What is AutoRig v2?
Autorig v2 is the second incarnation of AutoRig, who in his previous life used to be a slug.  

Well that was pointless, how do I use it then?
1. Load your object into a blank scene.
2. In the Setup Tab under Items->New Items, double click the AutoRig icon that looks like a man that's been dipped in red paint on one side and radioactive waste on the other.
3. Go to the Effects tab and select your character object(s) in the list on the left, and the Bone_Deform in the list on the right.
4. Click the 'Add' button. Your object(s) should now appear in the list on the right below the Bone_Deform effect.
5. If you loaded your objects and the autorig scene in the wrong order, drag your objects to the top of the list on the left so that they are at the top of the list. Messiah draws things in the order they appear in the list and if you have the objects at the bottom, you won't see the bones through.
6. Starting with Character_Root, position the elements where they should be inside your character gradually outwards in the hirearchy using the bone lengths to place the next control. Watch the video tutorial at: http://www.usefulslug.com/files/autorigger_tutorial.mp4 to get a more visual input for this step. It is important to note, that the controls for the autorig use the next bone in the hirearchy to 'target' with the AP_Target armature. Therefore, most bones, except for those that start a new branch on a hirearchy, should not have any values on X or Y position. You should not use SCALE to scale your bones, only length. If you do wish to use scale on the master null before starting the rigging (because your character is much smaller, or much bigger than the basic autorig file, use scale only on the master null and then hit F5 to bring up the scripts menu and double click UniformScaleRig.msa. This adapts all the positional values and lengths of the bone to your new scale.
7. A good tip while positioning the fingers is to position the bones along the upper edge of the finger, but still inside the hand. The autorigger automatically creates T-bones to help control the deformation of your hand. For more information on rigging hands, look at http://www.eggswhyzed.com/#post9
8. You may weight your object using any of messiah's weight tools including weightpaint and metaeffectors. When the autorigger creates new bones in the same positions as these control bones, they will take on the weight of the control bones.
9. Hit the big autorig button. Your computer will appear to freeze for a bit as the autorigger computes.
10. Happy animating!

An examplefile for an autorigged character can be found here


What's new in v2?

- Ribbon spine setup.
The ribbon spine, also known as an IK on FK spine setup, is a combination of the regular
FK spine that you are used to from the old version of autorig with the additional ability
to move the hip, middle and top parts of the character's spine independantly.
|-Left mouse button will drag them independantly in screen space.
|-Right mouse button will rotate the top and bottom on heading and pitch in parent
coordinates, while the middle control will adjust the zscale, the "tension" of the curve.
|-Double middle mouse button will reset the item to it's original position and rotation.

You can see a small demo here: http://www.usefulslug.com/files/AutoRigv2_RibbonSpine.mov

- Selection and Display additions.
Selection of the feet's IK goals are now made easier by having them routed out to an
armature on the screen. LMB selects the heel, MMB selects the toeball, RMB selects the toe.
All the bones can be switched on and off for display using the bones armature. If you add
new bones to the rig you should add them to the Character_VisGrp_Bones group if you want them
to take the new functionality.

You can see a small demo here: http://www.usefulslug.com/files/AutoRigv2_SelectionAndDisplay.mov

- SoftIK
SoftIK is new in messiah v4 and is a softened IK chain to prevent IK pops. The amount of
softening is animatable and will depend somewhat on the speed of movement as well as the size
of the chain. It is off by default but you can enable it by dragging the softIK values in
the Character_Rig_Behaviour slider. The soft IK is automatically stretchable so there is no
need to add an IKTel if you use it in your own custom rigs.

You can see a small demo here: http://www.usefulslug.com/files/AutoRigv2_SoftIK.mov

- Uniform scale rig
UniformScaleRig.msa is a new script that allows you to scale a rig in messiah uniformly with a
master null and, when run, it will go through the rig and adjust it so that bone lengths and
position keys are correctly adjusted. When you run autorig it is run once on the master null
of the rig, but if you want to for instance scale the upper body using a master null, you can
do so and then run UniformScaleRig from the F5 shelf.

You can see a small demo here: http://www.usefulslug.com/files/AutoRigv2_UniformScale.mov

So I've rigged my character. What are these dang green and red buttons all over the shop?
An image with descriptions of the autorig controls is shown below: