Larian launches new BG3 YouTube series diving into the RPG’s mocap

And first up is a look at battle stances

Larian Studios

With work on Baldur’s Gate 3 wrapping up after patch 7 and mod support, Larian is releasing new BG3 YouTube videos about the making of the RPG, and first up is a mocap series called General Mocappery. The three-minunte debut video gives a deep dive into some of the work that went into getting BG3’s detailed combat animations just right – and it was a lot of work.

Choreographer and martial artist Mustapha El Bachiri discussed his process for creating each stance and move animation, and there’s a lot more behind it than just swinging a sword and looking cool. El Bachiri said he would start the process with plenty of creative liberty, sometimes sending Larian a dozen or more variations of a style before everyone decided on one to run with. Then, they worked to give it a unique style

“Each of the characters had a distinctive style and a look and feel to them, and we had to figure out how to make them feel like their own characters with their own unique animations,” he said.

For Lae’zel, that meant going deep into the theory behind Githyanki combat. El Bachiri said they studied samurai techniques and other regional swordfighting styles to come up with rationale for every movement – from Lae’zel hiding her blade behind her body for certain moves to her idle combat stance.

Then he and the other choreographers had to do it again, for every weapon style, every race, and every Origin character – and every weapon type those races and Origin characters would wield. Even the shoving and kicking animations got that same level of treatment.

The amount of work involved seems overwhelming, and seeing how easy it is to overlook that aspect when BG3 won awards left and right for storytelling and character design, it’s refreshing to see Larian make sure people know a bit about who else helped bring BG3 to life.