Spider Animation Tutorial with Raa

One of the rigs that we recommend for learning creature animation is the Raa Spider Rig.

Raa is free, and can be downloaded at highend3d.com.  He is an eight-legged arachnid, perfect for learning creature locomotion.

You can find the complete Spider Animation Tutorial at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel here

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7543710

Rig Introduction - How to Use Raa

About Raa

Raa was created by radheshatlar and can be downloaded for free at highend3d.com. The license is freeware, which means students are free to download Raa and use it to study and learn animation.  Alternatively, find RAA at UG Shares.

Spider Animation Tutorial with Raa

You can find the complete Spider Animation Tutorial at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel here

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7543710

Work Method

1. Start by animating a simple 16 frame walk cycle on the first set of the spider's legs. 

2. Once this is working, copy and paste the animation curves onto the second set legs. Then offset the curves by 8 frames. 

3. Then copy and paste the same curves onto the third set of legs

4. and then onto the final set of legs, offsetting the curves so that each leg offsets the one before. 

5. Turn on infinity curves on all the legs

  
Control Curves on Raa's Feet

Download RAA at highend3d.com

The control curves on Raa's feet are polygons (normally, control curves are created using NURBS). This means that if you turn off polygons in the viewport to make the controls disappear, you will also lose Raa's body. To solve this problem, shift select all the control curves on Raa's feet and add them to a layer in the Layer Editor. When you render a playblast, turn the visibility off in the layer tab. Now you won't see Raa's controls. 

Raa looks a bit low poly - is there a smooth mode?
There is. Select the world control (the big circle) and set smooth to 1 in the Channel Box

Can Raa Be Scaled?
No. There is no scale feature on the Raa rig.

Where are Raa's Eyes?
Raa doesn't come with eyes as such, but you can make some eyes yourself by simply creating two spheres and attaching them to his head control. Apply a Phong shader, make it black and shiny - and Raa has eyes.

What kind of animation can I do with Raa?
Plenty.  Raa is an excellent rig, easy to get the hang of.  To see some of the great work that can be done with Raa, check out the video below by Lee Caller, one of our guest tutors at Escape. It's clear from this shot that Lee has looked up live action reference of how real spiders behave, going beyond a simple walk cycle to create an engaging and entertaining performance.

And this one below by Escapee Giuseppe Candido is very nice too, with a cool VFX feel to it.

Also see this excellent animation by Steve Woodhouse:




If you don't like Raa, or want another spider to tinker with, try this rig here.

To see other free and/or inexpensive rigs that we recommend for student use here at Escape Studios, follow this link.

Marc Stevenson Tutorial

We also have a complete spider animation tutorial at YouTube with Marc Stevenson. https://escapestudiosanimation.blogspot.com/2022/07/spider-locomotion-tutorial-with-marc.html

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for one of our courses, follow this link.