It's kind of crazy how easy it is to get a really nice 3D model now. I used Tripo for the main character in a kids' game I'm working on, and that part took no time.

Animating her was a whole different story.

Seedance made an awesome reference walk, but it's just a video, not animation you can actually use in a game. So I was like, well, can Claude just copy it frame by frame onto her rig? It outlined each leg with SAM 2 and fit her skeleton to every single frame. Best we got was about an 83% match, and it shook, her arms clipped through her legs, and her feet slid all over the place. Turns out Seedance kind of cheats too: her legs stretch like a third longer mid-kick, which a real rig just can't do.

Cascadeur couldn't read her at all (0 frames). Our dance attempts barely moved.

What finally worked was super simple: Quaternius's free Universal Animation Library. Claude re-rigged her in Blender, retargeted those moves onto her, and we got 14 clean animations that actually look good.

Sharing what didn't work, because honestly that was most of it.

Built mostly with Claude Opus 5.5.