I am focusing on completing as many NPC concepts as possible, and this month I’ve come even further. I’ve already introduced the Patreons to Marimba. Marimba is a shopkeeper in her newly started business, focusing on fashion and riding attire. A place to shop for everyone in Eldheim, including equestrians.
And since then I’ve made two more NPCs. One that is done already and another who is nearly finished. I will write another Patreon-post very soon! So for each of these NPCs I make a mood board with lots of references fitting to the idea I have for them. Sometimes the idea changs a little bit, because I get new ideas I like even better.
Nordland & Tack Fitting
By Mathilde - Community Manager, 3D-artist
Another month has come to an end! This month, I have been continuing the work on the Nordland horse and I was able to finalize it. As usual, this included finishing the low-detail mesh, sculpting and finessing the high-detail mesh, baking them together, then adding even more detail by painting on top of this.
After finishing the model for the Nordland horse breed, fitting tack to this horse was next up on the list. While fitting the tack for the Nordland, I went back to tweak the fitting of the tack to the previous breeds as well.
In addition to this, Tirna gave me the textures for the new brushing boots that we hope to introduce to the game in not too long.
As an added bonus, I thought I'd share a few photos from the tack fitting process. Here is the Jutland horse getting the bridle fitted, and the Arabian horse model with the tack fitted and ready to go.
Knock On Wood
By Tirna - Project Manager, 3D-artist
This period has focused heavily on behind-the-scenes development, but I do have some updates to share. A lot is happening with the Horse Creator in Astride, and I hope no one will miss the old background—we certainly won't! For now, you can create your horse with a neutral background or inside this little forest.
Forests and textures have been my main focus, along with paperwork, planning, and other behind-the-scenes tasks. I’ve also started experimenting with fog and how the transition between forest and field can look. This is still a work in progress, and I’m learning as I go.
At the moment, I’m working on something bigger that, unfortunately, I can't show you just yet. I’ve worked hard to get it somewhat ready, but I think this little wall here might give you a hint about what’s coming next! The material on the wall is from a large texture pack, filled with beautiful textures and materials that will make my work on buildings faster and easier. But that’s not all! It also works on other objects like trees, so we can finally have those characteristic birch trees we’ve wanted for so long. Recently, they’ve been glowing with beautiful colors (in real life, that is). I’m really looking forward to the last few weeks of 2024!
Lead Changes, Refusals & IK Systems
By Marius - Animator
Setup for lead change At the start of October I sat down to look at what I needed to make, to be able to add lead changes to the game. The animations for the lead change itself were done quite some while ago, but to be able to set up lead change I would need to roughly double the amount of animations. I was hoping to see if I could avoid that, since it would take time and make the horse rig heavier in the game. And by that I mean look into a way to just mirror existing animations, but from what I have been able to look into in between higher priority tasks; that possibility is excluded because the horse is not human. This is because human rigs use its own specific setup that is more rigid in how it should look, but opens for a bigger variety in what you can do with the rig; one of those things is mirroring animations.
So when I finally had time to actually try and make the lead change setup I had to double the animations that needed to mirror them by hand, luckily the process did go faster than I first anticipated. While going through the animations I also got to fix some minor and bigger issues that I had previously overlooked or been unknowingly added by accident while working on other stuff; like this fine foot placement:
The setup is now in place, might need some tweaking; but generally it just needs to be programmed in for true testing.
Jump avoidance For future use I made an animation for the horse to avoid the jump instead of stopping completely when we add failing jumps into the game. This animation is made in preparation for the future and probably will not be available in game for some time as we need to fix other stuff with the jumping before we add failing.
IK systems for riding Now the biggest task I did this month (and into November) is making an IK setup and system for the character when riding. An IK is a controller that overrides animation information to rather decide where a limbs end should be placed and where the bend should be pointed; at least, that is the most common use. The limb end and bend in this case is the foot and knee.
The main reason to override my own animations in favor of this is that animations are rigid in how they behave, it only moves as it has been told to move when making the animation and if you need to make it possible to have the same motion only slightly different, you would need a whole new animation. But if you have the setup to make an IK work for your purpose, you can avoid that as the IK ideally calculates that motion on the fly. This will be pivotal for when we have different horse breeds and sizes. Here’s a test from after IKs started working on a very tiny horse:
I needed to brush up on some stuff, but the setup itself was easy enough to make. Now the programming for the IKs on the other hand were and are another issue… While the IK setup worked as it should, it is not finished as it needs to know how to behave; that’s where the coding comes in, and while I am far from a true programmer the IK system should not be above my ability. So the other programmers can focus on the bigger tasks.
To make the IK system work, I had to change the character rig to make it possible to control the IK properly though. As the old rig had some features that did not work correctly with the normal IK setup. This did take quite a while as I needed to adjust skinning and re-bake all the animations.
And while I won’t go fully into detail I can say that it needed some trial and error to get to where I am now, which is not finished, but looks to be close. I’ll close on this hilarious first failed test of IK on a different horse size:
Horse Creator
By Ouroboros - Programmer
It feels like October flew by in the blink of an eye. I have been busy implementing the new UI. which includes a complete overhaul of the horse creator. I did a lot of work on the UI back in January where I changed over to UI Toolkit from UGUI. The result of that was a UI that looked very similar to what we already had, but it was completely different under the hood. Now we have finally reached the point where we are ready to update the visual part of the UI as well. The new main menu (including the options menu) has required some changes to the code, but not a lot. The horse creator, however, is a different story.
As I mentioned, the horse creator is getting an overhaul. This means that I have had to make some changes to the code that decides how the horse looks (textures, blendshapes, scale, meshes). In other words, it hasn’t been just the UI I’ve worked on. Breeds have been set up in the code and added to the horse creator, and I’m implementing a new system for color genetics that should make it easier to add breeding later on. The result of all this is that my brain is filled with information on different horse genes. I’m trying to get everything implemented to a working state first, and then I’ll do the polishing and debugging.
Fountain & Rune Stones
By Darline - Internship
October was the last month of my internship at Raidho Games and once again offered me exciting creative challenges. This internship enabled me to gain valuable insights into the world of 3D modeling and game design. The opportunity to be part of the team behind the game Astride was a great experience for which I am very grateful to Raidho Games. The support and friendly atmosphere in the team in particular contributed to me feeling comfortable and motivated here at all times.
