Rigging and Animation of Quadrupeds
By: John Morris
Supervisor: Chad Walker
Masters of Interactive Technology degree conferred July 27, 2008
Thesis / Project completed: July 27, 2008

Animation in games is a constantly evolving field in which each new generation of technology brings increased realism and subtlety to the movements of digital characters. Advanced tools such as biped, motion capture, and Euphoria have greatly increased the realism of human characters in games. Non human entities, however, are created through much less standardized processes. In this project I explored the creation of rigs and motions for quadruped animals and compared two commonly used procedures for creating animal rigs.

I created six animal meshes with polygon counts typical of game entities. Each was rigged to either a highly modified biped object or a skeletal rig with customized controller objects. I then produced common animation loops such as walking, running, idling, and jumping for each animal. While creating the rigs and animations, I timed my work so that I could compare the time requirements of each rig type. In the later stages of my project, I also investigated the suitability of each rig type to facial animation and cinematic scene creation.

This project allowed me to compare bipeds and skeletal rigging in both quantitative and qualitative ways. My work revealed an advantage in rig creation speed for bipeds and an advantage in animation creation speed for skeletal rigs. Overall, I felt that neither rig type was inherently better suited to use in quadruped animation than the other. In addition to my main focus, I also made many observations on the process of creating a robust skeletal rig and producing natural animal movements.

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