This 3D Monkey Was Animated Procedurally Without Keyframing

Digital Artist and Programmer Min S has recently experimented with Unreal Engine 5's Control Rig, a built-in suite of animation tools that lets you rig and animate 3D models directly in-engine, showcasing the results with a couple of mesmerizing demos shared via LinkedIn.

Featuring Bobo, a digital baby orangutan model created by Min years ago, during the era of COVID lockdowns and social distancing, the videos portray the adorable ape moving around, changing his facial expressions, and in general monkeying around, no pun intended.

The most interesting part of the project, however, lies in the fact that all the animations you see in the demos are procedural, made entirely without keyframing. "Just programmed vectors and quaternions by home brew math," the author said about the working process behind the project.

And here's the first experiment shared by Min that featured Bobo. Back in the day, the artist managed to connect the monkey's face with her own using Unity, making the ape smile by smiling in real life. You can learn more about Min and her awesome experiments by clicking this link:

And if you also want to create something similar, we highly recommend checking out Lincoln Margison's comprehensive tutorials on procedural animation in Unreal Engine 5:

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