A central project this month was the design of an artistic fountain made of marble. This fountain adds a unique element to the game world and was intended to subtly reflect the Viking style. The fountain is made of fine, light marble and is designed so that a small, detailed Viking shield sits on top. The water flows from this shield and creates a special flair. The interplay of simple elegance and Nordic symbolism makes this fountain a special eye-catcher that enhances the mysticism and atmosphere of the game world of Astride.
In addition to the fountain, I also worked on a classic stone well, which is intended to be a simple and functional element to round off the rural environment in the game. This well has no special decorations or inscriptions, but is characterized by its robust design that fits well into the natural environment and creates an authentic, down-to-earth atmosphere.
Also in the works were rune stones, which I decorated with symbolic signs from the Viking Age. The symbols on these stones are stylistic elements that hint at Nordic culture, but without making a direct connection to the game's story. The rune stones should appear ancient and powerful, so that they appear as mystical relics in the landscape. The rough texture and the engraved symbols invite players to explore the environment and let them immerse themselves deeper in the game world.
In addition to these new objects, I revised and improved some existing assets in October. Many models, such as the fountain and smaller decorative elements, required fine-tuning to further optimize the textures, shapes and details and ensure perfect integration into the landscape. This post-processing enabled me to further refine the overall image of the game world and learn how important care and attention to detail are in the final touches.
Looking back, my internship at Raidho Games was an enriching experience. The friendly and helpful nature of my colleagues motivated me and gave me the opportunity to develop professionally and personally. This internship not only strengthened my skills in 3D design, but also cemented my interest in the games industry. I am grateful for my time at Raidho Games and look forward to being able to apply what I have learned in future projects.
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Please be aware that the content featured in these devlogs represents an ongoing work in progress and may be subject to further changes. We are committed to continuously developing and refining our game. To stay informed about the latest updates and connect with the rest of the Astride community, we invite you to join our dedicated Discord server community here! For additional information about Astride, please visit our official website.
Astride’s Roadmap & The Journey Ahead
The year 2024 is slowly coming to an end, and with that, we would like to update you on the roadmap that we planned for this year. A new roadmap for 2025 will come in January.
We started the journey by releasing an update containing sound effects, music, and ambiance at the start of April. Included in this update were also emotes for petting the horse while mounted, grey and tobiano patterns affecting the horse’s mane and tail, and hyper-pigmentation for the grey gene.
The next features in the roadmap weren’t released until September, but in the time before this, we released some quality-of-life patches that added a scoreboard, camera fixes and adjustments, memory usage reduction of up to 10GB, tweaked the striding visuals and guides, and fixed crashing issues and stuttering.
The September release included the overdue inventory along with quests. This made it possible to earn tack through quests and change tack through the inventory. While we weren’t able to implement the stable building as planned, we are aiming to release it before the end of the year and it is currently being worked on behind the scenes. We hope to include breeds at the same time, but we might need a little more time for those.
As you may have noticed, we have not mentioned the Horse AI that we had listed on the roadmap for this year. While this is a feature we have been working on, it still needs more time to be ready for release. The development has taken longer than we anticipated, but Astride has as of today not had any additional funding in the last year. Because of this, we have had to take on different side projects along the way so that our developers could still earn a living while working on Astride. We have also spent a lot of time writing these funding applications and going to pitches to present the game to potential investors. This has resulted in the development of Astride being slightly slowed down and led us to reprioritize certain features and updates.
But the year is not finished yet! We still have some goals for the remainder of the year. Before the end of the year, we hope to have an update that includes not only one but two new horse breeds. The first new breed will be the Norwegian Fjord horse, and the second breed, you may ask? That’s up to you! We will be having a poll on Patreon where you will be able to vote for the breed that you want to see implemented together with the Fjord. In addition to the new breeds, we will be adding more tack color variations and, if we have time, a few new tack items such as new bridle and leg protector variations. Lastly, we have been reworking the entire horse creator to fit better with the genetic aspect of Astride which also includes breed selection, height, face shape, and more!
We have also added a few features and things that were not on the roadmap but that we had personally wanted to have in the game sooner rather than later. Among these were the show jumping course system, multiple new courses, improvement to dressage, a save system, reins, and a new environment.
We are still all-in on the development of Astride and we are doing our best to stay afloat and keep giving you more content and updates to the game. Astride is still our passion project, and we will do anything in our power to see it through to the finish line. Finally, we want to thank you all for the incredible support you have given us through the development of Astride. We are grateful for every one of you.
Devlog #43: September 2024
Trym & jumps
By Maja - CEO, Concept Artist
NPC drawing spree Wow, September really went by quickly. This month I focused on drawing another important NPC, named Trym. Who will be the cross country instructor? So now we have Trym for cross country, Rini for show jumping and Elin for Dressage. I’ve also started on another NPC, who will be more of a cafe barista or shopkeeper. Those are important as well. I am trying to complete my NPC list. There are still some left, but the majority is done.
Fences and jumps As a smaller task I drew some fun jumps with different types of themes. So I made some food-themes-jump, a norse theme jump and so on. Here are a few jumps that are quickly made out of the same shape that appear different due to color and text. I imagined a box or a stand with lemonade/lemons, so then I continued with making an orange version and lime version. They look very fun! I added a leaf on each half of the fruit as support for the shape.
The update & Nordland
By Mathilde - Community Manager, 3D-artist
This month has been quite a ride! I've been mostly working behind the scenes on smaller things such as fixing the environment and getting it as ready as I could for the new update, making sure that the new tack doesn't clip through the horse while moving, adjusting the show jumping courses, making icons for the inventory, and much more. In addition to this, making the trailers for the game that you can now see on our Steam page, the patch highlights, and of course the social media content you can see across all of our platforms.
While I've been working on many different tasks regarding the newest update we released, I've been able to set aside a little bit of time for new horses as well. Next up on the list is the Nordland horse which is a Norwegian horse breed that is very similar to the Icelandic horse, although it doesn't have the extra gaits. In the photo, you can see an early draft of the base mesh shape. The high detail sculpt, tack fitting, and other aspects of creating new horses is still on my to-do list for this one.
