HandForge – Universal Hand Pose Library for Maya

HandForge by Levent Ulas: a hand pose library for Maya

HandForge is a hand pose library tool for Autodesk Maya, designed to make hand posing faster, easier and more consistent across different character rigs. It includes 48 ready-to-use hand poses, so you can create natural hand gestures without posing every finger from scratch.

48 poses, one click.

What HandForge does

It gives you a reusable hand pose library for Maya. Apply the same hand poses to different compatible five-finger character rigs, which cuts the repetitive work when you switch between characters or projects. You can also create, edit and save your own custom poses, building a personal hand pose library over time.

Key features of HandForge

• 48 pre-built hand poses, a range of ready-to-use hand gestures you can apply quickly
• Cross-rig pose library, reuse hand poses across different compatible five-finger character rigs
• Pose blending, adjust and blend between hand poses for more natural results
• Custom pose library, create, edit and save your own hand poses
• Pose thumbnails, organise poses with visual previews for quick selection
• Finger controls, adjust individual fingers when you need to
• Pose mirroring, mirror hand poses between the left and right hands
• Simple Maya interface, designed for a quick animation workflow

What HandForge is great for

• Character animation, where hands carry a lot of the performance
• Cinematics
• Game animation
• Any production with frequent hand posing

How it fits your Maya workflow

Pick a pose from the thumbnails, apply it, then blend or adjust single fingers until the hand reads right for the shot. Mirror it to the other hand when you need both. The goal is to spend less time repeating finger adjustments and more time on the character’s actual performance.

Compatibility

Autodesk Maya 2022 to 2027, using the appropriate compatible build (one for Maya 2022 to 2024, one for Maya 2025 to 2027). Designed for compatible humanoid character rigs with five fingers.

HandForge by Levent Ulas. See more animation plugins on Animworks.