Unit Eight & Dinosaur in Motion
Updated: May 16
14th of March 2026
In this brief, I will familiarise myself with the principles of the dinosaur's movement. Throughout this project, I will have the opportunity to discover prehistoric life while exploring the biomechanics of a dinosaur's bipedal movements and the ancient environment.
The tutorial will encourage us to study the weight and behavioural gestures of two-legged dinosaurs, allowing us to further master our animation process.
To begin my work, I look into the closest descendants of the ancient species, the birds. Following scientific discoveries, we know that dinosaurs developed bird-like characteristics long before the first known bird species appeared.
Studying the largest birds we know today, the common ostrich and the emu, is essential for animation. They can provide the closest realistic references for understanding the movements of prehistoric animals.
The rig I will use for this project is the Dino rig by Harry Gladwin-Geoghegan. It is a free rig again on www.highend3d.com.
According to Alexander Williams (Dinosaur Walk Theory, 2016) , the dinosaur's walk is very similar to the human walk cycle. Following this theory, I will use the basic stroll cycle for this project, which is a ‘16 frames’ cycle with contact, squash, passing and up positions.
Frames 1 and 33 will be the right foot's contact position. These frames need to look the same, just like in the previous projects, as this is a looping cycle. The next is frame 17 with the left foot’s contact position. This is the mirror image of frames 1 & 33. Once I set the contact positions, I continue with the passing positions in frames 9 and 25. These two frames will be each other's mirror image, the left and the right foot passing. The main positions are now ready, and I will follow with the breakdown positions, starting with the squash in frames 5 and 21. In these frames, both feet are on the ground holding the weight, and they are mirror images again. Finally, I add the up positions in frames 13 and 29, where the left and right legs are still passing, and the body movement is at its highest point.
Flexibility is also key in realistic animation. The first step was to add body movement to the frames by selecting the hip control and the rotation tool ('E' on keyboard). When the body was at its highest point, I rotated it down, and at its lowest point, I rotated it up. Once this was done, I checked my waves in the graph editor by selecting ‘rotate X’, and tidied the lines up until I had nice sine waves. The dinosaur's movement at this point was still rigid, so I selected all my curves in ‘rotate X’ and offset/moved them forward by two frames. It is important, before doing this, that I turn on my pre-Infinity and post-Infinity cycles. The result was an already more realistic and flexible motion.
The result was an already more realistic and flexible motion, but the head had too much up and down movement.
So the next was to do the some refinement there, and also on the arms and tail.
Once I was satisfied with the dinosaur's motion, I started to work on a simple environment for the reel where the character wonders out of the forest and reaches the view of a small town.
For the environment, I found a set of trees by Xfrog (Plants Incense Cedar 3D collection), a rock pack by PolyOne Studio, and the Small Town set by Androcom. All of these are available for free on Turbosquid. As soon as I finished the layout, I created a camera and keyframed the first and the last frames. I also lowered the camera angle shot to provide the dinosaur with a great appearance. To further exaggerate its power, I added a little camera shake to each step. Once the camera view was set, I locked it until further editing was needed.
The next step was to bake my curves, as at this stage, my animation was running on infinity cycles. As soon as I turned them into real keyframes, I was able to edit the rest of the motions and create further action in my reel.
The dinosaur's movement was still too stiff at this stage, so I selected its body control and added a side-to-side motion to the up positions (frames 13 and 29) in translate X in the graph editor. This was followed by the head control, where I added back and forward motion to the passing positions (frames 9 and 25) in translate Z. Finally, I selected the previously edited curves on the tail and added a side-to-side motion in translate X to frames 9 and 25. At this stage, I was quite happy with the dinosaur's flexibility, so I was ready to refine the set and the lighting.
Following the initial work, I decided to add more side-to-side motion to the body with the tail swings. The forward motion caused the feet to slide, so I kept adjusting the Translate Z curve on the root control until the sliding disappeared.
The set also required further development. I added more trees and colour. Once I was happy with the look, I added a bit of leg movement and a settling motion, with the dino stopping at the top of the cliff.
Resources:
ScienceDaily (2010) Ostriches use wings for balance and control while running. Available at: ScienceDaily article
YouTube (n.d.) [Video]. Available at: YouTube video
YouTube (n.d.) [Video]. Available at: YouTube video
YouTube (n.d.) [Short video]. Available at: YouTube Shorts video
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