Waterfall & stable
By Tirna - Project Manager, 3D-artist
As many of you have seen already, the environment is far from done, lately I have been working a lot with behind the scenes tasks, so unfortunately there hasn't been much development in the environment. However, there has been something done, and the main thing is the waterfall, that has been quite underwhelming to look at. So here are a few pictures of the new waterfall! The ground and area around will be more worked at, but we wanted to share how it looks like now, in the development, and hope you are as happy with the waterfall change as we are.
Speaking of changes; we’ve been thinking a lot about changes to the stable property, and we’re excited to share what’s in the works! Some parts will stay the same, but others are getting a big update. The aim is to make the property make more sense, both visually but also more practical for you as a player.
The plan is to have space for up to 20 horses. One of the smaller buildings, with two paddocks, will be set up so the horses can roam as a small herd and choose whether they want to be inside or outside. The other stable will be more traditional. And of course, the larger pastures around the stable will remain, giving the horses plenty of room to graze. We’re also thinking about adding an indoor arena, but we’re still figuring out where it’ll go. These ideas are still in the planning phase, so things may change, but we’re feeling good about where we’re headed. Hopefully, it’s something you’ll love as much as we do!
Clothes & sitting
By Marius - Animator
Clothes After we added the tack and inventory system for the horse, we felt that we wanted clothes to be changeable too. So I started the process of separating the clothes meshes from the character. Though the programmers were busy with the then upcoming update, making sure everything worked. I could try to make preparations for making a system for it, though with no aspirations that it would work before our programmers can take a look at it. And adding new stuff right before an update is something you shouldn’t do as it can break everything that works there and then.
Sitting I was talking about interactions with objects with someone that got me thinking that we would need an animation or at least a pose for when we want to start adding that. Especially where the interaction interferes with the character and not the object. Like sitting for example, where the character needs to be moved and placed based on a sittable area or object like a chair or bench. I made a few variations, but for the most part they are really similar.
Before the update went live we needed to test new and old features, to see if they worked as well as test performance between computers; then report to our programmers. And when the update got closer we needed to capture gameplay to update our steam page.
Big Fixing & Polishing
By Green Horse - Programmer
Playtesting and Livestreams September was a busy month with behind the scenes administrative work, QA with Patreon testers, and bug fixing. The main focus of this month for me was to run playtests with our Patreon testers to find and squash bugs for the update that we just released. We did a rapid 4-day session where we isolated the main issues, wrote them down, and updated the build in between the livestreams. A huge thank you to the testers who joined me during these livestreams.
Memory usage, Rendering and Performance I'm noticing that I'm not really a tech artist, so fiddling with shader values to get things to look right is not really my area, but overall I think I got most of the foliage to behave well enough for this update, except for the bushes. They have issues. Very relatable. The problem was the render range of the asset pack that we use. The foliage visibly fades out after 40 meters or so, so I upped it to around 200 with a 50-meter fadeout range. It's not really that important to have things look perfect in this update, but to bring the game conceptually to how we want it to look.
Astride is a texture heavy game. All the horses require different layered textures in order to create the final horse texture and the process of doing so loads in many textures at once creating a memory spike that might close the game for players with low amounts of free memory. I reduced many of the nature assets to be capped at 2K resolution instead of 4K and 8K. This reduces the memory usage, but some players are still having issues with 16GB of RAM due to the spiking. I enabled texture streaming on Low, Medium, and High resolutions to test things out but left it off on Ultra. This seemed to work. Closer to release, we will do proper optimization passes to make the game run well on our target platforms, but during development, that type of work is quickly made obsolete by changing environments and assets. During development, we will focus on low-hanging fruits.
This memory snapshot was taken before I reduced the texture size and added texture streaming.
Reins are a bigger task we need to tackle. There can be many tacked horses on the screen at once with reins. Reins are heavy to simulate on the CPU, so we need to find a way to load balance this in a way that isn't detrimental to the visuals. I have some ideas, and I think we want to test out the following: Simulate reins for the players closest to you with physics. Use GPU-based rope shaders for players a bit further away from you. Use baked rein animations for players furthest away from you. Disable reins entirely for players really far away from you. I have a sneaking suspicion that shader-based reins can replace physical reins if we can make them behave well. I think I also want to add a bunch of options for players to mess around with in regards to reins and their performance. All this requires a bit of research and development so it will take some time before we can fully implement these changes.
Server performance is sadly locked to rendering performance at the moment. Later, we will include a standalone executable to run servers, but at the moment, if you are running a server on a lower-end computer, the performance will not be good for players joining. This is also made worse by the physically simulated reins. The end goal is for players to host dedicated servers, a standalone executable that players can host on their own computers or on rented cloud servers. This will make servers run as smoothly as possible.
Update, saving, & bugs
By Ouroboros - Programmer
We were finally able to get a release out this month, which included a lot of features I have been working on these past few months. Sadly, the save system didn’t make it due to a bug that we discovered a bit late. I have been pretty busy fixing other bugs and doing some polishing. Several of the bugs were in the horse creator, and in particular with the randomize buttons. Our Patreon testers were a huge help when it came to bug hunting, and I was able to focus on fixing them rather than finding them. As such, we were able to get rid of a lot of bugs.
Right after the update was released, I started looking into the save system bug. It took some tries to reproduce the bug, but I eventually found a way to do it and figured out where the issue was. Finding out the why and the where of a bug is the most time consuming part, so it didn’t take too long to fix it after that. We were then able to get the save system out in test and managed to iron out some more bugs thanks to our testers.
The save system is currently made to only work in singleplayer. The reason for this is that multiplayer is complicated and several scenarios must be taken into account. For example, what if we load the game world of the player that hosts the server, but then another player puts an eldhest in their inventory and skedaddles out of there. The host would be missing an eldhest in their game world, and the other player would have an extra eldhest. There are several ways to solve this, but we still need to put a lot of thought into what the best solution is for Astride. And this is only one scenario. We also have tack, quests and courses to take into consideration. Since data is saved locally on the player’s computer, the relevant data will have to be sent to the server. There are some limitations to this in relation to the size of the data, the format, and how often it is sent. In short, there is a lot to think about.
