Anno 117
DevBlog

DevBlog: Animating animals – models, rigs and animations

July 24, 2025

How do you bring an Anno world to life? – Not too long ago we’ve talked about the work of the Level Art team but islands just wouldn’t feel quite right without animals roaming around (wild horses, deer, wolves, …) and being tended to by farmers (sheep, pigs, …).

Today we’re having a look at the job of an Animator and specifically the process of creating and animating animals in Anno 117: Pax Romana.

The job of an Animator

For today’s blog, we’re getting the support of our colleague Marion – and as mentioned, we’ll focus on animals specifically. Don’t worry, though, we will probably tackle human units in the future, especially since we used motion capture this time around, which is an exciting topic to talk about.

Let’s start with the basics: What does an Animator do?

A 3D object can’t move without someone taking care of the animation first. That’s the job of an animator. When you see something moving in a video game, be it a character waving at you, people running across the screen, cows grazing on a meadow or a car driving down a road: an animator has likely been working on that.

With that settled: What’s the job of an animator – on Anno?

All the feedback units in the game! “Feedback Unit” is the term we use for people walking, working, eating – and more! – on the streets and in buildings in the game. It’s also referring to all the animals you can spot in the environment and production buildings (deer, pigs, sheep etc.).

Also animated are, of course, the portraits of NPC and residents that are talking to you during quests or when you engage in diplomacy.

Bringing a Wolf to Life

Now that we have established the different tasks of an animator, let’s use the example of a wolf from Anno 117: Pax Romana to illustrate the process of creating an animated animal.

It all starts with a 2D concept art for the animal in question done either by Marion or by one of our Concept Artists. This drawing is already very close to how the final unit is supposed to look – and we knew that we would go for far more detailed feedback units than in the past: it’s much easier to start with the highest quality and reduce it later to optimize.

Based on this concept, a 3D mesh model is created and refined. We start with a low-poly (i.e. a mesh model with a low number of polygons) variant, that is used as the base for the high-poly sculpting (based on which a high-poly version is built). We’re not quite done yet, though, as in our quest for more detail, a so-called “normal map” is created from the high-poly and added. This “normal map” helps give the object depth and allows the addition of details – in this case the “waves” in the fur are thanks to the normal map – without adding more polygons (which would have a higher impact on game performance).

For now, the animal still misses its texture. That happens in the next step, where we decide that we want black and grey fur for our fluffy friend. We have a few variants for animals, so that not all wolves (and horses, pigs, …) look the same.

For this, our Animator does research in the same way that we’re doing research for buildings, for example, to assure a certain level of historical authenticity. While wolves today look very similar to their ancestors from 2000 years ago, the situation for pigs is different. Due to domestication, Roman pigs looked rather different to how we usually portray pigs today: smaller, thinner, spotty and certainly with more hair and bristles.

Now we have a finished 3D model, but our wolf can’t move. Time to change that: rigging and skinning makes the wolf “animatable” by the animator.

Rigging means, simply put, creating a skeleton with joints for the model (the “rig”), that allows the animator later to create movements. In the next step, skinning, the 3D mesh model that was created in the first steps is then connected to the rig (“skeleton”) and allows our wolf to move.

The bone structure is based on actual skeletons but is of course reduced in complexity since we’re still working on a builder game – not on a first-person adventure game where you are constantly close to your horse, your dog companion or other types of animals (dragons?).

Our wolf here also can’t move its eyes but can move its ears.

To make our life easier, our Animator Marion is using a “control rig” to animate the wolf. With that, moving a paw automatically moves parts of the leg as well – otherwise we would have to animate every single bone individually.

Depending on the feedback unit, a certain number of animation cycles are created. Our wolf here has 3 in total: walking, running and simply idling (i.e. standing around).

Our human feedback units have many more, since they do not just walk from A to B, but also carry objects, work on a farm, in a factory, etc.

The movement is largely random, but there are certain pre-defined situations for behavioral change, e.g. when you start placing buildings near a group of animals, they will run away.

In order to create as authentic animations as possible, the team is doing some research on that as well: A wolf moves decidedly differently than a horse, for example, and both should look authentic. You have similar situations with how men and women move, and how different body-types impact animation.

Animals also act in herds or packs, with their numbers depending on the type of animal: horses roam in larger groups, while wolf packs are much smaller.

As mentioned not too long ago in a livestream, while Anno 1800 still used several “old” animals, we created completely new ones this time around.

For performance reasons, there are some limits to how detailed they can be since there are so many feedback units (humans and animals) in the world of Anno 117: Pax Romana. However, we’re also using a “trick” to help with performance: different stages of LOD. LOD stands for “level of detail”, and essentially means that the quality of the object is reduced the further you zoom out (and in some cases the object even completely disappears). Less details mean lower impact in performance, as there’s no need to display all the details of an animal, ship or building when fully zoomed out – you’re too far away to see them anyway.

Q&A

We’re closing this blog with some questions for our Animator on some aspects of her work.

Q: Of course, we also had feedback units and animated objects in Anno 1800. Are we doing things differently in Anno 117: Pax Romana? Are there aspects we improved upon?

A: Generally, as mentioned above, we’ve drastically increased the quality and detail of feedback units and their animations. They look much better (and fluffier, in the case of our wolf) up close and move smoother. For humans, as mentioned, we even did motion-capture – more on that at a later date.

Q: What would you consider to be the most difficult aspects of your job? Are specific types of animation or specific animals more difficult than others?

A: No part is specifically difficult; I enjoy them all! But humans are a bit more boring since there are so many of them… I greatly prefer animating animals, they’re more fun to create and animate.

Q: What’s the most fun you have/had while animating?

A: Animating the fox and wolf certainly was my favourite part of working on Anno 117: Pax Romana.

Q: Many of Anno’s buildings and other objects are also animated: parts of ships, machines of production buildings and more. Are they also all hand-animated by you?

A: They’re not handled by me (on animation side) but my coworkers animate the cranes or use physics to move sails in ships.

Q: Which tools are you using for your work?

A: I’m using Blender for sculpting the model and creating the rig and animation – and then Substance Painter and Photoshop for textures. I know that’s a bit unusual, often ZBrush is used for sculpting (and Substance Painter for textures) – but I just really got used to my workflow and much prefer this way now.

That’s the end of today’s blog on the topic of animal animation in Anno 117: Pax Romana!

Do you have any additional questions on our animal feedback units or the work of an animator? And what do you want to know about our human feedback units? Leave your questions in the comments below or get in touch via any of our social channels!