A special Animal

As we are nearing the deadline for the Zoo time management game and the holidays we at Xform have to push extra hard to finish all the work. Last week we decided the Zoo game should have a few extra animals to make the game more varied and interesting. I won't give them all away but there's one I would like to reveal to you. It's a special animal which is very near to our heart here at Xform. At the beginning of this year I went together with Pieter and Diederik to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Of course we had to do some business there, but the main reason we went there was to have some fun. So where in San Francisco do you go to have fun......the Zoo!! After a long taxi ride we eventually arrived at the Zoo which is located near the west coast. We were all psyched up to see some magnificent animals but couldn't help feeling disappointed once we entered the zoo. It seemed like the animals had an off day, they where lying around doing nothing not even bothering to look up when we passed by. We came across a kangaroo which seemed more dead then alive, an ice bear in the middle of a depression and a seal that should have died a decade ago. But then something happened, we came across a cage which seemed empty at first, so we looked around to find the animal which belonged there. And there it was lying in the corner looking at us with his cute little eyes, this animal was clearly happy to see us as probably most visitors would pass him by without a notice. It was a Tapir, it looked like a bastard child of a hippo and a guinea pig, we immediately felt connected with this animal so we hanged around the cage for a while and took some pictures to remember him by.

This is why we unanimously decided the Tapir should make it to the Zoo game as a special animal. Below you can see some concept art, just now I've finished the 3D model, unwrap and bones setup. I'll post you guys a screen shot of the final tapir when it's done.

We'll be returning to San Francisco next year to visit the GDC and when we can find the time we'll be meeting up again with our favorite tapir.

-Matthew