With all this being said, I have been working on multiplayer save this past week. The first iteration is done and will be out in test before long. There are many things that can potentially go wrong when loading and saving data, so we’re taking it one step at a time.
Building atmosphere
By Darline - Internship
This month, as part of my internship at Raidho Games, I was able to work on exciting 3D designs for Astride. I designed a variety of assets that contribute to the atmosphere and immersion of the game world. Each of these tasks not only represented a creative challenge, but also gave me the opportunity to further develop my skills in the field of 3D modeling and texturing.
One of the larger projects I tackled was the design of bridges. These bridges have to be both functional and visually appealing, as they play a central role in exploring the game world. It was particularly important here that the structures fit organically into the natural environment and still appear stable and robust. By using different stone textures and by incorporating natural signs of wear, such as moss and worn edges, I was (hopefully) able to create an authentic design that gives the player the feeling of being part of this rustic world.
Another highlight of my work was the campfire, which I designed with a special focus on the Norwegian atmosphere. Here it was important to me to convey the special mood of Nordic life. I made sure that the textures of the environment convey a feeling of coziness and the rough nature of Scandinavia - as if you were sitting by the fire under the northern lights on a clear night.
In addition to these larger projects, I also modeled a number of smaller but equally important objects. These include a mailbox, a pin board and birdhouses that enrich the game with everyday elements. These objects contribute to the lively village life and help to present the world of "Astride" as an inhabited, realistic place. The mailbox, for example, was designed to be not only functional but also visually eye-catching - with details such as worn metal parts and rustic wood.
I particularly enjoyed working on objects that stand out due to their Viking aesthetic. Here I was able to let my creativity run wild and incorporate details that are reminiscent of Nordic mythology. Carvings based on runes and traditional patterns as well as robust materials such as rough wood and dark metals were used. These elements fit perfectly into the overall picture of the world and give it a historical depth that takes players back to times gone by.
Through the various projects this month, I not only expanded my technical skills in 3D modeling and texturing, but also deepened my understanding of the interplay between design and atmosphere in games. It was a great pleasure to be part of a creative team and to contribute with my work to shaping the immersive world of Astride. I look forward to diving even deeper into the development in the coming weeks and taking on more exciting challenges.
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Please be aware that the content featured in these devlogs represents an ongoing work in progress and may be subject to further changes. We are committed to continuously developing and refining our game. To stay informed about the latest updates and connect with the rest of the Astride community, we invite you to join our dedicated Discord server community here! For additional information about Astride, please visit our official website.
Patch 0.3.21 - Hotfix
A new hotfix for Astride is now available. Here are the changes/fixes that have been made.
You may have to restart your Steam client if the hotfix is not immediately available.
Fixes & adjustments
The arrow over the current jump in show jumping courses is now blue for better visibility
A save system has been added that loads and saves progress in single player, no data is currently loaded or saved in multiplayer
A button to delete save data has been added to the bottom right corner of the main menu
Fixed a bug where the in-game UI wouldn't reset properly when disconnecting and then connecting again
Patch 0.3.20 Hotfix
A new hotfix for Astride is now available. Here are the changes/fixes that have been made.
You may have to restart your Steam client if the hotfix is not immediately available.
Fixes & adjustments
Fixed an issue where players would experience a black screen when entering the game
Astride Patch 0.3.20
A new patch for Astride is now available. Here are the new features and changes/fixes that have been made. More patches and updates will come soon.
You may have to restart your Steam client if the update is not immediately available.
Patch highlights
Added content & features
Board to toggle different show jumping courses, training courses, and to clear the arena
New sets of show jumping courses and training courses
Board to toggle different dressage courses and training courses
Added training cones to the outside of the arena that can be picked up and moved by players
Prototype of inventory system (press I to see inventory)
A variety of bridles, saddles, saddle pads, and fetlock protectors
Added option in menu to hide fetlock boots, saddle and reins
Small quests with tack as rewards (press L to see quest log)
Double-click tack in your inventory to add it to the horse
Brand new, work in progress environment
Added more variants of Eldhest figurines, some based on community member submissions
New variations of jump standards and poles
Added number blocks and directional flags for all jumps in the show jumping courses (red flag on the right side of the jump)
Added visuals for the start and end of the show jumping courses (tripods and green indicator)
New cross country jumps have been made and added around the new environment
Fixes & adjustments
Added animation for mane and forelock
The horse’s eyes have been updated and replaced
Updated the tutorial image in the ESC menu
The Viking riding hall/arena has been reworked and updated
Shader and post-processing has been updated (still a work in progress)
The final stage of greying has been added, horses can now grey out completely
Added a second option for greying
Added slider for FOV and FPS
Known issues
The horse sometimes disobeys the follow-road command
The game crashes when shutting down a server if there are players online in that server
The ambience and music might cut out if there are too many sounds playing at once
Sounds for character footsteps, cones and the Eldhests have not yet been implemented
The in-game music will play every track after each other and then stop
Authentication issue when you've recently disconnected from a server and you're trying to re-join
Some horse animations, like turning while standing and the piaffe, won’t play as they should while standing still
Petting animations not aligning properly at some speeds and while turning
When toggling the reins off/on, they do not respawn in the correct place
Devlog #42: August 2024
Einar & courses
By Maja - CEO, Concept Artist
August for me has been busy, since I’ve done mostly administrative work throughout the entire month. But I had some time to finish Einar’s updated art and do some UI design. Einar was one of the very first NPCs announced to Astride. The elderly man who will assist the player with horse property. His very first art piece was drawn in early 2022 + his portrait for the Kickstarter campaign. That art was drawn in a short amount of time and my skill level has significantly increased since then. I did some changes, but stayed mostly true to the original design. He is kind of a very stereotypical Norwegian grandpa.
I’ve designed more courses for show jumping and dressage. I have also planned a few cross country courses that will appear later. Some of the courses will be available in the next update. And they are very fun to ride.
Training courses
By Mathilde - Community Manager, 3D-artist
This month, I worked on making show jumping more exciting. And by exciting, I mean more courses to ride through and variation in the obstacles. After Ouroboros made the feature to switch out courses in the arena, I started working on multiple show jumping courses for the players to test themselves with. With help from Maja's templates, we now have many new courses to test skills and beat time records, but I also reintroduced the training course that has been available in the game for a while already.
