Monday 19 June 2023

Spider Animation Tutorial

Spider Animation by Mark Lawson-Hall
In this new animation tutorial we show how to create a locomotion cycle with a spider, demonstrating how to take an apparently complex action and, by breaking it down into simple components, we can make the animation much easier.

A spider's walk looks complex, but is in fact very easy to animate, by following this simple tutorial.

Animator's Survival Kit - Spider in Motion
Start off by watching this short video below.


Spider Animation by Lee Caller
Spider Walk - Work Method
Animatr's Survival Kit
1. Start by animating a simple 16 frame walk cycle on the first set of the spider's legs. 
2. Once this is working, copy and paste the animation curves onto the second set legs. Then offset the curves by 8 frames. 
3. Then copy and paste the same curves onto the third set of legs
4. and then onto the final set of legs, offsetting the curves so that each leg offsets the one before. 
5. Turn on infinity curves on all the legs

Spider Walk Tutorial
You can find the Spider Walk Tutorial below:

Spider Walk Part 1

Spider Walk Part 2

Spider Walk Part 3

Spider Walk Part 4


Raa Spider Rig
The tutorial uses the free Raa Spider Rig.  Raa is free, and can be downloaded from highend3d.com.  Ray 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?  To find out, read this blog post. 

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. 

Other Spider Rigs
You can also use the following free rigs

Animation with Spiders & Scorpions
To see some of the great spider animation done by our students, check out the demo reel below:





Animal and Creature Animation at Animation Apprentice
Gorilla animation by Michael Davies
We have many resources here at Animation Apprentice for students looking to learn how to animate animals and creatures. 

To get started, see the blog posts below:




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