afk.ai/Auto-rig/Ghosts
Auto-rig a ghost with AI
A ghost has no legs to find, which is where human and animal rigs give up. afk.ai's ghost skeleton has 32 joints: two arms, a jaw, a skirt of four flaps around the bottom edge and a trailing tail, so the sheet billows as it floats. Upload your ghost and it drifts, spooks and vanishes straight away.
Before is the sample model as it's uploaded: a mesh with no bones. After is the same ghost on afk.ai's skeleton, playing its animations.
How it works
- 1
Upload
Drop in your ghost 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 ghost 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 ghost rig includes
Ghosts, spirits and anything else that floats with no legs: a body, two arms, a head with a jaw and a flowing bottom edge.
Skeleton: 32 joints
- Hips and a two-bone spine
- Head with a jaw
- Two arms from the shoulder to the hand
- A skirt of four flaps (front, back, left and right), two bones each
- A three-bone tail
13 animations
Drift, Float Idle, Sway, Chase, Spook, Wail, Cackle, Peekaboo, Materialize, Vanish, Phase Through, Possess, Hit.
Download the rigged ghost (.glb, 0.8 MB)The sample above with its skeleton and all 13 animations. CC0: use it for anything.
Models that rig best
- A ghost floating upright, arms a little out from the body, fits best.
- One ghost per file.
Use your rigged ghost 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("Drift").
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
›Can it disappear?
Yes. Vanish shrinks it away to nothing and Materialize brings it back. Play them when your ghost leaves or arrives.
›Which animations are included?
Drift, Float_Idle, Sway, Chase, Spook, Wail, Cackle, Peekaboo, Materialize, Vanish, Phase_Through, Possess and Hit. All of them are in the download.
›Is it free for commercial use?
Yes. Your model stays yours and the animations are CC0.
›Is afk.ai free?
It's free to try: rigging your model and previewing its animations cost nothing. 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.