In addition to the new courses, I was tired of all of the jumps being so similar with only pole colors to differentiate them. This is when I started implementing some new jump standards and poles. In the image above, you can see an example of the new standards and poles. Hopefully, this new addition will help bring more life to the show jumping courses. I've also added some black tripods to the courses. These are supposed to imitate the lasers that mark the start and end of a round, counting the exact time for each equipage to ride through the course.
Another task I gave myself this month was to replace all of our cross country jumps. The log jumps from the current build on Steam were too stylized to fit into the environment, so I made some new jumps using assets that belong to the new environment. While they might not be the prettiest jumps, they will serve as a placeholder until we make new ones that fit better and look like actual cross country jumps.
Finally, I wanted to work on something that has been a wish from the community for some time. A lot of our players enjoy training and working with their horses in the arena, and I noticed that players were missing a crucial element; cones. With some help from Ouroboros to add a script to make them interactable, we now have cones that the players can grab and place freely around the world. I am very excited to see how they will be used. Hopefully, you will be able to place them a bit better than I did!
Tack, animations & more
By Marius - Animator
Dividing tack for equipability I already had made a script earlier that makes tack equipable, but I had made the error to group together some tack objects that made it impossible to match tack to your liking. While it is a minor task in the grand scheme of things I feel it is an important one. The tack objects in question were the saddle and saddle pads. When I originally added them to the game they were added as a single object, so if you wanted a different saddle pad color or type you couldn’t without changing the saddle. So I had to go in and change it to be different objects, especially since we needed it to work correctly for the inventory system that was going to be made this month.
Breed selection It will not be available in the game yet, but I have worked quite a bit on a breed selection script. So far it only works for purebreds, but the end goal is that it can evolve into the foundation for breeding mechanics. But it still has a few problems that need to be addressed before it is usable.
Character deformation While testing the mane movement we noticed that there were some weird deformation on the human character. Apparently it was because of my setup when exporting, that made it apply corrective deformation from specific animations to all animations under export. I only had time to do the simplest fix as the optimal way to fix it would take too much time as of now.
Smoothing out mane animation While I did mane animation simulation in June some of the animations were quite jittery as simulations tend to be. This made it so that I had to take some time to smooth out the animation bakes.
Forelock animation While working on smoothing the mane animations I noticed something I forgot to do in June: the forelock. I apparently managed to completely ignore the forelock when I initially worked on the mane. So I had to simulate the forelock in the same fashion as I made the mane animation. Luckily the forelock is only one chain of rigging bones, which makes the cleanup 6 times easier and way faster.
Sound of hooves While we have had hoof sounds in the game for a while now, I had to go in and change it for the next update. This is because we have a new environment, and a new environment means new texture setup. Because when I originally made the hoof code, I mapped the sounds to the environment's texture ID; the problem with doing that is that it breaks as soon as there is a new order of textures.
When texturing the environment, each texture behaves as layers in standard image editing software. Texture ID is the order these layers are set up in, so when there is a new environment (canvas) that order will be something different. Good chance that it will be different textures too. Because of this the hooves did not make any sound in the new environment.
So I had to convert the code to read texture names instead of ID’s. Which sounds easy, until you realize Unity reads the texture names differently from how it displays them; at least from what I could gather. So there was a little trial and error testing.
Polish & bug squashing
By Ouroboros - Programmer
There is always a lot to do before an update. Features have to be polished, adjustments need to be made, and bugs have to be hunted down and squashed. While I try to test as much as I can while implementing a new feature, it is difficult to do so in multiplayer. As such, it was no surprise that was where most of the bugs showed themselves. It doesn’t help that I still struggle a bit with multiplayer programming, but I’m getting better all the time. I have worked for Raidho Games for a year now and while I feel like I’ve got a handle on most things, there is still a lot to be learned. But that is also part of the fun.
During August, I have fixed colliders and adjusted LOD in the new environment, cleaned up a bit in the assets we have, swapped out the old dressage system for the new one, made some minor changes to show jumping, fixed some bugs with the UI, fixed some bugs with the inventory, fixed some bugs with show jumping, fixed some bugs with changing tack, did some polishing of the course selection UI, polished the inventory, and set up inventory items and quests. That’s more or less it. By now, it’s probably pretty obvious what is going to be in the update.
I’ll end my part of the devlog by leaving you with a short preview of the course selection.
Welcome, Darline
By Darline - Internship
Hi dear Astride community, I'm really excited to introduce myself! My name is Darline, I'm 21 years old, I come from Germany, and I'm currently training to become a game designer. In addition to my apprenticeship, I work on many creative projects. I'm an illustrator for various book covers and for children's books, a VFX artist, and cutter for the German YouTuber "Julien Bam", an illustrator for the TCG "Bluthelden", and much more. When I'm not busy with my apprenticeship, internship or my projects, I like to spend time with my friends, look after my cat or play handball.
I've always loved playing horse games since I was a child and when I discovered Astride, I immediately fell in love with the game. I have to do a 3-month internship for my apprenticeship and I asked the team of Raidho Games if it would be possible to do my internship there. Since the beginning of August, I've had the opportunity to start my internship. I was given a very warm welcome! I've had so much fun so far and I'm looking forward to the rest of the internship! The team is really great and is always there to help and advise me!
A little about my tasks: I am mainly responsible for 3D props, which means that I create small objects that fill the environment a little. They are not necessarily important for the storyline or quests, they are just nice to look at and contribute to the environmental storytelling. I have studied Norwegian culture a bit, for example to create the pattern of a Norwegian coffee cup or delicious waffles with cheese, jam and sour cream (I have never seen such a combination of waffles before XD). I have also looked into the old runic script. Maybe you can find some objects with the old runes in the game when the objects have been implemented. I have also drawn concepts for clothing or tack sets and also made some Eldhest designs. That's it from me so far. I wish you a wonderful day and have fun playing Astride. <3
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Please be aware that the content featured in these devlogs represents an ongoing work in progress and may be subject to further changes. We are committed to continuously developing and refining our game. To stay informed about the latest updates and connect with the rest of the Astride community, we invite you to join our dedicated Discord server community here! For additional information about Astride, please visit our official website.
