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[/p][p][/p][p]Making a real dinosaur from scratch isn’t exactly an easy task, but making a digital one - okay, well that’s perhaps a slightly easier task, but it’s still no walk in the T. rex paddock! [/p][p]So how do you go from idea to concept to creature chasing you down and biting your head off?[/p][p][/p][h2]How it’s made - Deathground Dino edition![/h2][p][/p][p]
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The answer is: ‘With the help of some incredibly talented illustrators, artists, animators and programmers.’[/h3][p][/p][p]The following post barely scratches the surface. We won't be showing off every single piece of concept art or all the work-in-progress screenshots, because if we did, this post would be significantly longer.[/p][p][/p][p]Instead, we’re just going to include a handful of the work done by Bobby Rebholz (Concept Artist), Damien Guimoneau (Creature Artist) and others who had a hand at creating the dinosaur assets.[/p][h3]
Step 1: Concept artwork[/h3][p][/p][p]The first step to making anything is to have some idea of the thing you’re making. [/p][p][/p][p]This starts with collecting reference images and long discussions with your creative director about exactly how they picture the thing looking in their head. In the case of Deathground, a lot of that early discussion focused on scales, feathers, and scary toothsome grins.[/p][p][/p][p]Next is getting that down on paper, which in this case was done by Bobby Rebholz, who created the concept art for what would become Deathground's final Raptor designs.[/p][p][/p][p]
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[/p][p][/p][p]The first stage of that concept artwork is the head of the dinosaur. Here, we’re trying to get a picture of the
personality, and in the case of Deathground, that was about creating something which Bobby called “Dark and sinister” that would put the player on edge.[/p][p][/p][p]Many of these concepts include scars, and while the standard Utahraptor doesn’t feature these same scars in-game, we’ve got plans for a secretive Raptor variant you’ll face off against in later missions![/p][p][/p][p]
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What’s a head without a body, which coincidentally is the next step!
[/p][p]You can see our artists are considering the silhouette and scale of the creature, after doing a not-insignificant amount of research into the bone and muscle structure of each specific dinosaur.[/p][p]It's here where we quickly tackle the topic of scientific accuracy. It's important to recognise that much of this concept artwork was done during the relatively early days of Deathground, and since then, many leaps have been made in how we view these beautiful, if not terrifying, creatures through the lens of reconstructions.[/p][p][/p][p]The goal was to create something different, but familiar - accurate to some degree, but not tied down. Very much our version of each dinosaur![/p][p][/p][p]
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[/p][p][/p][p]Getting slightly ahead - we’re also considering colour at this stage. In the above image, you can see some of the avian influence mentioned previously coming through in the form of feather patterns and shape, with multiple birds being used as reference for specific details.[/p][p]We’ve been asked why our dinosaurs share a colour palette; are they genetic clones? Brothers and sisters of a single-parent genome?
Well, we actually covered this in a short behind-the-scenes video a while back. If you missed that, you can find it here, and you’ll learn more about this through various collectable items and environmental details as the story of Deathground progresses through early access.[/p][p][/p][p]
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[/p][p]Once each design has been approved, equivalent reference artwork is created for 3D artists to follow!
[/p][p]You can see in the above image that feathered and featherless concepts were produced as reference. This was for two reasons: the first being that the underlying geometry needed to be available for reference before feathers could go on top, and the second is that we’ve long wanted to include both feathered and featherless versions of our dinosaurs in Deathground. (
Something which we talked about earlier this week!)[/p][p]
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[/p][h3]Step 2: 3D Character sculpting[/h3][p][/p][p]These concepts were then taken into the third dimension by Creature Artist Damien Guimoneau (Prehistoric Planet, Alien: Covenant).[/p][p][/p][p]The first step here is creating the underlying 'blockout' character model based on the orthographic perspective concept artwork. This must remain as accurate to the concept art as possible, as this concept artwork will also be used during the texturing stage, and the initial 'A-pose' will be used for rigging later. [/p][p][/p][p]Using digital sculpting tools, the Damien artist begins fleshing out the broad anatomical elements with core details, such as large muscle groups and skeletal landmarks, added to give the creature its familiar silhouette.[/p][p]Once the major anatomy feels correct, the workflow shifts to mid-level detail: tendons along the neck, folds of skin under the arms, or the way muscles bunch beneath the surface.[/p][p][/p][p]
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[/p][p]Once the main form is locked in, next comes the fine detailing pass, carving in scales, adding wrinkles based on real-world reference images - or rather, as close as you can get to real living dinosaurs, but using birds, crocodiles, and other avian or lizard reference images collected during the concept art stage.[/p][p][/p][p]And that's before feathers are added![/p][p][/p][p]While it would be incredible to keep this sculpt at its peak resolution, the model must then be retopologised and UV unwrapped with the details ‘baked down’ into textures. This reduces the overall polygon count, allows for future texturing efforts, and makes the model significantly more performant - meaning that the game will run far better than if the original one-hundred-bajillion-polygon model were used![/p][p][/p][p]
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[/p][h3]Step 3: Texturing and feathers[/h3][p][/p][p]Once the baking process is complete, the art team gets busy creating the textures for each dinosaur, as well as adding feathers to the model to complete the feathered look.[/p][p]This process was incredibly involved, carefully following the initial concept artwork and colouring - with numerous revisions and team discussions on feather size, colour, and distribution, as well as eye colour and iris shape, until each dinosaur was looking just right.[/p][p][/p][p]Deathground’s dinosaurs were also set up so that we could potentially swap alternate colour palettes in at a later date. If there are any colours you’d like to see in future, let us know in the comments below![/p][p][/p][p]So that’s it, you’ve got a dinosaur and it’s ready to start chasing players, right?
Wrong![/p][p][/p][p]
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[/p][h3]Step 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 : Rigging, Animation, Technical Animation, AI setup and- [/h3][p][/p][p]This post covers specifically the process of creating a dinosaur, from concept to artwork - but there’s so much more that has to happen after you’ve done that, including everything in the title for this section.[/p][p]If we included all that here, this post would be about 3 times longer - and we’ve already written enough text to fill a book on the subject over the course of development! [/p][p][/p][p]Each one of Deathgrounds' core dinosaurs has gone through this process and creating custom assets has been essential to capturing their unique personalities and making them feel like living, breathing dinosaurs.
[/p][p]We can't wait for them to chase you all down when Deathground launches, and we hope you've enjoyed this look into the process behind the scenes![/p][p] [/p][p]
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Would you like to hear even more details we didn't have time to cover here? [/h2][h2]
Let us know in the comments below! [/h2][p][/p][p]
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[/p][p][/p][h3]Until next time… [/h3][p]Cheers for checking in! We’ll see you tomorrow for another mini development feature
leading up to the launch of Deathground on the 7th of October! [/p][p]As always, here's your reminder of where else you can find us: Join us and the rest of the community over on
Discord. Watch more behind-the-scenes on TikTok,
Instagram and YouTube. Follow us on
Facebook,
X/Twitter,
Threads and
Bsky. See you there![/p][p]
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