Cheetah in motion.

01Prompt

A lean adult cheetah in a fully visible running pose on a flat savanna track, with four complete legs, clear paws and a long tail.

Full prompt

Use case: photorealistic-animal-reference.
Create one cinematic wildlife photograph of a single adult cheetah in a natural sprinting stride. This image will be the shared reference for a complete 3D animal and a running motion study, so anatomical clarity and a complete silhouette matter.

Subject: a realistic slender cheetah, small rounded head, black tear marks, short spotted golden fur, long narrow legs, deep chest, flexible narrow waist and a long balancing tail with a dark ringed tip. Natural feline anatomy and proportions, subtle visible shoulder and hip structure beneath the fur. No armor, collar or stylization.

Pose: moving toward screen right in an anatomically plausible running stride. The near foreleg reaches forward while the other foreleg folds under the chest; the two hind legs are offset, with one extending behind after a push and the other recovering forward. Keep all four legs and all four paws visually distinguishable, with clear gaps between their silhouettes. The long tail sweeps behind in a gentle low curve, fully visible. A dynamic cheetah sprint, with a supple back, not a stiff dog-like trot. Freeze the animal sharply with a short-exposure photographic look, no limb motion blur.

Composition: nearly lateral side view, only a slight front three-quarter angle so the far-side legs remain visible. Camera around the animal's shoulder height, a level horizon, no dramatic foreshortening. The entire cheetah from nose to tail tip and all four paws must fit inside a wide landscape frame with generous clear margins and extra space ahead of its nose. One animal, one view, no collage.

Environment: a flat dry dirt track in open African savanna, low sparse golden grass well clear of the feet, subtle small ground stones and natural texture, a distant softly blurred landscape, gentle warm daylight. Ground plane visible below the whole animal; modest dust only near a pushing paw, never obscuring the legs. The cheetah is running freely, with no prey or other animals.

Avoid fused limbs, extra or missing legs, cropped feet or tail, heavy grass occlusion, oversized muscles, leopard proportions, a lion-like body, human features, harnesses, mocap suits, artificial tracking markers, green-screen backgrounds, text, labels, logos, watermarks, borders or decorative effects.

Generated reference prompt · Used to generate the first image.

02Creature

Acinonyx jubatus generated reference. — **Generated reference** · ImageGen; the same image supplies the video and the complete 3D mesh.

03Tracked video

Tracked video · TAPNext++ 512 + SAM 3 on the original natural-background video. Colors show tracked image regions. The rig also uses reviewed limb identities and inferred structural supports.

04Mesh + texture

Acinonyx jubatus mesh with its triangle edges visible. — **Triangulated mesh** · Hunyuan 3D from the reconstruction; rendered in Blender.

Base-color texture atlas extracted from the Acinonyx jubatus model. — **Texture map** · Extracted from the generated model.

05WebGL render

Animated model · The legs bend in consistent planes, the spine flexes forward and back, and the tail bends smoothly. Structural supports preserve the rib cage, pelvis, skull and limb shapes. Replay matches the recording’s speed.

Reference ↑

LOADING 3D

ACINONYX JUBATUS

3D preview · Rendered from the generated mesh.

Loading the animated model…

Drag to orbit · Scroll to zoom

Generated motion with inferred anatomy and depth. More consistent 3D poses trade some side-video accuracy for clearer joint motion. Skin folds and intersections remain. Ground contact is not independently validated.

Shared technique

ImageGen creates the reference; Kling supplies motion; Hunyuan 3D builds the complete mesh. Tracking guides the skeleton and any cuts needed for articulation. Joints and ground contact constrain the movement; Three.js renders the result.

New studies use natural scenes and markerless tracking, with SAM 3 separating subject from background. The earlier Lystrosaurus suit and Tiktaalik green screen remain as experiments.

This is a reconstruction workflow. Generated video, inferred geometry and assumed material properties cannot establish biological accuracy or physically optimal motion.

Rigging choices

Lystrosaurus · Continuous skin: The skin is continuous across the torso, limbs, neck and tail. Separate rigid body pieces would produce seams and prevent natural skin and belly deformation.
Tiktaalik · Continuous skin: The fish-like trunk, tail and fin membranes form a continuous deformable surface. Fin rays and body bends need their own controls without breaking the skin into rigid pieces.
Dreadnoughtus · Continuous skin: Continuous skin connects the long neck, trunk, tail and limbs. Many vertebral and tissue controls should deform one body surface without mechanical seams.
Basilisk drone · Rigid pieces cut from the mesh: Start with the complete mesh. Cut armor, leg links, pads and equipment at structural joints where they need to move independently, keeping each piece rigid and its attachment intact.
Hunter-killer drone · Skin + rigid attachments: Generate the entire four-arm cyborg as one mesh. Keep the living torso continuous; cut the four armored insect-like arms, pincer segments, rotor outriggers, ducts and gun housings at their mechanical joints during rigging.
Cheetah · Continuous skin: A continuous spotted surface bends at joints, with structural supports for the rib cage, pelvis, skull and limb cores.

Generate the whole mesh first. Keep skin continuous; cut rigid pieces where joints require separate movement. Mesh pieces never limit skeleton detail.

Catches + fixes

Hidden motion and missing depth: Overlapping limbs can confuse tracking, and one view cannot reveal depth. Uncertain observations are filtered out; hidden limbs are reconstructed from the visible motion. Those inferred poses remain distinct from observed tracks.
Different bodies need different constraints: Each rig preserves segment lengths and adapts support to its body. The Basilisk drone gives every supported motion group its own control and keeps its metal parts rigid. Repeatable motion adds controls. Basilisk’s paired limbs share dimensions and attachments; body controls follow its long axis. Offsets from that axis require an explicit reason tied to the reference.
Snapping joints and uneven steps: Dreadnoughtus’s knees and elbows flipped bend direction during a stride. Stable bend directions, slight rear-knee flexion, smooth foot lift and landing, and a continuous final partial step corrected those jumps.
Secondary motion needs separate treatment: Damped inertia adds lag to bellies, tails, long necks, fin rays and mounted equipment. It responds to the fitted movement while preserving the primary gait; the physics toggle reveals the added motion.