CREATURE RIGGING IN HOUDINI
Learn how to create anatomically-accurate quadruped rigs in Houdini
In this course, you’ll learn how to master procedural quadruped rigging in Houdini — from real anatomy to production-ready controls.

COURSE BREAKDOWN
In This course you will Learn how to create anatomically-accurate quadruped rigs in Houdini — from real bone structures to fully modular, production-ready components. In this course, you’ll build a biologically-inspired horse rig using procedural workflows, simulate muscle behavior with rig logic (no simulations required), and explore Houdini tools to customize limbs, reverse foot setups, and more. You’ll also dive into procedural skin binding, stress test your rig with real movement cycles, and validate deformation against real anatomy.

WEEK 1
Quadruped Anatomy & KineFX Basics: Study horse skeletal structure for realistic articulation -Intro to Houdini rigging pipeline using KineFX -Create basic joint hierarchies -Understand the relationship between anatomy and rig design

WEEK 2
Procedural Skeleton & Pseudo-Muscle System: Build a procedural skeleton driven by anatomical landmarks -Use VEX scripting and VOPs to place and control joints -Create a pseudo-muscle system using joint behavior (no muscle sim) -Start separating logic from deformation

WEEK 3
Procedural Skinning & Deformation Logic: Capture skin weights procedurally using curve-based approaches -Refine bind capture with custom guides -Prototype deformation: simulate muscle-like movement via joints -Implement joint–muscle interaction inside KineFX VOPs

WEEK 4
Intro to APEX & Houdini 21 AutoRig Tools: Learn APEX system architecture and philosophy -Explore default AutoRig components (limbs, spines, etc.) -Understand how APEX fits into procedural rigging workflows -Begin replacing manual steps with reusable building blocks

WEEK 5
Custom APEX Rig Graphs & Components: -Dive into APEX rig graphs: create logic-driven components -Build custom modules: reverse foot, multi-bone blends, shoulder setups

WEEK 6
Prototype rig behaviors using node-based APEX logic Compare APEX vs. KineFX VOP for component-based rigging

WEEK 7
Final Rig Assembly & Animation Test -Unreal, Maya -Complete and organize the full rig system -Use the APEX Animation node to create a run cycle -Test rig fidelity with deformation and animation

WEEK 8
Overlay animated skeleton with real reference to validate accuracy -Prepare the rig for integration into production workflows (Unreal, Maya, etc)