Duik Angela is the industry-standard free rigging tool for After Effects character animation. It adds inverse kinematics (IK), bones, and controllers that make 2D character animation practical for production work.
Preparation
- Separate your character into individual layers: head, upper arm (L/R), forearm (L/R), hand (L/R), torso, hip, upper leg (L/R), lower leg (L/R), foot (L/R)
- Set anchor points at joint positions (shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, ankle)
- Organize layers in the correct hierarchy
Auto-Rigging with Duik
- Install Duik Angela from rxlaboratory.org
- Select your character layers in the correct order
- Use Duik's Structures to create bones
- Apply Auto-Rig — Duik creates IK controllers and constraints
- Controllers appear as shape layers you can drag to pose the character
Animating with IK
With IK, you move the hand and the arm follows naturally — elbow bends automatically. Move the foot and the leg adjusts. This is dramatically faster than forward kinematics (rotating each joint manually) and produces more natural-looking motion.
Walk Cycles
Duik includes a Walk Cycle generator. After rigging, select the character controller and use Duik's Walk Cycle to create a complete walking animation with adjustable speed, step length, and style. It generates all keyframes automatically.