Happy Friday once again! It has been yet another set of busy weeks here in the office, and as always, we've got things to show you. Have a great weekend!
Yet another new breed tease
These are some exciting few weeks. With a horse breed being revealed every week, teasers have been shared from work in progress. Here is another breed that was teased, can you tell which breed it is?
First stages of feathering
Since Astride will have a roster of different horse breeds available, this also includes the heavier types who grow feathers on their feet. Pictured is a very early test using hair cards from mane hair. The feathers will receive their own cards eventually, but it was nice to see how it could end up looking. We will be working on making a smooth transition from fur to hair, hopefully preventing clipping.
Horse rig fixes
There has been a lot of work redoing the leg animations for every horse animation. This is mostly because the rig legs are new and have no animation data, but also to fix some speed and turn consistency to avoid random drifting. This GIF explains is what it looks like in the work window (played in 50% speed). The red bones are the old animation, you can see a lot of bending knees there and some drifting in the hooves. This will be easier to avoid in the future due to the new leg rig.
Autumn splash art
The autumn splash art does of course have to be Halloween themed. Crows, pumpkins, dead trees and candles! And of course showcasing the very new breed - the Knabstrupper!
Dole horse in progress
Next up on the new breeds list is the Norwegian Dole horse, and this is what the high poly model looks like at this moment. There is a lot of work in making the muscles work with this heavy breed.
Stables
The stable modules are being constructed and textured! More and more details are being added and we look forward to starting testing all of these builds.
Terrain collision
Collisions with terrain is in the works, and here you can see a snippet of how the terrain isn't supposed to work. There is a lot of work being done behind the curtains to optimize the game from the very start to avoid lag, buffering, rubber banding and so on as well. Having these issues fixed from the start will make for smooth sailing later on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzuXwMgVVng
Ambience track
Our composer also shared some work in progress this time, and here is a taste of the ambience track take pairs with "The Old Town" track that was released this week. You can listen to "The Old Town" here!
Updated canter animations
Seeing as the horse rig has been reworked, the animations need to be revisited again. Here is the counter canter turn animation. The shadow is flickering as the horse is actually moving in this clip, the camera is following the horse, and that's why it might feel like it is jittering. This turn is on a 4m radius circle, and will be the tightest canter turn for now. The previous canter turn animation had a 16m diameter, so it's definitely a step up!
Please note that everything shown in these devlogs is mostly just work in progress and is not finished. Changes may happen and the things showcased here will have further work put into them! To see work in progress daily, join our Discord server community here!