Sidenius - Devlog #7 October 2026
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Sidenius - Devlog #7 October 2026 part 2
About This Title
It's time for another devlog, this time with a focus on dragon locomotion!
Dragon Movement
The focus this month has been getting the ground movement to a good state across different bodies and movement speeds, as well as improving the animation capabilities overall for more expressive movements. Dragons can now cover speeds of up to 300 m/s (108 km/h, 67 mph) with adaptive gaits and body movements, both for quadruped and wyvern style dragons.
All gaits evolve naturally based on the speed, so there are no hard coded gait thresholds. Here's a continuous ramp up from slow walking to the fastest leaping galloping and back down again. Later on the actual speed the dragon will be able to move at may depend on the body, such as trading mass for speed, or forelegs providing better ground movement while sacrificing aerial maneuverability, and of course the overall size. There are still some more refinements needed to the movement but it's starting to feel pretty good.
Translating movements between different dragon bodies has been surprisingly simple due to how the system is set up. The wyvern movement appears on its own by treating the wings as legs, with almost no additional tuning for the movement.
The same goes for very long torsos, although I haven't quite figured out how to make these feel natural, especially at faster speeds.
There's also now a system for triggering sounds and effects from foot steps. In this video (which has sound) it is used with placeholder step sounds as well as camera shakes for heavy steps. Both are attenuated by distance so they are felt the most when right next to the dragon.
A new target tracking system bends the neck such that the head ends up pointing at the desired location, regardless of neck length. This can be used for example to aim the fire breathing, bite at a particular location or just making the dragon look at points of interest.
There have been countless improvements to the new physical animation system/editor shown in the last devlog, which has made developing these complex movements possible. The rider, who was missing in the last devlog, has now also been ported to the system with its own posing framework.
Environment
The terrain material was adapted to a new displacement method as an alternative to the screen space method shown in the last devlog. It's simpler and more limited but doesn't suffer from the same artefacts, so it's a backup in case that one turns out to be too problematic.
The environment interaction system has been expanded with a volumetric component that can be used for 3D smoke and similar effects. Here's a WIP smoke simulation that may be used to improve the visuals of the dragon fire impact.
There has also been work on creating new terrain features for the landscape, here are a few examples:
Dragon Creator
As for the dragon creator, most of the work this month has gone into a batch of new legs/feet that will be used to stress test the flexibility of the movement system.
Some new spikes for the body:
Many new thumbnails have also been created, now covering all head features:
It's time for another devlog, this time with a focus on dragon locomotion!
Dragon Movement
The focus this month has been getting the ground movement to a good state across different bodies and movement speeds, as well as improving the animation capabilities overall for more expressive movements. Dragons can now cover speeds of up to 300 m/s (108 km/h, 67 mph) with adaptive gaits and body movements, both for quadruped and wyvern style dragons.
All gaits evolve naturally based on the speed, so there are no hard coded gait thresholds. Here's a continuous ramp up from slow walking to the fastest leaping galloping and back down again. Later on the actual speed the dragon will be able to move at may depend on the body, such as trading mass for speed, or forelegs providing better ground movement while sacrificing aerial maneuverability, and of course the overall size. There are still some more refinements needed to the movement but it's starting to feel pretty good.
Translating movements between different dragon bodies has been surprisingly simple due to how the system is set up. The wyvern movement appears on its own by treating the wings as legs, with almost no additional tuning for the movement.
The same goes for very long torsos, although I haven't quite figured out how to make these feel natural, especially at faster speeds.
There's also now a system for triggering sounds and effects from foot steps. In this video (which has sound) it is used with placeholder step sounds as well as camera shakes for heavy steps. Both are attenuated by distance so they are felt the most when right next to the dragon.
A new target tracking system bends the neck such that the head ends up pointing at the desired location, regardless of neck length. This can be used for example to aim the fire breathing, bite at a particular location or just making the dragon look at points of interest.
There have been countless improvements to the new physical animation system/editor shown in the last devlog, which has made developing these complex movements possible. The rider, who was missing in the last devlog, has now also been ported to the system with its own posing framework.
Environment
The terrain material was adapted to a new displacement method as an alternative to the screen space method shown in the last devlog. It's simpler and more limited but doesn't suffer from the same artefacts, so it's a backup in case that one turns out to be too problematic.
The environment interaction system has been expanded with a volumetric component that can be used for 3D smoke and similar effects. Here's a WIP smoke simulation that may be used to improve the visuals of the dragon fire impact.
There has also been work on creating new terrain features for the landscape, here are a few examples:
Dragon Creator
As for the dragon creator, most of the work this month has gone into a batch of new legs/feet that will be used to stress test the flexibility of the movement system.
Some new spikes for the body:
Many new thumbnails have also been created, now covering all head features:
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