bendy, and badly behaved.
Also new: the shifter_component_face_guide, which lets artists build facial guides using blendshapes or joint-based systems. mGear 5.0 now supports referencing meshes via USD (Universal Scene Description) files using Maya’s native implementation. One warning: USD support is experimental, so production artists may want to treat it like a suspicious lunchbox.
Performance-wise, mGear 5.0 includes new post-evaluation callbacks. These callbacks trigger after Maya’s internal evaluation, allowing tasks such as automatic control snapping. The synoptic tabs system now supports Python 3 and PySide6, and can be extended with custom Python scripts.
The simple spring and simple collision solvers for mGear’s RBF solver now allow for better deformation and secondary animation. A new T-Pose Tool automates the task of setting a character into a T-pose for export – or judgment.
Documentation has moved to a new home on GitHub Pages, and the GitHub repo for mGear itself is here: mGear GitHub.
mGear 5.0 supports Maya 2022–2025. Price remains unchanged: zero.
UEGear 1.0: Now with Actual Version Number
mGear’s Unreal Engine integration plugin UEGear reaches version 1.0 and officially exits beta. It now includes a node graph editor to create Blueprint-based control rigs directly inside Unreal Engine 5.4 and up. The editor enables the creation of procedural control rigs – without round-tripping to Maya. It’s designed for Unreal’s Control Rig system and aimed at real-time animation workflows, including game development and virtual production.
UEGear also allows control rig creation using Python 3.10. Pythonistas will appreciate that Control Rig blueprints can now be generated via code using Python scripting in Unreal Engine. There’s also a new C++ API, allowing developers to use UEGear’s graph system within custom plugins or engine builds.
Mesh import tools now support USD, which means meshes and rigs can be brought in from Maya with USD skeletons – again, handle with caution. A new retargeting tool lets artists copy skeleton hierarchy and joint transforms from an imported mesh to an Unreal control rig, which can be useful when dealing with multiple asset versions or outsourced animations.
The auto-rig template tool now supports Unreal’s Mannequin skeleton, the MetaHuman base skeleton, and the biped template from mGear’s Shifter module. There’s also support for the control rigs generated by MetaHuman Animator, including support for its new facial FACS curves.
As with mGear, UEGear 1.0 is open-source and available for free on GitHub: UEGear GitHub.
Also, as a first, the head of the company takes you behind the scene, introduces the team and gives you a personal deep dive into the what, how and why of the new versions:
Production Caution: Try Before You Trust
While both tools add powerful options to rigging and animation pipelines, especially for artists working across Maya and Unreal Engine, the experimental nature of the USD workflows and the early days of UEGear 1.0 should be approached with typical production paranoia. Testing in controlled environments is recommended before introducing them into full production pipelines.
Both mGear and UEGear remain free, open-source, and available from their respective official site and GitHub repositories.
