Colorful month for art and UI

By Maja - CEO, Concept Artist

Preparing for testing
As many of you know we are currently preparing an update for Astride. With that comes the need for testing with our Patreons. In this update, testers got to experience the first of my post-processing work. The feedback has been very positive this far, so now I know we are on the right path for Astride’s look. Testing is still ongoing, and we have received a lot of helpful feedback on other areas we are working on and improving.

I also had to prepare a new control scheme for the updated horse controller. It is likely already a little outdated and needs further adjustments before we are ready for the update for Steam. Since there are now a lot more controls, I had to divide the controls into two pages: One for horse controls and one for character controls plus other features like camera. In the game, players can use arrows to switch between the pages easily.

UI - for gaits
Along with the new horse controller, we have added HUD elements with icons of a horse shown together with text and a “speedometer”. The icon changes with each gait. In Astride players can go into different speeds within each gait.

The HUD I made back then doesn't really match the style we are currently going for anymore, so I had to create something a bit newer, that still uses the same base design. I created a new arch that is simple and clean in its shape.

The main goal was to find colors for each gait. This is also important for dressage. It was also important to add our main white color to the design. I want the player to associate a color with a gait/maneuver. This will be helpful so it’s not that important to for example read “trot” everytime, when you can just see the green color and be like “oh that’s trot”. For this I made a ground line in the arch with 4 dividers that has this white color. The dividers are to give the illusion of a gradient that is static with clean colors with no transitions. This is to help the entire UI pop visually together with the chosen colors.

I tried so many color compositions and palettes. Some I was not happy with at all, others were too dark or dull to look at. So I ended up using even brighter colors that use our main teal color somewhere. I imagined a form of gradient for each color.
So this is what I chose:

Walk: Pink to purple (I also made an orange one)
Trot: Fresh light green to dark green
Canter: Light blue/teal to deep teal
Piaffe: Lavender to sage green
Passage: Sea green/blue almost turquoise

I tested the UI on screenshots from the game I had available to see if the colors blend too much or not with the environment. Here you can see the canter color. In other games they usually go from green to red depending on speed. I wanted to do something different, so this is why I tried experimenting with different colors by using one of the main colors as a start point.

Drawing something cute
Next step after the next update is breeding. So we want to prepare something cute for that time, and what is cuter than a matching halter and rug for both mom and baby? This was a nice way to complete the week after working on all the UI. Well, I drew a lot of different colors for it.
I wanted it to be soft and cute.

First step was to add some fluffy details to both the halter and the rug to make it comfy. The fabric for the rug is based on what we call a “vaffeldekken” (“waffle rug”) in Norway. I chose it because it appears and feels homemade and full of love. Then I added a lighter edge and some roses as a cute little detail.

Dressage Courses

By Mathilde - Community Manager, 3D-artist

While I haven't worked much on Astride this month due to the news I mentioned in the last devlog, I have started working on some new, shorter dressage courses that will hopefully be available with the next update that we are working on. It's not super exciting, but I do believe that revised and new dressage courses can help make the game more fun. In addition, this will help me truly learn the dressage system we have in the engine, making it easier and faster to implement new dressage courses in the future.

Property Changes

By Tirna - Project Manager, 3D-artist

Hi everyone! ^^

The past month has been more about planning than actual development, so today I wanted to share the basic idea of how the property will look, some thoughts behind it, and how we got to this point.

First of all, here is a sketch of the property. Some of you might notice that the stable has changed from the old horseshoe shape to a straight layout. This is because we found it quite clunky and time consuming to walk around in the stable that is on the current build on Steam. We use modular pieces to build our stables and other buildings, so it’s more like building with Lego than starting completely from scratch. That means changes like this don’t take too long to make.

Since we’re already adjusting the layout, we’re also going to tweak the size of certain assets, like the stall doors that are going out to the paddocks. While they were made with realistic dimensions, we’ve found that realistic can sometimes look too small in a game. So we’re fixing that to make everything feel better in-game. We will also make two stables: the main stable, which has room for twenty horses, and a client stable with room for four.

