Generating procedural Insects with IK

This project was an experiment in generating insect models from procedural meshes while using IK Physics to allow the resulting structures to have procedurally animated walks.

The body parts (leg parts, wings, antennae etc) of each insect are generated according to a variable ruleset which determines the orientation, scaling and connectivity limits. The insect is then assembled from meshes which are themselves procedurally generated with a series of 3d modifiers (warps, twists, tapers etc).

Finally the meshes are tinted with a vertex colour palette that uses local triplanar space to blend between gradients.

The elements of the skeleton are dynamically bound to a generated IK rig which runs various motors in order to procedurally animate the insects walk.

The system is capable of generating a wide range of insects that both look unique and have varying movement styles