Animation Blog Post 2: 'The Leopard Rig'
This is the 2nd blog post of my animation journey. Here, I was tasked with creating a short animation of a leopard walking in place.
Learning Objectives
Animal Anatomy Deep Dive: Explore animal anatomy, focusing on the major differences between various quadrupeds. Understand how anatomical variations impact movement and behaviour, providing a solid foundation for realistic animation.
Planning Quadruped Animation: Learn the essential principles of planning and executing quadruped animation. Develop a reliable workflow that ensures efficiency and consistency in bringing your animated creatures to life.
Quadruped Walk Fundamentals: Delve into the basics of quadruped walks, uncovering the common principles that underlie the movement of all four-legged creatures. Gain insights into the nuances of gait and posture that contribute to the realism of quadruped animation.
Introduction to the Leopard Rig by Truong: Familiarise yourself with the free and versatile Leopard Rig by Truong, a powerful resource tailored for animating quadrupeds. Learn where to find and download the rig, and explore its features and controls designed to optimize your quadruped animation workflow.
Hands-on Tutorial – Leopard Animation: A practical tutorial where you'll animate a leopard in motion using the Leopard Rig. Apply the principles learned in quadruped walks to create a realistic and dynamic animation, highlighting the fact that all quadrupeds share fundamental walking patterns.
3D Leopard Rig - by Truong
Software: 3D Maya
TUTORIAL: (password: apprentice)
PART 1:
PART 2:
Part 3:
The Outcome:
Blog:
The Leopard was a bit of a challenge compared to the fox. Unlike, say, animating a person's two legs while their arms sway, this time it's about managing 4 legs at once while making sure the tail moves in the right direction. I did have a bit of difficulty with the leopard's legs. Animating them at first was pretty straightforward. The difficulty was keeping track of which leg I had animated and which I was working on. I've had to redo a couple of steps, or nearly the whole step, to avoid confusion and ensure I'm doing it correctly. Though down the road, as much as I'd like to correct the steps I've made, I just decided it was best to move on with what I've gotten thus far. Aside from the tutorial, I tried my best to copy the movements I saw in a video of an actual 'leopard' walking as closely as I could. Maybe to make it a bit more lifelike, I should add a bit of yawning in there to add a bit of depth to it, and even some pouncing around should help as well.
Images from the Animation:
Image 1: Outer view of the leopard with the 3 colored panel.
Image 2: Two different variations of the leopard, the 1st image is the leopard without all of the nurve curves and surfaces including the bone rigs for the body and tail, while the right side has all of that.
Image 3: Features all the animated parts of the leopard, from the head, neck area, to the legs and tail rig, from frame 1 to 99, each frame is that of the X, Y, and Z angles, with a repetitive pre and post infinity cycle.
Reference:
What new techniques and practices are arising in the animation industry:
"Deep Learning for Automatic Inbetweening in 2D Animation" (2021) Summary: The authors propose a deep learning framework for automating the inbetweening process in traditional 2D animation. Experimental results show the model can generate high-quality intermediate frames, greatly reducing manual labor.
What new techniques and practices are arising in the animation industry:
Reference: Zhao, Y. & Kim, J. (2021) ‘Deep Learning for Automatic Inbetweening in 2D Animation’, Graphical Models, 118, Article 101174. Available at: https://scholar.google.com/zhao2021-inbetweening (Accessed: 27 April 2026).
