MICHELE ANIMAL RIGS / CINEMA 4D R26

Nine basic skeletons: Horse, Cat, Dog, Snake, Monkey, Alligator, Rhino, Bat, Bird.
Tested in Cinema 4D R26.013. Bones only; animal meshes and skin weights are separate.

OPEN A STARTER RIG
Extract the whole ZIP. In R26, use File > Open to open basic-rigs/<Animal>.c4d or <Animal>.bvh.
Starter rigs are static rest poses, with one BVH frame; they contain no captured animal motion.
Alternatively, open cinema4d/Create_Animal_Rig.py in Script Manager and Execute it to choose a species.

EXPORT BVH FROM CINEMA 4D R26
Animate the rig or import an Animal Studio capture. Select the Hips joint or its parent rig group.
Set the scene preview range to the animation you want to export.
Open cinema4d/Export_Animal_BVH.py in Script Manager and Execute it. Choose a .bvh destination.
The script bakes evaluated joints over the preview range, including keyed or constrained motion.
It restores the scene time afterwards. The maximum range is ten minutes at up to 120 FPS.
Keep the cinema4d scripts and the three companion Python files together in the extracted folder.

CAPTURE YOUR OWN ANIMAL VIDEO
Website: https://connecthub.tv/michele_animal.php
Choose an animal, choose a video, fit and correct landmarks, then Upload & track.
Select Cinema 4D: animated bone rig / BVH, then Save & export.
Desktop Animal Studio: choose video, track landmarks and click Export BVH.
Open the exported BVH directly in R26. Native C4D / FBX conversion is optional.
Capture follows visible image detail with guided landmarks and estimated template depth.
These starter rigs do not contain an automatic animal detector.

BVH keeps joint hierarchy and animation. Retargeting to a character requires a matching weighted rig.
Both website and desktop animal BVH exports use the coordinate conversion validated in R26.
