One of the rigs that we recommend for student use in the early stages of learning creature animation is the Raa Spider Rig. Raa is free, and can be downloaded at CreativeCrash.com. He is an eight-legged arachnid, perfect for learning creature locomotion.
Like most rigs, Raa has his quirks and foibles. So how can our students get the very best out of Raa?
Raa Spider Rig Introduction
Who created Raa?
Raa was created by radheshatlar and can be downloaded at creative crash.com
What is the license?
The license is freeware, which means students are free to download Raa and use it to study and learn animation.
Why can't I turn off the control curves on Raa's feet?
Raa was created by radheshatlar and can be downloaded at creative crash.com
What is the license?
The license is freeware, which means students are free to download Raa and use it to study and learn animation.
Why can't I turn off the control curves on Raa's feet?
The control curves on Raa's feet are polygons (normally, control curves are created using NURBS). This means that if you turn off polygons in the viewport to make the controls disappear, you will also lose Raa's body. To solve this problem, shift select all the control curves on Raa's feet and add them to a layer in the Layer Editor. When you render a playblast, turn the visibility off in the layer tab. Now you won't see Raa's controls.
Raa looks a bit low poly - is there a smooth mode?
There is. Select the world control (the big circle) and set smooth to 1 in the Channel Box
Can Raa be scaled up and down?
No. There is no scale feature on the Raa rig.
Where are Raa's eyes?
Raa doesn't come with eyes as such, but you can make some eyes yourself by simply creating two spheres and attaching them to his head control. Apply a Phong shader, make it black and shiny and - hey presto - Raa has eyes.
What kind of animation can I do with Raa?
Plenty. Raa is an excellent rig, easy to get the hang of. To see some of the great work that can be done with Raa, check out the videos below by Animation Apprentice student Lee Caller. It's clear from this shot that Lee has looked up live action reference of how real spiders behave, going beyond a simple walk cycle to create an engaging and entertaining performance.
And this one below by Giuseppe Candido is very nice too, with a cool VFX feel to it.
Also see this excellent animation by Steve Woodhouse:
If you don't like Raa, or want another spider to tinker with, try this rig here.
To see other free and/or inexpensive rigs that we recommend for student use here at Animation Apprentice, follow this link.
----Alex
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