Designing Realistic Horses in Red Dead Redemption 2 | AI and Games #63

[@AIandGames]

A quick shout out to the team at Rockstar who put a crazy amount of work into making the horses look so damn good. I have it on good authority that my videos are on occasion shared around at Rockstar North. So I hope I've done the work justice!

[@mjaada]

Where did you get the videos from the presentation? Did Tobias give them to you?

[@AIandGames]

@@mjaada No they're taken from a recorded presentation at GDC.

[@mjaada]

@@AIandGames they aren't in the gdc vault pdf, so thanks for including them

[@VB-92]

One of the great moments in RDR2 is when a guy asks for help getting somewhere, only to steal the player's horse. Except I had a full bond with my horse and the moment I whistled for her, she instantly threw the guy off and came back to me.

[@Moonfaster]

That's awesome!

[@filledb]

Most of the time I just ignore the horse thief and just ride past, but occasionally when I'm feeling a bit twitchy I blow their heads off 😜

[@choo_choo_]

When I first saw RDR2, and the horse did that lateral drift motion when turning around, I knew something special just happened. I had never seen an in game horse do something like that, apart from a few exceptions. It was one of those few "next gen" moments that you don't seem to get any more. I remember having that kind of feeling back when GTA IV came out and you could ride taxis through the city, or that cars had actual voice-navigation GPS, or the cell phones and internet. It's just one of those small things in a new video game that doesn't quite floor you, but just gives you the taste that "it's the future now". You don't really seem to get those any more, but when you do it's really something.

[@FilipBergqvist]

Also worthy of mention is the horse Agro in Shadow of the Colossus. They had amazing horse AI and locomotion for the time! The developers had the same goal in mind as Rockstar: make it feel like an animal following your commands instead of a vehicle.

[@Equalatior]

If only the game told the player how to control the horse properly in tighter spaces - hold X and let go of the control stick.

[@Vilatus]

Shadow of the colossus is an amazing example. It saddens me when I hear people say that they hated Agro, because she actually acted like a horse and wandered off or didn’t act exactly like a car. That’s… the point. She’s not a car, she’s an animal with her own thoughts!

[@jurefranceskin3176]

The amount of detail and the depth of a system that's often just taken for granted in Rockstar's games are what sets them apart from the rest.

[@hugo59208]

Rockstar's horses lateral movement is so perfect it almost reaches uncanny valley

[@joebrown6778]

Rdr 2 is my favorite game. I've played it for easily hundreds of hours. Thank you for rekindling the sense of awe I had when I was still on hour 1.

[@soupsnail9979]

i remember one time i was playing rdr2, i was on horseback and a cougar ran at me. my horse bluebell didn’t buck me, but i did run face first into a boulder while shooting at the cougar and i went flying lmao. i wasn’t fast enough getting back up and the cougar got me in that death bite it has. i was pretty sure it was game over, but then bluebell is running over and rearing!!! the cougar runs away from her and i manage to kill it. i’m not entirely certain that this was my horse protecting me, but damn if it didnt look and feel fucking cool. serious kudos to the devs at rockstar for all the amazing moments i’ve had playing this game

[@domosrage5434]

Wish my horse did that. My horse (max bond) actually forcefully came to a full stop and wouldn't move before bucking me off and letting the cougar eat me.

[@jesmondsaunders7746]

@@domosrage5434 Tgat is my only gripe and it’s a minor one. The only thing it’s missing is a devils drop of individual personality. I own two real horses and one is a mild sook who will bully only very occasionally and always gets her dinner stolen and a fearless mare who will take on anyone who’s suicidal. And steals everyone’s dinner. These are each their own horse. I think they missed a trick in not offering a semi randomised personality.

[@HEKVT]

I had the pre-order Grey Ardennes, it was the only horse I used in my story playthrough and is still my favourite horse in the game. I remember it got ran over when I bought a train ticket and it was on the tracks, bit the bullet and reloaded the most event save, 4 hours prior.

[@kaiser9321]

Incredibly interesting, I knew there was a lot of details in this game about the horses, I just didn’t know how much

[@Feral_Kenna]

Thank you for making this video! The work and effort that went into the horses of RDR2 is astounding and those of us who are gamers and also equestrians really appreciate it!! The horses in RDR2 don't get enough recognition imo! I hope Rockstar will add more horse content and customisation options in the future! ..but i'm not holding my breath lol

[@Sinebeast]

What saddens me the most is that the same company released the GTA Trilogy "Remastered". Huge congrats on the team that work on RDR2. That amount of details and the work it represent is astounding.