Devlog #41: June 2024
The devlog for June's development is here! Please note that there will not be a devlog in July due to summer break. We will be back with a new devlog at the end of August/start of September to summarize the month of August.
Something new
By Maja - CEO, Concept Artist
This month, I tried something new! And that was to create a texture for a 3D model. For a while, I’ve been wanting to update the texture of the horse eyes. They always looked a bit lifeless to me because they were made quite fast and a long time ago. I was thinking about that every time I looked at the horse in front view. However, there were other tasks the 3D artists had to prioritize over that. Then I thought to myself: “What if I could make the texture?” So Mathilde created brand new eyes for the horses, fixed the UVs, and I got the texture map so that I could start painting.
This proved to be trickier than I first thought. The first problem was to make the eye the correct size and have the correct placement, which was something I couldn’t see until the texture was on the horse in Blender. As soon as I figured it out, I made a few iterations of the brown eye. Something that could look quite dark and calm in photoshop, could easily appear too yellow and too bright in Blender. I looked up many references and saw that many horses had some blues in the pupil, so I tried to add that. But it did not turn out great, so I removed the blues and made it all black instead. Then I finally got a design that I and the others absolutely loved! The eyes looked so alive compared to the old ones. Next up was the blue eyes. The blue itself was quite easy, but the eye whites were challenging. But we figured out a balance between the whites and the pink. I made a darker brown variation as well, that also looks amazing.
There was finally time to draw concept art for NPCs again. This time the main focus was on the player’s aunt, who is named Jorunn. I’ve written a more in depth Patreon post on the progress of Jorunn, so check it out if you are interested.
As a bonus I’m also working on an updated concept art of Einar. This has been a task I’ve been working on when I need a little break from other tasks.
For the horse creator UI, I needed pictures of all of the breeds. So Marius made them for me, with me giving lots of feedback on everything from posing to lighting and color. I was a bit unsure of the horse breeds should be in the same scale or it would be visible the size difference in each breed on the little icons. So I asked our beautiful patreons to see what they prefer.
And as seen above, the vote was clear. They wanted same scale images of the breeds. They told me that the same scale one looked cleaner and more balanced than the other one. They also told me the horses were too small on the different size one. And I have to agree. The layer will view the true size on the horse when it’s chosen. I also received feedback on some other parts of the design that I changed.
I have also prepared a design for the main menu. Though that one requires its own scene. But I think it will look very nice when it’s ready. I am so excited for the UI to be updated.
Upgrading horse hair
By Mathilde - Community Manager, 3D-artist
As mentioned in Maja's post, this month I helped out with the process of creating new eyes for the horses. This process was a bit back and forth, since I would get the textures from each iteration and making sure they fit the model in Blender properly. The eyes turned out amazing and I cannot wait to have them updated in the game as well.
While I have been working a lot behind the scenes on different subjects, I've also looked at ways to improve the horse's hair. As we all know, the current hair is thin and not moving. Although the short sport mane that our horses currently have is fine being thin, I have been struggling with getting a fuller look of the longer manes. The first thought was to try to make the mane into a solid mesh instead of using hair cards/planes. After testing this, we quickly realized that solid mesh hair would look too cartoony, so I went back to the drawing board.
Since the hair cards need individual textures to be able to match the different coat patterns, such as tobiano markings, and the texture size needs to be kept fairly small, I decided to try to duplicate the hair cards and change their shape instead. This way, we could keep the same UVs and texture, but still have a fuller volume to the hair.
While working on the hair cards and seeing the animation work that Marius was doing on the long mane, I also realized that the longer hair cards really need an update. Right now, it looks like someone brought scissors to the stable and chopped the hair straight off. In the future, I will update the textures and make the individual strands at the end have more variation of length to make the overall hair look and feel more natural.
While this is nowhere near finished, it's a start and an improvement from the thinner hair we previously had. If you take a look at Marius' animation GIF further down, you can see the "before" of the same mane that you can see above. I also tested to see if the changes would work with our existing blend keys (what makes the mane fit the different breeds), and it seemed to translate fairly well.
From fields to forest
By Tirna - Project Manager, 3D-artist
Since the last devlog, I have been mostly working on the forest, but also on creating a border around the property and reducing tiling as much as possible, as you can see in the pictures below.
It has been a lot of back and forth with the forest. Here, in Norway, especially where we are located, we have many tall and straight pine trees. So, how do we make this interesting? Well, honestly, I’m still trying to figure it out. But I think we might be onto something.
One clue is that the background is still important. If we were in a dense forest and got lost, it would be difficult to determine the right direction. Let’s say you want to get to the home stable, and you know it is close to the mountains. The picture above would lead you in the general correct direction. These are things we often think about now when making environments, which we didn’t do before. There will be parts that are denser and a little more closed off. But if you follow the road, you’ll never get lost. At least, that’s the goal.
Comparing the background with the mountains to another direction, to the fjord! You are still surrounded by mountains, but they are not as tall as the others and have no snow on top. As you get closer, more of the water will be revealed.
The waterfall will be worked on in a later iteration to make it look more natural. For now, we are just using it as a point of interest so we can frame the views from more than one angle. We can’t wait to share the new environment with you! Most likely, it will be a work in progress for a while, even if we release it in early access. It is very important for us that you test it and give us feedback so we can improve the major issues.
Horse sizes
By Marius - Animator
In early June, I helped Maja make the images for the UI. While doing this, we had to figure out how the different sizes correlate to size in Unity. This led me to make a list of the different breeds with their median height as a base and find out what that would be when scaled in Unity as the base horse model (the Norwegian Warmblood) has a size of 1. I needed to calculate from what the height of that horse is modeled after would be scaled to be correct for another breed.
Above is an example of the Warmblood and the Fjord. I later realized that we will need the max and minimum sizes for actual implementation and customization though.
During June some of us went to a convention for game developers. During the convention I got to talking with someone that was going to have a blender workshop later. While talking I brought up a problem that has eluded me for many months now, and that is how I can make the mane move. For I could not rig it normally as the hair bones will follow the neck bones 100% but I needed it to work as if it was skinned like the mesh to work properly. He invited me to the workshop and said he could cover a solution he talked about that was exactly what I was looking for.
