This is really really beyond cool! (this may have been brought up before but if not Iam bringing it up) I would like to share with you what I found. Years ago an auto SKELETON BONING, RIGGING and SKINNING software was created that could AUTOMATICALLY CREATE A BONED SKELETON and the CREATE THE RIG AND SKIN it in any character mesh in less than a minute! Using very complex mathematic algorithms. Iam talking about taking a character mesh and automatically creating the skeleton in the mesh and beautifully rig it and skin it all in less than a minute! Below I have that youtube video of this. Its really not ready yet for the public (I have been waiting for it for years and years .. its called Pinocchio) ... HOWEVER, the auto skinning part of this incredible discovery IS AVAILABLE for MAYA! I tried it with Maya 2010 demo and it blew me away big time. I imported a character obj mesh in to Maya and boned it real quick. Then I clicked on the AUTO SKINNING Maya script and in seconds the mesh was SKINNED BEAUTIFULLY. Iam talking about so well skinned I did not have to do a thing. I did not have to spend hours tweaking the skinning on the character. This is a must must have script for Maya. Seems to work on Maya 2008, 2009, 2010. So, even though this does not AUTO BONE AND RIG it still AUTO SKINS and that is awesome. Below is youtube of the auto bone/rigger/skinner called Pinocchio that is not ready for public yet and the download link for the auto SKINNING script that IS part of Pinocchio and available for Maya. Have fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EklzamltEgM

http://www.creativecrash.com/may...racter/c/pm_heatweight--2