I will be attempting to create a semi-automatic creature auto-rigger. It will take advantage of current automatic skeleton generation techniques in order to accelerate the rigging process. I'm not aware of any auto-riggers that implement those techniques, so I hope to explore the possibilities of that.

The abstract for the project proposal:

Character rigging is a time-consuming process in computer-generated media that is frequently left unoptimized. There are few tools for small studios and groups to use to rig non-human characters, and those that do require a hefty amount of user input. Automatic skeleton generation has been researched for quite some time, yet that have not been incorporated into production quality auto-riggers. Such generation algorithms are far from perfect, but they save time in many respects. This project aims to integrate those positive aspects of skeleton generators into a produc-tion quality auto-rigger for models of any shape, allowing non-human characters to be rigged quickly and without in-tensive training in rigging techniques.

The code will be publicly available here: https://github.com/meepzh/creature-auto-rigger

In particular, I hope to implement a shape decomposition-based algorithm and a harmonic function-based algorithm inside of a Maya plugin.

To make the algorithms usable in production, the auto-rigger will also involve control surface generation and other standard tools to ease the process of rigging for relative beginners.

The first steps will be to familiarize myself with Maya plugins and start implementing the algorithms.