afk.ai/Auto-rig/Dragons
Auto-rig a dragon with AI
Wings are where most auto-riggers give up. afk.ai's dragon skeleton has 100 joints, with a five-bone arm and five membrane fingers in each wing, so the wings flap and glide instead of bending like cardboard. Upload your dragon and it's flying in minutes.
Before is the sample model as it's uploaded: a mesh with no bones. After is the same dragon on afk.ai's skeleton, playing its animations.
How it works
- 1
Upload
Drop in your dragon 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 dragon 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 dragon rig includes
Winged dragons with four legs, two wings, horns and a long tail.
Skeleton: 100 joints
- Hips and a five-bone spine
- Head with an upper and lower jaw and two horns
- Two wings, each with a five-bone arm and five membrane fingers
- Four legs down to the toes
- A six-bone tail
4 animations
Fly Flap, Fly Glide, Idle, Walk.
Download the rigged dragon (.glb, 0.7 MB)The sample above with its skeleton and all 4 animations. CC0: use it for anything.
Models that rig best
- Four legs and two wings fit best: that's the shape the skeleton has.
- Wings spread out to the sides are easier to fit than wings folded against the body.
- Keep the tail and wings in one piece with the body, or in the same file.
Use your rigged dragon 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
›Will the wings actually flap?
Yes. Each wing has its own arm bones and membrane fingers, and the Fly Flap and Fly Glide animations move them. You can see it in the preview above.
›Can I add my own dragon animations?
Yes. The download is a standard rigged GLB, so you can keep animating it in Blender, Maya or your engine. The skeleton and skin weights are all there.
›Is it free for commercial use?
Yes. Your dragon stays yours and the animations are CC0, so you can use them in a commercial game.
›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.