afk.ai/Auto-rig/Dinosaurs
Auto-rig a dinosaur or kaiju with AI
Two legs, small arms, a big tail: upload a T. rex, a raptor or a city-stomping monster and afk.ai fits a 58-joint skeleton with clawed hands, three-toed feet, a jaw and a six-bone tail. It walks, roars and swings its tail in the preview.
Before is the sample model as it's uploaded: a mesh with no bones. After is the same dinosaur on afk.ai's skeleton, playing its animations.
How it works
- 1
Upload
Drop in your dinosaur as a GLB, a self-contained glTF or an FBX. Sign in with Google; it's free.
- 2
The AI finds its body
An AI reads the mesh and works out where everything is. On a good graphics card it runs right in your browser; otherwise the cloud rigger does it.
- 3
Skeleton and skin
afk.ai fits its dinosaur skeleton to what the AI found and weights the skin, so the mesh bends at the joints.
- 4
Animate and export
Preview every animation on your model, then download one GLB with the skeleton, skin weights and all of the animations.
What the dinosaur rig includes
Dinosaurs and upright monsters that walk on two legs and have a tail.
Skeleton: 58 joints
- Hips and a four-bone spine
- Head, nose and jaw
- Two arms with a thumb, index and outer finger on each hand
- Two legs down to three-toed feet
- A six-bone tail
9 animations
Attack, Death, Hit, Idle, Roar, Swim, Tail Attack, Walk, Walk RM.
Download the rigged kaiju (.glb, 1.0 MB)The sample above with its skeleton and all 9 animations. CC0: use it for anything.
Models that rig best
- Standing on two legs with the arms away from the body fits best.
- A long tail is fine: it gets six bones of its own.
- For four-legged dinosaurs, like a triceratops, try the quadruped rig.
Use your rigged dinosaur in Unity, Unreal, Godot or Blender
Unity 6
- Open Window > Package Manager, click +, choose Add package by name and enter com.unity.cloud.gltfast (glTFast).
- Drag the .glb into Assets. It becomes a prefab with the mesh, skeleton and one Animation Clip per animation.
- Create an Animator Controller, drag the clips into it and assign it to the Animator on the prefab.
- Prefer FBX? Export one from Blender, then in Unity set Rig > Animation Type to Generic (creatures aren't Humanoid avatars) and click Apply.
Unreal Engine 5
- Drag the .glb into the Content Browser (or +Add > Import). Unreal 5.1 and later import glTF natively.
- Click Import in the options dialog. You get a Skeletal Mesh, its Skeleton, a Physics Asset and one Animation Sequence per animation.
- Creatures keep their own skeleton, so there's nothing to retarget to the mannequin.
Godot 4
- Copy the .glb into your project folder. Godot imports it as a scene with a Skeleton3D and an AnimationPlayer holding every animation.
- For cycles like walks and idles, double-click the .glb, select the animation, set Loop Mode to Linear and click Reimport.
- Instance the scene and play one: $AnimationPlayer.play("Walk").
Blender
- File > Import > glTF 2.0 (.glb/.gltf), and pick the file.
- The mesh comes in on its armature, with the first animation active: scrub the timeline to play it.
- The other animations are on NLA tracks named after them. Click a track's star (Solo) to play it.
Questions
›Does it include root motion?
Yes. Walk RM is a walk with root motion, for engines that move the character from the animation. Walk stays in place.
›Which animations are included?
Walk, Walk RM, Idle, Roar, Attack, Tail Attack, Swim, Hit and Death.
›Is it free for commercial use?
Yes. Your model stays yours and the animations are CC0.
›Is afk.ai free?
Yes. Rigging, the animations and the GLB export are free. You sign in with Google, and the site is supported by ads.
›What do I need to run it?
A computer with Chrome or Edge. With a decent graphics card the AI runs in your browser (the first rig downloads the 1.1 GB AI model once). On phones and weaker computers, afk.ai offers its cloud rigger instead.