Best Character Rigging and Animation Plugins for After Effects

Limber

freemium

Rig and animate characters with IK, FK, and FreeK modes

Joysticks 'n Sliders

freemium

Pose-based rigging system for character animation in After Effects

BAO Bones

freemium

Setup and animate inverse kinematic rigs in 3 clicks

PuppetTools 3

paid

Set up IK systems and create custom controllers for character rigging

Deekay Tool

paid

Rig 2D characters in After Effects with one click and customizable presets

Character Builder

paid

Pre-rigged character library with instant animation setup

BAO Joint

paid

Rig a layer to two parents with automatic distortion and squash & stretch

voodoo

freemium

Tracks puppet pins and generates parented controllers for character rigs

lipsyncr 2

paid

Analyzes English speech and generates mouth animations automatically

Auto Lip-Sync

freemium

Generate automatic mouth animation synced to voice recordings

Talking Head

paid

Facial animation rig with automatic lip-sync and intuitive controls

SF Caddy

paid

Quick asset replacement and lip-sync tool for character animation

Leem's Animation Tools 2

paid

Simplifies puppet animation with sprite swapping and pin controls

bq_HeadRig

freemium

Build character head rigs with left/right and up/down turn controls

RIGOMATOR

paid

Extract, save, and reapply character animations across any rig

Squash & Stretch Pro

paid

Applies behavior-driven keyframed animations with auto sound effects