afk.ai/Auto-rig/Kangaroos
Auto-rig a kangaroo with AI
A kangaroo stands on two huge back legs, holds short arms up in front and leans on a tail thick enough to carry its weight. A four-legged rig has nowhere to put that, and a human one has no tail at all. afk.ai's kangaroo skeleton has 42 joints, a five-bone tail included, and it hops, boxes and kicks straight away.
Before is the sample model as it's uploaded: a mesh with no bones. After is the same kangaroo on afk.ai's skeleton, playing its animations.
How it works
- 1
Upload
Drop in your kangaroo 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 kangaroo 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 kangaroo rig includes
Kangaroos, wallabies and other animals that stand and hop on two big back legs.
Skeleton: 42 joints
- Hips and a three-bone spine up to the neck
- Head with a jaw and two tall ears
- Two short arms from the shoulder to the hand
- Two back legs in four parts: thigh, shin, foot and toe
- A five-bone tail
12 animations
Hop, Hop Fast, Walk, Idle, Look Around, Lean Back, Scratch, Box, Box Combo, Tail Kick, Hit, Death.
Download the rigged kangaroo (.glb, 1.0 MB)The sample above with its skeleton and all 12 animations. CC0: use it for anything.
Models that rig best
- Standing up on its back legs, with the tail reaching back to the ground, fits best.
- Keep the arms a little away from the chest.
- One animal per file.
Use your rigged kangaroo 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 the tail move?
Yes. It has five bones of its own, and the kangaroo leans back on it to kick with both feet in Tail_Kick. Walk is the slow five-legged gait real kangaroos use.
›Which animations are included?
Hop, Hop_Fast, Walk, Idle, Look_Around, Lean_Back, Scratch, Box, Box_Combo, Tail_Kick, Hit and Death. 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.