Exclusive Look: The making of the "Furry-Moo"

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in order to bring an animal to life in FarmVille 2? If so, we've got an exclusive sneak peek you're not going to want to miss. 

Developing a feature in FarmVille 2 requires a ton of research, planning and collaboration from numerous departments within the studio. This week, we had the opportunity to sit down with Jerry, FarmVille 2's Senior Concept artist, to discuss the creative process behind the Highland Cow and the Yogurt Creamery. 

Jerry explains below how the FarmVille 2 Art Team took the Yogurt Creamery from an idea to a stunning new addition to the game. 

Highland Cow

"For the Highland Cow animal, we wanted to capture the heavy coat and attitude we noticed in our reference images. Native to Scotland, this slow-moving, laid back cow had a lot of hair, but not a care in the world. A shaggy haircut channeling the 90’s Seattle grunge scene and overlapped chunks of fur brought us to our adult cow design in-game. When addressing the baby version, giving her a haircut and keeping a chunky look was the goal. Since the Highland Cow was a reward animal for the Yogurt Creamery, there was a definite need to give the players something special for all of their hard work."

A detailed sketch of the Highland Cow, before production. 

Baby Highland Cow concept art. 

Concept art for the Adult Highland Cow. 

Yogurt Creamery

"The Yogurt Creamery, which was originally called the "Dairy Station", was set up to be a big new feature for dairy animals in FarmVille 2.

Looking at barns in New England and older rustic stone and wood structures, we wanted to create something that felt inviting and harkened back to farms from an earlier time. Above all else, we wanted it to be easy on the eyes and be fun to interact with.

Starting off with some rough ideas, we explored what might work best for this feature. A big goal was to make the building’s gameplay elements make visual sense on the board. Once the milk drops fly into the vat and activate the building, the belt and wooden mixer barrel start up and start creating the yogurt mix.

While the building is in progress, the avatar can even come by and test out the batch. Keeping in line with the Hen House harvest state, we wanted the finished yogurt crate to pop out of the doors and be highly visible with the yellow visual effects glow. It was great to see this go from a rough sketch phase all the way to our talented modeling and animation teams, and finally, into the game for everyone to play!"

This image illustrates the various build states of the Yogurt Creamery with notes from the artist about how they invisioned the feature animating in game. 

Pictured above are rough sketches of what the Yogurt Creamery was ideated as early in the development process.

The image above is a "storyboard" of the Yogurt Creamery, explaning the various animations and interactions of the feature. 

We hope you enjoyed this look into the FarmVille 2 Studio, and our favorite Furry-Moo. Please stay tuned for more exclusive FarmVille 2 showcases!