I did this script tool to help artists to place assets on specific surface/area without using Xgen system. In this way you can populate your asset / rig and easily export it to other software then Maya without doing any other operations skipping complicated exporting using Xgen tools. You can use just to place your assets for your environments, or to place your crowd character's rigs or just to place specific object in a specific place.
it references asset to the current scene using two methods:
by creating locators on random position
by vertex selection
after you populated your asset you can edit your references adding random rotation and scale.
it’s pure Python so it should work with all Maya versions (from Maya 2012 and above)
Take a look at the video to see the script in action.
for any suggestions or questions don’t esitate to contact me!