[@Nugcon]

You can tell where they chose to spend their resources

[@Moonfaster]

First of all, I've wanted to see documentaries and making-of videos of Rockstar games for two decades, but they seem more secretive than CIA. So thank you for this, and very well made! Secondly, I've been playing games since the late 80s and RDR2 is my favorite game of all times. It feels like they made some mind reading on me and decided to do everything I want from a game. Besides, I own a horse and I often think of this game when I'm with it. Anyway, amazing channel. When I get a little bit more money over I'll support you on Patreon. (Horses eats money)

[@John-996]

Check out their GDC talk if you have not seen it.

[@Moonfaster]

@@John-996 Thank you so much! I had no idea about that!

[@jarlwhiterun7478]

RDR2 and BotW have the best goddamned horse riding in any games, and made it enjoyable and immersive as hell.

[@CoolAndNormal]

during my playthrough there was a moment where all the camp horses standing together were shitting so often there was always on horse actively pooping

[@kemsat-n6h]

Had I been next to you when you made that horse jump off the cliff, I woulda smacked you. Great video. Didn’t know they’d gone to those lengths to make realistic horses for the cowboy simulator.

[@AIandGames]

Not gonna lie, I still feel bad about that cliff jump.

[@LiquidSnake1988]

Big respect for reviewing the most ignored and underrated part of the game, HORSE!

[@Svi3sa]

Thanks for this video! Rockstar really went all-in on these horses and the result is amazing

[@ludoviajante]

This video is incredibly interesting and well done, thank you!

[@DanielGilbert86]

Awesome video, thank you!

[@QwertyQwerty-so4kw]

thx for this video. also thx to rockstar north for this fabulous gift to us fans. i sure did had emotional attachment with my horse 'sydney'

[@QwertyQwerty-so4kw]

now give an option for horses to wear fedora 😋

[@romariogee]

RDR2 horses are simply unmatched. I finished the game 4 times and still remember some of my favourite steeds.

[@playtech5362]

Great Stuff , Every video you post is a marvelous piece in itself , thanks for sharing such value able information , Keep it up 🙂♥

[@Skyfox94]

What an amazing episode. Thanks for the informative and hilarious video Tommy.

[@rickcolan2116]

Wasn't expecting this but the video fulfilled my expectations

[@InquilineKea]

THIS MADE ME FEEL UNIQUE EMPATHY FOR HORSES

[@venmosh4822]

Awesome thank you for your content. Been looking forward to this video. Edit- I had no clue they considered using the horse Models & Animations from RDR1. Standing Ovation to the devs who decided to remake the horses! Otherwise Horse controls would have been atrocious for RDR2, especially with all the tough terrain geometry(those darn trees lol) 😂

[@DrakeDaraitis]

An upload two weeks ago I somehow missed? All the better for a day sick from work! Also, I was just thinking about how much research into Horses was required when AI and Horses came up!

[@filledb]

Rockstar set the bar with horses, there's not another video game in existence that even comes close.

[@moonwatcher4047]

I see video by AI & Games about horses. I click.

[@RStarbuck13]

This kind of thing is really awesome, and probably the biggest leap in technology from the previous generation since there's so much processing going on that just wouldn't have been possible before. It's a little sad that the result is so subtle - nudging the horse animation from good to really good - and therefore isn't as widely appreciated as it should be.

[@Matthus8888]

Excellent! Informative and entertaining as always.

[@andrewfrost8866]

Absolutely awesome!

[@ScaryMeadow]

I just wish that after over several 100 real time hours on that horse, she'd stop getting spooked by the mere sound of a single gunshot to the point where the game refuses to let me aim at the enemy shooting at me so I can get rid of the danger, and instead turns my camera 180 degrees to watch my horse continuing to freak out. I love how much effort they put into the horses, but man, if it wouldn't be nice if our 4-legged companions could learn by experience over time. Like, if you trample enough snakes suddenly they're not so scary any more. Like how you train real horses. Sans live snake trampling.

[@weezersthebluealbum9479]

1:49 That could not possibly sound more manly or Scottish.

[@mastermarkus5307]

Can we just have every game company that puts a horse in their game license out this system from Rockstar or something? 'Cause every game should have the decency to bless us with good horses.

[@themarinefan]

To me, the most important part of a story set in americas historical west is the characters. It doesn't matter what happens in the story or who writes it, as long as the characters are S teir. Take JJBA Steel Ball Run for example, characters have crazy powers called stands and the goal is to win a cross country race and recover the body of Jesus Christ. And it's written by man in japan, but it has great characters. And of these characters, they best of them are shown when they are with their horses. Horses should be characters aswell, as they are literally partners with your protagonist and could argubly be considered dueteraganists. Rdr2 does this perfectly!

[@gabrielandy9272]

this is all good in theory but game companys don't do this usually specially if its a mmo they will just teleport and all that crap, i would be happy if this set a new standard that no game company would do worse but i doubt it =(

[@robertskitch]

So... more complicated than Minecraft horses then?

[@LiquidSnake1988]

If only people are able to mod witcher 3's horse gameplay.

[@dkn_chkn]

Currently working on horses for my game in unreal how does one make an ai system? any video links I can't seem to find anything on it.

