Hello again Park Managers!
The Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn Expansion is just around the corner. We're incredibly excited for all the new things this DLC will add to the game, the biggest being - of course - the all new feathered dinosaurs and reptiles: Therizinosaurus, Pyroraptor, Quetzalcoatlus, and Feathered T. rex!
In this Dev Journal we're joined by three people from the artist and animation team, to share some insights into how they worked on bringing feathered dinosaurs to life.
Thank you so much for joining us for this Dev Journal. Could you please introduce yourself to everyone in the community?
Maruf: Hi, I’m Maruf and I’m a Senior Character Artist working on Jurassic World Evolution 2. I helped create the feathered dinosaurs you will get to meet very soon.
Amy: Hello! I’m Amy Hook and I am the Lead Animator on the Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn Expansion.
Jack: Hey! I’m Jack, one of the animators on Jurassic World Evolution 2, working hard to bring you the biggest, baddest, and featheriest dinosaurs (and flying reptile) yet!
Although dinosaurs did exist, the remains we have of them are limited. Could you talk a bit about the research you've done to bring the feathered dinosaurs to life?
Maruf: A lot of our initial references came from the dinosaurs as they appear in Jurassic World Dominion. That gave us a great indication of which artistic direction to take when creating the in-game counterparts. We wanted to give fans something new and exciting and I think the team really nailed it. Interestingly, there was such a range in the visual look of the different animals. Some had tufty hair all over, some had a mixture of feathers growing from hair and some even had what we referred to as a ‘full back rug’! We were really happy to be able to recreate some cool and interesting looks.
I worked closely with our fantastic technical artists to develop the new fur and feather technology we needed. This allowed the character team to rapidly iterate on the designs, giving us a lot of freedom to try new things when we worked to establish the look we needed for the game. We also built a new custom feather shader for use on all the new feathered dinosaurs and reptiles, which gave us more control when trying to match their visual feel to how they should look in the Jurassic World franchise.
We were also able to integrate our existing dinosaur skin material with the new fur tech to add a rich and varied amount of detail to the models which all helped bring them to life. Adding snow, dust and water effects to the feathers and fur really helped complete the look of these creatures within their environment.
Jack: Whenever we’re adding a new dinosaur (or reptile), we’ll spend a bit of time discussing how we feel the animal should behave to try and get some coherent personality across all of its animations.
Amy: We read articles on how these dinosaurs may have behaved and moved, as well as using the films as a key source for authenticity.
Jack: Obviously with this expansion there are some some pre-established behaviours, but then it’s up to us to decide how an animal should behave in scenarios outside of what you’d normally see in the films. It has to be true to the greater Jurassic World franchise, so it's been a fun balance to work out!
Do you use a lot of references from real-life animals? What sort of animals do you look at?
Amy: We try to find as much reference as possible, usually from animals that are a similar body shape, and then try to scale it up to give it a sense of weight. The Pyroraptor and Therizinosaurus both had reference drawn from birds like chickens, ostriches and cassowaries, whereas the Dimetrodon was more heavily inspired by large reptiles like komodo dragons and crocodiles. This helps us to add nuance to our animations, to make them feel more alive and believable.
Jack: Videos of large and slim birds were circulating around the animation team for quite some time for the Quetzacoatlus! Meanwhile I'd be throwing in the occasional elephant video while animating the gigantic new Dreadnoughtus variant.
Maruf: On the creature design side we looked at feathers on many types of birds and broke down which feathers are needed to make up a full wing, specifically how individual feathers overlap, interlock or splay apart at different stages of movement. Birds such as the Bald Eagle and Thick-billed Raven were great references as their feathers were slick and almost blade-like, which were very similar to the Pyroraptor’s, for example. We worked closely with our Materials Artist who used the references we gathered to create custom feather textures that could be iterated on to help find the dinosaur’s unique feather shapes.
Similarly, we had to understand how different kinds of fur "works"; we looked at deer for their silky short fur, and Highland cows for how to replicate clumped and matted hair. It was a really useful reference in understanding how animal fur flows in different directions across an animal’s body and how changes to its length and shape can create specific visual looks.
What’s been the most important to you when bringing these new feathered dinosaurs to life?
