style="font-family: tahoma;">Creating a Dragon

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by
Todd DeMelle, DDO Art Director.



    While
the world of Eberron® was chosen as the backdrop for DUNGEONS &
DRAGONS ONLINE™: Stormreach™ (DDO) in part because its relative newness
allows so much creative freedom, the campaign setting's roots still lie
in the traditional Dungeons and Dragons® core.  Many of us on
the Turbine dev team have long histories exploring that core and a
great appreciation and reverence for it.  As an opportunity to pay
homage, the responsibility for bringing the dragons to life again in
this new setting has been an honor and a privilege.  size="-1">



When reviewing the Black Dragon
encounter in Module 4, entering the chamber and watching her rise up
from her horde to descend upon the invading party, I was struck with
the satisfying realization that we had achieved something
quintessentially core Dungeons & Dragons.  Flashes of the
excitement I imagined looking at the cover of the basic rule set back
in the early 80's came back to me.  The red dragon poised over her
horde.

size="-1">
style="font-family: tahoma;">
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album51&id=BlueConcept&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Concept Art Blue Dragon"
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album51/BlueConcept.sized.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 162px;" align="left"> size="-1">Building monsters for DDO
is a careful balance of performance, technical and aesthetic
considerations coordinated through a pipeline comprised of multiple
contributors style="font-family: tahoma;"> style="font-family: tahoma;"> across several departments.  The
process begins with a “monster strike team meeting” in which
representatives from the various art, design and tech disciplines work
together to establish the production goals.  We come out of that
meeting knowing exactly what will be necessary to bring the creature to
life including target numbers for complexity, UV count, texture size,
specific animations, behavior scripting requirements, etc.  When
it's determined that those goals work in the context of the entire
constellation of goals for that production cycle, the production
process begins with the concept phase.
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Dragons are among the most well
documented denizens of the D&D® universe.  The role of the
concept artist in the case of dragons is to represent the creature
consistently with its lore as detailed in the Draconomicon and
elsewhere in such a way that the technical goals outlined in the
monster strike team meeting can be achieved.  size="-1"> size="-1">That means working with
Wizards of the Coast (WotC), production and tech artists to generate an
orthographic rendering that can be closely adhered to by the modeler/
texturer and that can be supported within the limitations allowed by
the predetermined rig that will be used for style="font-family: tahoma;"> href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album51&id=BlueMaya&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Blue Dragon Maya"
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album51/BlueMaya.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 141px;" align="right"> size="-1"> animation.  In the
case of the M4 dragons, in order to generate all three being introduced
in the relatively style="font-family: tahoma;"> style="font-family: tahoma;"> short module production timeframe,
dragons with similar proportions were identified.  Coordinating
with WotC through concepts, it was agreed the differences between the
proportions of the white, black and blue dragons could be supported on
the same rig.  With signoff from WotC and Turbine, the concepts
are ready to be modeled, rigged, textured and animated.
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style="font-family: tahoma;"> style="font-family: tahoma;">This is a dragon's egg.  It also
happens to be the primitive shape from which a great many DDO assets
originally take form.  Adhering to a strict geometry complexity
budget and referring closely to the concept art, the modeler builds the
geometry for the dragon.  The process involves refinement as the
orthographic concepts are realized in the round and made to coalesce
together from all angles.  The model is scrutinized aesthetically
and then technically to ensure it is built in a way that will allow it
to deform as necessary to accomplish the range and character of
animations established in the strike team meeting.  The jaw must
open, the wings must span, the neck and tail must snake, the legs must
articulate like a cat's.



style="font-family: tahoma;"> href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album51&id=BlueRig&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Blue Dragon Rig"
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album51/BlueRig.sized.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 149px;" align="left"> size="-1">When it is agreed the
base geometry meets technical and aesthetic goals, it is
“unwrapped”.  Its surface is sliced into “shells” and splayed out
so they can be laid down with minimal distortion onto a single 2d image
plane.  It is onto this plane that the details and color that will
add so much life to the relatively low resolution base model will be
painted.  When this process is finished, the geometry for the
dragon is complete and it's ready to go to a tech artist for its
skeleton to be built and bound and to a texture size="-1"> size="-1"> artist for painting.
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The process of painting a texture is
one of the most challenging aspects of asset production.  Knowing
how a flat image will translate onto a 3d object is not always
intuitive.  Neither is capturing the level of contrast, detail and
pre-rendered lighting that will yield the optimal results when the
final animated monster is moving around in the various differently lit
environments in the game world.  style="font-family: tahoma;"> style="font-family: tahoma;">The process involves constant checking
back and forth between 2d and 3d representations of the texture and
review in the game engine.  style="font-family: tahoma;"> style="font-family: tahoma;">In addition to the base texture itself,
in the case of the dragons there is also a clip map that is used to
mask out the rough edges of the wings and a specularity map that is
used to create an appearance of glossiness to the scales.  size="-1"> size="-1">It's likely when all
these components are completed, their seams cleaned up and they are
working in concert together in the game engine, the animation team is
well into creating the list of necessary animations using the rigged
base geometry. style="font-family: tahoma;"> href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album51&id=BlueTexture&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Blue Dragon Texture"
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album51/BlueTexture.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 260px;" align="right"> size="-1"> size="-1"> size="-1">
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style="font-family: tahoma;"> style="font-family: tahoma;"> style="font-family: tahoma;">The animation of a monster is one of the
most time consuming processes in DDO production.  size="-1"> size="-1">A monster will typically
have 30 size="-1"> to as many as 50
different animations.  On a complex creature with articulating
jaw, 4 legs, wings, a long neck and tail this can take several weeks
from start to finish.  During this process the animator works with
the scripter who will take the component style="font-family: tahoma;"> style="font-family: tahoma;"> animations and tie them together with
code to create the end result of a cohesive fluid creature that
operates effectively in the DDO combat system.  Typically this
involves back and forth iteration to refine how the creature moves to
get the best possible result within the limitations of the combat tech. size="-1"> size="-1">
style="font-family: tahoma;">


When animation is complete, although
the dragon has made its way to the end of the art pipeline, it still
has some way to go before it is ready for release.  Scripting,
Sound, story, environment, and new game mechanics in support of the
encounter all need to be polished before it's ready to rise up over its
horde and bring their demise to the unfortunate explorer's of Xen'drik
who are so foolish as to wander into its lair.
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rights reserved. Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach™, Dungeons
& Dragons Online, Eberron, Stormreach, Dungeons & Dragons,
D&D, and Wizards of the Coast and related logos are trademarks or
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