Question about making animals

[tigris115]

So I read somewhere that it takes about a few hundred hours to put an animal in the game from scratch.
However, I feel that some animals would take longer than others in terms of the model, rigging, texturing, etc.

So I ask, how long it took to make certain animals depending on how similar they are to animals already in the base game.

For example, I'm sure Frontier's artists have basic models like a big cat and canid so something like the jaguar wouldn't have taken so long to make, the Arctic wolf less so.

Now while animals like the reindeer and llama are pretty different model wise, their rigs are probably shared to some extent since they're both 4 legged herbivores. Even the giant anteater probably shares some elements of the pangolin and aardvark rigs

If Frontier were to make a kangaroo or penguin, that would probably take the longest since you'd need to start from total scratch.

 

[Dinocanid]

From my experience learning about 3D animation and modeling, as well as game design, more time goes into the modeling, animation, and texturing than the rig. An experienced rigger can put one together relatively quickly (more than 1 day, but not a month). Most of the time is to make sure the model looks as accurate to the plan as possible and the animations are top notch. When it comes to game design, that's another aspect that adds more hours. I have no idea how the cobra engine works or if they have a streamlined way of adding new animals, but if that animal has unique behaviors then it also takes development time to make sure those animations properly line up with the world it is interacting with.

To get back into the question, something like the arctic wolf, which is basically a reskin of the timber wolf, would take much less time to add than a complete different animal with a different skeleton like...a kangaroo. An arctic wolf shares all of the same behaviors and animations as a timber wolf, so that entire process can be copied over and the only new thing to do is slight model edits and brand new textures (ideally, again idk how frontier specifically actually implements these things. They may have a unique pipeline.). A kangaroo however, has a skeleton unlike any animal currently in the game. It would need a model, rig, texture, and animations made from scratch as well as any coding adjustments necessary; so obviously that would take more time.

 

[LN]

I guess this totally depends on how many people are working on the "Planet Zoo" department.
It's a question none of the users can answer. You'll need inside information, which you'll never get.