Maruf: The most important thing to me was working closely with the fantastic group of talented artists across multiple departments including my own team members and being supervised by our brilliant Lead. Every department; from concept, rigging to audio all come together to create the final product and they’re all essential in not only making a model look great but also giving it character so that you believe it belongs in the world of the game.
Amy: It’s been important that we get the weight and feel of the feathers themselves correct. For example, when animating the Pyroraptor, we looked at chickens and other feathered birds, especially those with longer feathers, so we could get the weight and feeling right as she shakes her head or preens herself. Trying to get the weight of a feather right is a new skill we’ve had to learn! If it’s too stiff, it feels like it’s not been animated, and if it has too much delay on it, it starts to feel like a heavy fabric and if you add too much overlap it starts to feel like rubber. It has certainly been a delicate balancing act!
(Work in progress development build)
Jack: We tried to incorporate the feathers into many of our animations. A lot of our preening animations this time around have the dinosaurs (and flying reptile) ruffling and cleaning their feathers; plus, we even have a new animation specifically for feathered animals where they’ll shake themselves dry after wet weather. It was also a fun challenge to try and get the Pyroraptor to splay its wings out at any given opportunity to show those feathers off!
What are you most excited to see when the Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn Expansion launches in June?
Jack: I love seeing people notice the small touches we've added to make these dinosaurs and reptiles truly come to life. I’m always scanning social media responses after our launches to see all the love for our cool new stuff!
Maruf: Seeing the fan reactions to all the cool content in this pack!
Amy: I am most excited for players to be able to have the new dinosaurs like the Therizinosaurus and the Dimetrodon in their parks. It’ll be fun to see how people manage the incredibly territorial Therizinosaurus, and the Dimetrodon just looks so different to anything else we have in the game already!
That's all we had time for today! Thank you for joining us for this developer journal, and we hope you've enjoyed this insight into how our character and animation teams work when creating new dinosaurs. Let us know what you thought in the comments! The work they've done is absolutely stellar, and we can't wait for everyone to see the new feathered dinosaurs in the game.
The Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn Expansion launches on 14 June. You can wishlist it now on Steam or the Epic Games Store! Don't forget to also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to never miss an update, or join the discussions on our forums!
The Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn Expansion is just around the corner. We're incredibly excited for all the new things this DLC will add to the game, the biggest being - of course - the all new feathered dinosaurs and reptiles: Therizinosaurus, Pyroraptor, Quetzalcoatlus, and Feathered T. rex!
In this Dev Journal we're joined by three people from the artist and animation team, to share some insights into how they worked on bringing feathered dinosaurs to life.
Thank you so much for joining us for this Dev Journal. Could you please introduce yourself to everyone in the community?
Maruf: Hi, I’m Maruf and I’m a Senior Character Artist working on Jurassic World Evolution 2. I helped create the feathered dinosaurs you will get to meet very soon.
Amy: Hello! I’m Amy Hook and I am the Lead Animator on the Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn Expansion.
Jack: Hey! I’m Jack, one of the animators on Jurassic World Evolution 2, working hard to bring you the biggest, baddest, and featheriest dinosaurs (and flying reptile) yet!
Although dinosaurs did exist, the remains we have of them are limited. Could you talk a bit about the research you've done to bring the feathered dinosaurs to life?
Maruf: A lot of our initial references came from the dinosaurs as they appear in Jurassic World Dominion. That gave us a great indication of which artistic direction to take when creating the in-game counterparts. We wanted to give fans something new and exciting and I think the team really nailed it. Interestingly, there was such a range in the visual look of the different animals. Some had tufty hair all over, some had a mixture of feathers growing from hair and some even had what we referred to as a ‘full back rug’! We were really happy to be able to recreate some cool and interesting looks.
I worked closely with our fantastic technical artists to develop the new fur and feather technology we needed. This allowed the character team to rapidly iterate on the designs, giving us a lot of freedom to try new things when we worked to establish the look we needed for the game. We also built a new custom feather shader for use on all the new feathered dinosaurs and reptiles, which gave us more control when trying to match their visual feel to how they should look in the Jurassic World franchise.
We were also able to integrate our existing dinosaur skin material with the new fur tech to add a rich and varied amount of detail to the models which all helped bring them to life. Adding snow, dust and water effects to the feathers and fur really helped complete the look of these creatures within their environment.
