Free Horse Rig for Maya Animators

horse rig by Motorman TD

We're liking this horse rig available for free download from the Mothman TD website.

It's an excellent choice for animating quadruped locomotion, a useful alternative to the (also very good) Rhett the Clydesdale rig.

So, how can our students get the most out of this rig?

Real time playback
You should, in theory, be able to get real-time playback with this rig without difficulty.

Features
One very useful feature of this rig is a knee bend control, which (unlike the Rhett the Clydesdale horse rig) allows you to fine-tune the position of the legs, getting rid of unwanted knee bends. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for over-stretching the legs.

Tail
Rhett has one big advantage over this horse rig - no tail. Not having a tail means less animation to deal with, though if you have the time and inclination then the tail does give the opportunity to create an attractive overlapping action. It does mean extra work though.

Credits
Many thanks for Carlos Contreras at Mothman TD for the excellent rigs, made available for the Maya community for learning animation.
Original model: Tomasz Jurczyk (www.ikkiz.pl)
Textures: Didac Ruiz (www.didacruiz.com).
Rigging: Carlos Contreras (www.mothman-td.com)

License Type

CC BY 4.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en). This means you are free to use it, but you must give credit to its creator.

Find the rig
To find the horse (and other free rigs), follow this link.

Examples of student work
To see a nice example of horse animation using this rig, see the work of Bucks New University MA student Anna Zielinska below.