Minghao Zhou.
← All work

Creature Rigs

Non-biped setups — a kraken, an eagle and a Chinese dragon — where the deformation problem changes with every anatomy.

Role
Rigging
Year
2023 — 2024
Tools
Maya, Unreal Engine, Unity

Overview

Creature work is where generic rigging solutions stop being enough. A kraken needs many tentacles that all move as continuous, flexible curves; a wing needs a skeleton that folds and spreads like the real thing; a dragon needs a long spine that reads as one continuous motion.

Kraken

I used the ribbon IK method to procedurally generate the rig for every tentacle, and that work eventually became the Ribbon IK Plugin.

Eagle

Built for a semester-long school project. It got me familiar with animal rigs, especially how bird wings work and how to achieve that behaviour with a skeleton.

Chinese dragon