Dev Diary #3 – Trusty Steeds

Welcome to our third dev diary – Trusty Steeds

This week we’ll be taking a quick look at the trusty steeds of Avalon and what went into getting them this far. My name is Todd Delong, and I’m the artist/animator trying to bring these majestic animals to life.

Given the size of the lands we’re looking to create in Avalon, steeds were definitely not optional. But where to begin? First I needed some decent references, which Google and Youtube kindly provided. These ranged from actual videos of steeds and skeletal diagrams that helped me get the pivot points right. I also had a look to see how other artists had handled the subject, as reinventing the wheel should always be a last resort. Once I had collected enough reference information it was time to get to work.

Modeling a steed requires pretty much the same process as modeling any other character. For me, that involves using a program called Zbrush, which is very much like virtual clay. By the time it really starts to take shape and look nice, the steed is constructed from about 25 million polygons. Our game engine can use models of around two thousand polygons, so the next part of the process involves reducing the number of polygons to make it compatible with the engine while still leaving enough to both define the horse’s shape and allow him to bend and move accurately. During this stage it’s really important to take a good look at the horse’s most extreme movements to make sure we have enough polygons to not only give him a good resting shape, but to allow him to convincingly go through the full range of movements we’ll need to put him through.

Once the high and low poly versions are done, it’s time to create the steed’s texture. This process is known as baking, and just like real baking it can take a while. It’s not the most interesting part of the process, but it’s as important as any other.

Once the texture has been created it’s off to rigging and animating, which is essentially stuffing a bone structure into the steed so that he can move around convincingly. This is where the anatomy charts come in, and I ended up learning all kinds of things about the way in which horses are put together, specifically how the front legs work and what makes the horse’s shoulder move the way it does. It’s an animal we’ve all seen countless times, so you can tell when it isn’t quite right. The hardest part is figuring out which part is moving the wrong way and then fixing it. Once that process has been repeated a whole bunch of times it starts to really look like a steed, at least to everyone but the artist, who will still spot aspects that aren’t quite right yet!

So there we have it, a very brief overview of how to create and animate a horse. As always this segment is dedicated to you, the community, so if you have any questions, suggestions or comments please leave them below. You can also let us know what else you’d like to hear about in future Dev Diaries!

Hail to Avalon,

Todd Delong, 3D Artist

Animus Interactive

[social_share style="bar" align="horizontal" heading_align="inline" facebook="1" twitter="1" google_plus="1" linkedin="1" pinterest="1" /]