Recommended Free Animation Rigs - Rhett The Clydesdale

Rhett The Clydesdale. Free at StockCG.com

Rhett The Clydesdale is a great rig for learning to animate horses. Created by Noxlabs and available for free download at StockCG.com, Rhett is perfect for student reels and quadruped locomotion. Just don't use Rhett for commercial use - his license is strictly for education and personal learning.

One of the great features about Rhett is what he doesn't have - a tail. Not having to deal with overlapping action frees you to concentrate on the main event - quadruped locomotion. However, like most rigs, he does have some odd quirks.  So how does Rhett actually work?


Rhett's display looks weird - the surface topology is broken up.
Select the main move control (Rhett bCNTRL) and go to the display options, and set these to high, so that the surface topography is displaying clearly.

It's hard to straighten out his leg, and his knees are wobbling when he walks.

There is no knee control as such, but you can still stop the knees from popping as he walks. On the foot control, look for the Compress Fetlock slider in the Channel Box. To get a nice straight leg when you are refining your shot, adjust the Compress Fetlock value frame by frame to ensure that Rhett's knees don't wobble.

I can't find his jaw control

Rhett's jaw control is actually a locator.  So you need to switch on show locators in the viewports in order to be able to select the jaw control.

I can't find Rhett online! Where is he?

http://stockcg.com/assets/rigging/animals-rigging/rhett_v5/



Other free horse rigs.
You might try this excellent horse rig, modelled loosely on the horse in Disney's classic: Sleeping Beauty. He has a long tail so you will also need to animate the overlapping action.

Another very good horse rig is this one here, available for free download from MothmanTD. Some students are reporting better results than with Rhett.

---Alex

To find out more about Animation Apprentice, click here for a link to Frequently Asked Questions. To sign up for our next classroom at Animation Apprentice, follow this link.