After coming back I used most of the month setting up the rig system from what I learned there. While a lot of time went for the actual baking, there was also some struggling with making the setup work with my physics simulation plug in as it did not work if there were other modifiers on the bones. While I have not tested if it works with blend shapes yet, it so far looks promising.
Quality of life
By Green Horse - Programmer
I’ve been working on a lot of backend upgrades to the codebase in June. By restructuring the code it makes it easier and quicker to iterate on new features.
Here are some improvements: Instant play in the Unity Editor. No more startup nonsense. It’s also more interesting for the coding livestreams to be able to see changes instantly. Execute console command with the prefix “+” when you successfully connect to a server. Useful for rapid prototyping of new features. Run console commands from launch parameters given to the exe. Example: “-map Eldheim_02 -host_singleplayer”. This will make it possible to host 24/7 servers by wrapping the exe in a batch file monitoring for crashes. RCON will be implemented later to be able to control your servers remotely.
Much of June went into research of assets we might use in Astride and with that a bunch of prototyping of scripts we can use in development.
With Rukhanka I managed to create a networked ragdoll to test out the feasibility of having a ragdoll functionality in the game. This is not guaranteed to be a feature but if it works well then I want to get tossed off some horses. Rukhanka also moves the animation system to DOTS giving us all the performance that comes with it. There has always been some anxiety that we’re going to hit a limit of animated horses and characters but with Rukhanka the limit is increased by a massive amount. Rukhanka will not be implemented any time soon but it’s important to do early research on these things.
Realtime CSG is a Unity tool we use to block out levels using Constructive Solid Geometry. I’ve made maps in Valve Hammer Editor since the early days of Counter-Strike so this workflow is familiar to me. Really nice in contrast to Unity’s built-in tools.
We hade a livestream challenge recently where I'd make a feature in 3 hours requested by you. I prototyped a whistling functionality on stream to make the horse follow the player. I went through comments from our community and picked one that was feasible to do in 3 hours. Leave a comment on this devlog and suggest what I should make on livestream and I’ll go through them and pick one out.
Finally, I’ve been testing out an itch.io key delivery discord bot on some of our patreon members. Itch.io has a patreon integration but it only works for active patreon members so it doesn’t really work for us since our playtesting functionality is a permanent reward for bronze tier and up. We’re going to move playtesting over to itch.io when everything is ready.
Quest system & dressage
By Ouroboros - Programmer
I have spent some time this month working on the quest system, as well as the save system. A lot of time went into testing and debugging these systems, but I eventually got everything working the way it should. I updated the save system to save quest progress, which meant I also had to make some changes to how quests are initialized since that should only happen if they aren’t loaded from a save. I added prerequisites to quests, so that it is possible to control when a quest becomes available. A prerequisite might be that the player must finish another quest first, or that they have to complete a dressage course.
To get a small change of pace, I decided to do some work on dressage. While show jumping and dressage won’t be a priority this year, we have had plans to do some work on them. The first thing I did was to upgrade the bezier curves we use to make the courses. They weren’t particularly user friendly, and making the dressage courses was slow work. The changes I have done make it much easier to add, move, and delete control points, which makes it faster to create the desired curve.
One of the things I wanted to implement for the next iteration of dressage was transition points anywhere on a curve. “Transition point” is what I call the circles that indicate where to change gait and what gait to change to. In the current implementation, they can only be at the beginning or the end of a curve. A gait is assigned to the curve, and if the gait is different from the previous curve’s gait, a transition point appears. Because of this, it wasn’t possible to have several gait changes along one curve, or to have a point on the middle of the curve where the player has to halt. This is now a thing of the past. Transition points can be added at any point along a curve, and there can be as many or as few as is needed. A transition point can be for changing gait, or for the player to halt a set amount of seconds.
Having made changes to the curves and transition points, I had to make some changes to the actual dressage system as well. The player won’t notice much difference, but I added logic that checks for transition points along the curve and what kind of transition point it is (gait change or halt). A gait change transition point will score the player based on how close they are to the point when they change to the correct gait. A halt transition point will give a score based on how close to the point the player stops, and how long they stay before moving in relation to the time they are asked to stand still. Players will be awarded points for moving along the curves at the correct gait and without straying too far away. A course is divided into steps (tests?) where the player will be awarded the points at the end of each step. The score for a step will be the average of all the curves and transition points that were a part of the step. The score system still needs tweaking and testing, but we’re getting there.
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Please be aware that the content featured in these devlogs represents an ongoing work in progress and may be subject to further changes. We are committed to continuously developing and refining our game. To stay informed about the latest updates and connect with the rest of the Astride community, we invite you to join our dedicated Discord server community here! For additional information about Astride, please visit our official website.
Devlog #40: May 2024
Paintings
By Maja - CEO, Concept Artist
My biggest task this month was to create a painting for the game itself. Astride will have some wall decor where it’s suitable, so some things that resemble a painting are perfect for our concept and will also make the inside of a certain building a bit more interesting.
The idea was more of a historical painting from around the early 1900s, featuring two people riding together on each their horse in a calm landscape near a little pond. I had to do some research to find some fitting clothes for the two that were also normal in the given time area.
I’ll show you a blurred image of it. It’s not too exciting to show it before it’s in the game. I also have a few more “paintings” in the works. I am excited to see them in the game.
The Jutland
By Mathilde - Community Manager, 3D-artist
The month of May has been short for me due to national holidays and a personal week off. Nonetheless, we still have a new breed to reveal that was chosen by one of our amazing Kickstarter backers. This is the mighty Jutland horse!
While the Jutland does have great, big feathers (hair) on their legs, this is a bigger task that we haven't started just yet. So, for now, all of the horses that are supposed to have leg feathers will have bare legs. I can't wait until we figure out a good solution for the hair and how the colors will be affected. Since we have so many color variations and markings, this will definitely be a nut to crack, but I am sure we will get there at some point.