Jack: Whenever we’re adding a new dinosaur (or reptile), we’ll spend a bit of time discussing how we feel the animal should behave to try and get some coherent personality across all of its animations.
Amy: We read articles on how these dinosaurs may have behaved and moved, as well as using the films as a key source for authenticity.
Jack: Obviously with this expansion there are some some pre-established behaviours, but then it’s up to us to decide how an animal should behave in scenarios outside of what you’d normally see in the films. It has to be true to the greater Jurassic World franchise, so it's been a fun balance to work out!
Do you use a lot of references from real-life animals? What sort of animals do you look at?
Amy: We try to find as much reference as possible, usually from animals that are a similar body shape, and then try to scale it up to give it a sense of weight. The Pyroraptor and Therizinosaurus both had reference drawn from birds like chickens, ostriches and cassowaries, whereas the Dimetrodon was more heavily inspired by large reptiles like komodo dragons and crocodiles. This helps us to add nuance to our animations, to make them feel more alive and believable.
Jack: Videos of large and slim birds were circulating around the animation team for quite some time for the Quetzacoatlus! Meanwhile I'd be throwing in the occasional elephant video while animating the gigantic new Dreadnoughtus variant.
(We wanted to share a brief snippet of some new Pyroraptor behaviours that you'll see in the game after release. Please enjoy!)
(Work in progress development build)
Maruf: On the creature design side we looked at feathers on many types of birds and broke down which feathers are needed to make up a full wing, specifically how individual feathers overlap, interlock or splay apart at different stages of movement. Birds such as the Bald Eagle and Thick-billed Raven were great references as their feathers were slick and almost blade-like, which were very similar to the Pyroraptor’s, for example. We worked closely with our Materials Artist who used the references we gathered to create custom feather textures that could be iterated on to help find the dinosaur’s unique feather shapes.
Similarly, we had to understand how different kinds of fur "works"; we looked at deer for their silky short fur, and Highland cows for how to replicate clumped and matted hair. It was a really useful reference in understanding how animal fur flows in different directions across an animal’s body and how changes to its length and shape can create specific visual looks.
What’s been the most important to you when bringing these new feathered dinosaurs to life?
Maruf: The most important thing to me was working closely with the fantastic group of talented artists across multiple departments including my own team members and being supervised by our brilliant Lead. Every department; from concept, rigging to audio all come together to create the final product and they’re all essential in not only making a model look great but also giving it character so that you believe it belongs in the world of the game.
Amy: It’s been important that we get the weight and feel of the feathers themselves correct. For example, when animating the Pyroraptor, we looked at chickens and other feathered birds, especially those with longer feathers, so we could get the weight and feeling right as she shakes her head or preens herself. Trying to get the weight of a feather right is a new skill we’ve had to learn! If it’s too stiff, it feels like it’s not been animated, and if it has too much delay on it, it starts to feel like a heavy fabric and if you add too much overlap it starts to feel like rubber. It has certainly been a delicate balancing act!
Jack: We tried to incorporate the feathers into many of our animations. A lot of our preening animations this time around have the dinosaurs (and flying reptile) ruffling and cleaning their feathers; plus, we even have a new animation specifically for feathered animals where they’ll shake themselves dry after wet weather. It was also a fun challenge to try and get the Pyroraptor to splay its wings out at any given opportunity to show those feathers off!
What are you most excited to see when the Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn Expansion launches in June?
Jack: I love seeing people notice the small touches we've added to make these dinosaurs and reptiles truly come to life. I’m always scanning social media responses after our launches to see all the love for our cool new stuff!
Maruf: Seeing the fan reactions to all the cool content in this pack!
Amy: I am most excited for players to be able to have the new dinosaurs like the Therizinosaurus and the Dimetrodon in their parks. It’ll be fun to see how people manage the incredibly territorial Therizinosaurus, and the Dimetrodon just looks so different to anything else we have in the game already!
That's all we had time for today! Thank you for joining us for this developer journal, and we hope you've enjoyed this insight into how our character and animation teams work when creating new dinosaurs. Let us know what you thought in the comments! The work they've done is absolutely stellar, and we can't wait for everyone to see the new feathered dinosaurs in the game.
The Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn Expansion launches on 14 June. You can wishlist it now on Steam or the Epic Games Store! Don't forget to also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to never miss an update, or join the discussions on our forums!
