A Brief Look into the History of Horse Motion Capture for Video Games
Earlier this week I saw someone on Facebook claim that Red Dead Redemption 2 was the first video game to use motion capture for horses. While I was instantly sure that was not in fact true, the question of “What WAS the first video game to use motion capture for horses?” isn’t actually all that easy to answer.
Let’s take a look at what I’ve found:
Red Dead Redemption from 2010
Melbourne Cup Challenge from 2006
Red Dead Redemption, 2010: The claim that Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018 was the first example of horse mocap is particularly funny considering that it wasn’t even the first Red Dead Redemption game to use motion capture for horses. Here’s an interview by Gamespot from 2010 confirming that the then freshly released Red Dead Redemption was using horse motion capture already. In the interview, art department director Josh Bass talks of the difficulties of getting mocap tracker balls to stick to horses, among other things.
Joust Legend, 2013: Longtime readers may also remember mobile game Joust Legend from my interview with Rebellion CEO and medieval riding reenactor Jason Kingsley: Released in 2013, Joust Legend isn’t exactly competing for “first” here, but it is noteworthy to include considering it was a relatively early example of horse mocap for a mobile game in particular.
Melbourne Cup Challenge, 2006: Also covered on The Mane Quest before is the predecessor to Rival Stars Horse Racing, made by Sidhe Interactive, the New Zealand studio that would later become Pikpok. The PS2 horse racing game featured horse motion capture created by Weta Digital, of The Lord of the Rings fame.
Alexandra Ledermann 6, 2005: A classic horse game from the golden age of horse games, also known as Pippa Funnell 2: Take the Reins or Petz Horsez. While these smaller niche games remain frustratingly undocumented, members from the TMQ community were able to dig up this article and even a video showing the motion capture work done by developer Lexis Numérique and publisher Ubisoft at the time.
Behind the scenes clip from Alexandra Ledermann 6, featuring the titular equestrian and showcasing how motion capture was used for jumps, gaits and dressage maneuvers in the game.
Making-of Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny, showing how a horse was motion-captured for a battle cutscene.
Now, I think it would be super fucking cool if the medal for first motion captured horse in a video game would belong to an almost-forgotten (by mainstream media, not by horse girls) horse game, but I did actually end up finding an earlier example thanks to the social media work of renowned games animator Jonathan Cooper:
Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny, 2002: Decidedly not a horse game, this Japanese action adventure by Capcom used horse motion capture for horses even earlier. From what I’ve been able to find, the technology was used for cutscene animation rather than featuring a horse prominently in gameplay. Interestingly, the game received a remastered version released the day before I’m writing this.
I also learned this week that Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to use motion capture for the horse in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but was prevented from doing so by pesky budget considerations, concluding “In the end we got 2 footstools and a plank and making our own horse like that.”
So until someone can point me to anything pre-2002, I would say the answer is that Capcom’s Onimusha 2 from 2002 was the first video game to use motion capture for horses, with Alexandra Lederman 6 from 2005 getting an honorable mention for being the first horse-focused game to do so.
For more recent examples, horse mocap has also been used in Rival Stars Horse Racing, The Last of Us Part II, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and of course the recently released Equinox: Homecoming.
And while we’re at it I’ll say that in my opinion, motion capture isn’t necessarily the deciding factor in what makes good horse animation: I’ve seen excellent handmade horse animation as well as awkward-looking motion capture results, proving that the technology isn’t really what makes or breaks the lifelike behavior of horses in games. But I sure always love to see such widespread examples of devs that try all they can to make their horses look great.
Many thanks to TMQ Community members Crepe, Choco, Bonjour Honey and Flickers for helping me find and use some of the material used in this article!