Tarantula Proxy Rig Reel

Tarantula Proxy Rig Reel

This is a rig that is currently in proxy mode and that I want to in the future update with more complex controllers and skinning.  Because I've worked on quadrupeds, I decided to try a creature that has more than four legs, so I chose to rig a tarantula.  I find tarantulas to be very interesting creatures in the way they move and behave.  The big challenge with this rig was how the legs move and the way the body reacts to that movement.  With the body of the tarantula being very rigid, trying to determine how the legs move was a bit of a challenge because part of the legs are under the tarantulas body.  It's difficult to see how the underside of a tarantula moves unless they are flipped on their backs.  My biggest surprise when rigging a tarantula, was learning that they sometimes actually walk on 10 legs especially when they are very young.  Tarantulas have limbs called the pedipalp that they use to grab their prey and they will use those to help walk.  To describe how this rig works the body is forward kinematics and each of the legs is inverse kinematics with a knee and ankle bend controller.  I found this model on Sketchfab by JMuro1 and the music is called Tarantulas by Christian Nanzell.