The world is changing
By Tirna - Project Manager, 3D-artist
Say goodbye to that old, crusty placeholder of a world, and say hello to this new world! I’m unsure where to actually begin, so I’ll start with the fact that even though I did most of it, I got thorough guidance from Josef, the 3D artist who is creating our characters. He also designed the soft and cozy lighting!
We got rid of all the older environment assets and replaced them with different asset packs from Nature Manufacture. Working with these assets, and with Josef, has been nothing less than a game changer. It’s good to say that I finally feel more confident in this field.
Our goal is for you as a player to recognize where you are, which was difficult in the current environment scene on Steam. We don’t know for sure when this scene will be available to you, but we hope it will be part of a larger update in the next couple of months. In this post, I won’t be too technical, just sharing some pictures and thoughts.
Eldheim is based on Scandinavian countries, and what is Scandinavia without our mighty mountains? For us, these surroundings bring a calm and safe feeling, like nature is shielding you from the stressful daily life and wants to bring you peace and quiet.
Behind the horse market stable, you will find a nice little field, where some horses or maybe other animals will roam.
Nearby the horse market, you’ll find a house that has a fantastic view, which I hope most of us can agree is like a dream.
From another angle, you can see the fjord. Imagine having that as a background while training showjumping with Rini!
Or would you rather go for a little trail alone or among old and new friends?
I really hope that you are looking forward to saying goodbye to the old environment and welcoming this new place. It has been a joy to work on, and I’m looking forward to continuing with this. Some changes, however, might happen, but all in all, this is the general path we are on.
On a last note, we just got rid of that dreadful water! This is one of the next steps I’ll learn.
Reins & rearing
By Marius - Animator
In the devlog for April, I kept a little secret. While my main work was on tack setup and system last month, I also began looking into finally adding reins. It took some time to research and learn new tools, but over May it began to take shape into proper reins. During this time I tried to make a good backlog of GIFs and pictures of my progress and bloopers to use in a Patreon post on the making of reins and why they were delayed. While they are not finished yet, they are at a level where I feel we can test them publicly.
While a lot of time has gone to making and documenting the reins it does not mean I've been idle on other things. I’ve teased it in the Patreon post, but there is a new animation on its way! It is a rearing animation, for both horse and rider! Though, when it will be available is uncertain, as we need to fix a bug that makes animations while stationary play incorrectly and set up some other requirements before it will be in-game. This is the same bug that prevents the turning on the forehand and pirouette animations from playing correctly.
Other than that, I adjusted the tack script from last month to work on set pieces instead of individual parts like having to add the metal and leather parts of the saddle as separate objects, when they are meant to be one object.
Though I do have to split it up so that you can choose the saddle pad independently from the saddle.
Playtesting and servers
By Green Horse - Programmer
Early May was all about playtesting, getting a patch out to fix some performance issues, adding quality of life improvements and getting a prototype show jumping scoreboard in. I worked with the livestream community to record some promotional footage and I was surprised over how many people joined. I will most likely do another one of these in June.
In mid to late May I worked on improving the internal tools to speed up development. One of the improvements is that it now takes about two seconds to enter the game in Unity and that we can now automatically launch a server from launch parameters enabling people to host 24/7 servers.
Tack & course selection
By Ouroboros - Programmer
I started the month by making a system to change the horse’s tack from the player’s inventory. It uses the code Marius worked on last month to assign tack to the horse. Once the player has some tack in their inventory, all they need to do is to double-click it to equip it to the horse. If the horse already has a tack of the same type equipped (like a saddle), then the old tack will be returned to the player’s inventory. A horse’s equipped tack is saved between sessions, so the player won’t have to put it on every time they start the game. There currently isn’t an option to remove the tack, but it is possible to hide the saddle and boots. Tack change from the inventory can be seen in action below, complete with placeholder images and text.
Another feature I have worked on is course selection. Players currently have to interact with a board to start a dressage course or show jumping course. There is one board for each course. This is going to become inconvenient when we add more courses, so I have made some changes so that one board can have several courses. Interacting with a board will bring up a UI where the player can see all the courses the board has, and select the one they want.
Since show jumping courses need jumps that should be visible to all players, they work a bit differently than dressage courses. A show jumping course must be activated before it can be used. One board can only have one course active at a time, and the active course can only be changed if no one is using it. Dressage courses have no restrictions like this.
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Please be aware that the content featured in these devlogs represents an ongoing work in progress and may be subject to further changes. We are committed to continuously developing and refining our game. To stay informed about the latest updates and connect with the rest of the Astride community, we invite you to join our dedicated Discord server community here! For additional information about Astride, please visit our official website.
Astride Patch 0.3.19
A new patch for Astride is now available. Here are the new features and changes/fixes that have been made. More patches and updates will come soon.
You may have to restart your Steam client if the update is not immediately available.
Added content & features
A prototype scoreboard has been added to the indoor riding arena
Camera follow mode by pressing C on the keyboard or Right Stick Button Down on gamepad
Camera follow mode while holding down right-click
Option to automatically turn off camera follow mode when moving the mouse or joystick
Added options for mouse, joystick and scroll sensitivity in the settings menu
Option to swap the position of the names above the horse
Added option to change field of view
A new shadow resolution level for maximum shadow resolution has been added
Fixes & adjustments
Updated Unity DOTS packages to 1.2 with some performance and stability improvements
Made the sun shadow quality match the quality settings in options
Sliders have been widened to match the rest of the menu
The third-person camera pivot has been slightly heightened
Fixed the crashes happening on server shutdown
Fixed the crashes when players disconnect from your server while show jumping
Fixed the camera stuttering issue in first-person view
Fixed the low framerate while looking at the indoor riding arena
Known issues
Other player's horse will slide through the second jump if the horse lands in a jump zone
The horse sometimes disobeys the follow-road command
The in-game music will play every track after each other and then stop
Authentication issue when you've recently disconnected from a server and you're trying to re-join
The gray option in the horse creator doesn’t completely gray out and currently has only one gray texture option
Some horse animations, like turning while standing and the piaffe, won’t play as they should while standing still
Petting animations not aligning properly at some speeds and while turning
Missing sounds for character footsteps, ball, and Eldhest figurines
Horse shaking while automatically steering
Joystick turning will sometimes interfere with the horse's speed
The jumping animation is not blending properly and is slow