The idea is that, as a player, you’ll have good access to everything on the property. The stable acts like a central hub, with an entrance on each side and different activities in every direction. At the center, you’ll find the showjumping arena, indoor arena, and the client stable. Behind the main stable, there’s access to the dressage arena, the oval track, the cross-country course, and a forest trail. On the side there will be two large pastures for the horses to roam.

To the right side of the property is where the characters live; you’ll find the main house, Einar’s house, and a smaller farm building across from his. This part is inspired by how many farms here in Norway are set up.

We hope this layout will feel natural, easy to navigate, and fun to explore!

Breed Scaling, Rider IK, and Halt Animations

By Marius - Animator

Head scaling and stirrup placement
As I mentioned in last month's devlog, the head scaling stopped working in between the different breeds. While troubleshooting why it stopped working I realized that I could change my approach and mix it with a stirrup position system I started on a while ago. The system is meant to adjust the position of the stirrups so that they are placed correctly between the horse breeds, as they have different proportions that do not necessarily work with the bare rig IK position.

It was a system I never got to fully implement as I was unsure how to actually set it up in Unity’s animator system, but when revisiting now after working more in depth with the system it was much easier to find a solution.

Relaxing overstretched riding arms
While working on scaling and rig manipulation I also fixed an issue with the rider's arms overstretching when on a large horse, as the IK movement also got bigger proportionally to the horse’s size. While the fix itself still needs to be tested more before I can say it conclusively, but so far it seems to work.

*Note that the hand position lags a little behind, as my computer struggles to run everything directly from the engine while filming.

Looking into halt animations
After implementing the jump refusal, I now knew that stopping works in code as an action and not just slowing down; So I started working more on the halt animation. Halt animation up to this point has only been a static pose as there is no way to really test it outside of implementing it in Unity and test the transitions and stuff there. Though it seems like it still needs a lot of work as it looks like I will need to make a halt transition animation for each gait and speed and then set it up and test them.

Preparing for the update

By Ouroboros - Programmer

The time for a new update is approaching, and I have spent most of my time on getting everything ready. In addition to adding piaffe and passage to the new controller, I also continued tweaking the new turning mechanic for the horse. It was a lot of work, but we were able to release a new build into test before easter. I knew the new controller and camera would need adjustments, and I have been able to make some improvements thanks to valuable feedback from our testers. I try to keep up with the bugs as they are discovered, while spending the rest of my time polishing as much as I can.

That’s more or less everything I have been doing this month. Testing, debugging, and bug fixing for the upcoming update. It isn’t the most exciting and often involves a lot of smaller tasks. I have spent a couple days working on a new interaction system, but the new update has been the priority. I will probably write more about the interaction system next month, as that is my next point of focus.

Final Animation & Prop Update

By Mathie - Intern

Last update from me! As I wrap up my internship, I’ve spent the last stretch focusing on both my animation work from last time, and refining some prop concepts.
I’ve made some prop breakdowns and callouts for some of the prior designs I had worked on. It is a good practice that gives a more thorough guide for 3D artists, as sometimes art alone can't always effectively convey the whole idea. Thus, including notes and pictures in the form of callouts are an effective way of communicating elements that are unclear in the artwork itself.

On the animation front, I have completed idles as well as facial expressions for the player. The amount of animations was a bit less than I had originally planned due to some time constraints on my part, however I still tried to make as many as I could with the time I had. I’ve sure learned a lot in Blender throughout this internship, and I’m super thankful for all the help and troubleshooting I received whenever I had a problem occur.

Lastly, thank you to Raidho Games for letting me be a part of their team during this time, I have certainly learned a good deal about it. It's been a really insightful and great experience to collaborate with you and contribute to the development of Astride! I wish this team the best of luck going forward!

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Please be aware that the content featured in these devlogs represents an ongoing work in progress and may be subject to further changes. We are committed to continuously developing and refining our game. To stay informed about the latest updates and connect with the rest of the Astride community, we invite you to join our dedicated Discord server community here! For additional information about Astride, please visit our official website.