[@amandalovegood7317]

It's a bit of a shame that Red Dead 2 is currently the best horse game on the market. The horse community has been wanting a great horse game for so long and the best horse game currently doesn't even have horses as its main focus. Red Dead 2 is a great game with a fantastic story! I just think it's a shame that Rockstar didn't get more out of their Red Dead Online. The opportunity to open a small horse farm and/or breeding facility in Red Dead Online would be a dream for many horse fans.

[@AIandGames]

Agreed. We need more horse games that are actually about horses.

[@HeyThisIsRo]

Great video.

[@AlRoderick]

I want to know when the word strafe came to be associated with walking sideways. I assume it's sometime around the introduction of mouse look FPS controls, but I don't think it used to mean that.

[@DFWNites]

I think strafe has been around since WWI or earlier.

[@zelvanyan]

now they just need to make a medieval rdrd2 game, because they have the best horses in video game history, according to my opinion of course

[@Xiefux]

well, it is rumored they are making a medieval game

[@akam9919]

6:16 quit staring!

[@fhjunior6183]

Thanks for the vid

[@SpirosKography]

Very nice and informative!

[@bookergodefroy5570]

Amazing video for an amazing feature in an amazing game.

[@LiquidSnake1988]

You didn't review shadow of colossus ps2? :(

[@muzboz]

Excellent video, nice one. :D

[@monkeeyo101]

dlc horse armor

[@Doctor-Infinite]

dlc horse armor

[@venmosh4822]

Dlc horse armour 🐴 Ftw!

[@ryan_mette]

Hey, maybe the price of getting horses in RDR2 is about the same as actually owning a horse...

[@devfilm_]

Now do a video about the rest of the ai systems in rdr2

[@tk423b]

A horse shouldn’t become engulfed in flames when it gets to close to a camp fire.

[@jjc0064]

Well my dog begs to differ at a lack of realistic horses in games *barks at the most basic lump of pixels with only a few frames of animation "that's a #*@¿ing horse!"*

[@TheDarkHour684]

The game looks amazing technically, I just wish someone other than Rock* had made it, so the story wasn't trash.

[@boigercat]

The horses in rdr 1 are better for one reason, they actually run up to you instead of stopping 5 meters away

[@NomadShadow1]

Cool

[@PlebNC]

Rockstar: Makes really good video game horses because they can. Also Rockstar: Approved GTA Definitively Half-Baked Edition because they can.

[@liorbeaugendre6935]

😂😂🤣

[@domosrage5434]

I hate the horses in this game for one single reason. Horse AI. Everything else is extremely great and it feels amazing, when it works. However, taking control away from the player because the "realistic horse" thinks it'll run into a nonexistent object should not ever happen. It's a video game, taking away the players control should never be an option. The amount of times my horse has crashed, and even died, due to it trying to avoid something I was nowhere near is uncountable and never even should have happened. Its even more of a slap to the face since the horses have perma death. Basically, I don't think realism should come at the cost of player control. Theres a careful balance between realism and playability that game devs need to figure out, and I feel the horses in RDR2 is very close to that balance

[@Tinyvalkyrie410]

I disagree, this and shadow of the colossus are the only two games where I enjoyed the horses, because they didn’t feel like cars, they felt like animals. The realism is what made it for me.

[@NextLevelCode]

AI horses and hand grenades

[@Jonathon_Hennessey]

seeing Arthur Morgan dying of tuberculosis near the end of the game was hard to watch, I had become fond of the character over the course of Red Dead Redemption 2's campaign.

[@Mouamle]

They make horses poop but couldn't put half of the time they spent there into the remastered GTA SA rain.

[@fireaza]

GTA: SA walked, so the RDR2 horses could poop!

[@MrQuicheProductions]

You know why ? Because it's not Rockstar Games that worked on those.

[@sergeysergeev7564]

Ставьте лайк кто смтрел в переводе Яндекса и поржал от перевода )))

[@Lonely_Soldier]

Sure the animations and such they did with the horses are good and all that but the horse AI is incredibly dumb and they collide with things constantly.

[@Elknkam]

Rockatar released there Trilogy for pc and it's a disaster!

[@REXanadu]

...is there a motivation meter for content creators to pepper most of their later videos with terrible, cringeworthy jokes - like in this video? It took me out of the experience of learning about the systems in play. All I could think about is when you would make another bad joke. I'm not saying for you to remove jokes from your videos; I'm telling you to write better jokes.

[@AIandGames]

Noted: more jokes.

[@GraveyardTricks]

Thank god the dislike button is still here cause rdr2 is shit

[@Tinyvalkyrie410]

Cool. You are responding to the game the video is about and not the actual video. Well done.

[@GraveyardTricks]

@@Tinyvalkyrie410 yep. We are on youtube, not a gaming console. Well done to you too