cataloguing and looking at elden ring models p2

i forgot to be upfront with something here: i am not a 3d artist, a coder, a programmer, or experienced in any other field that would be useful in 3d modeling. i am barely a 2d artist. i can fumble my way through putting preexisting textures on finished models in blender, i can kind of scry my way through looking at code and maybe make an educated guess as to what i think it might do. but that’s just about the limit of my abilities. therefore: if i say something wrong or clumsy, i would appreciate learning the appropriate words/terms/concepts for what im doing and also what im doing wrong. please feel free to let me know! this is pressing, as the next file on our list is not a traditional model at all.

c0100- dummy file?

this doesn’t seem like the right term for what i’m talking about: there are some files that exist purely as animation files. they have no models and appear to be supplemental animations for cameras, spells, tests, etc. this is one such file. its just a few uninteresting camera movements and not much else. these can usually be identified by their very small file size.

c0110/0120/0130/1000- dummy files?

same deal here. look, they can’t all be interesting.

c2010 – blaidd the wolf

here we go, finally a real model. we’ll use this to go over some things common to every model in addition to any lore/artistic peculiarities i can find. i will also include the discussed images at the end of each section for visual clarity’s sake.

as previously discussed, blaidd has a very unusual eye color in the elden ring world: purple, with black sclera¹. he also has very large teeth on his lower jaw (almost resembling tusks). his left eye is stuck in a permanent squint, adding him to a long list of characters in elden ring with unusual left eyes. there are probably important lore reasons for this or whatever, but being real: the main reason this comes up so often is because it makes characters look more like guts from berserk.

his sword is described as being “decorated in the royal carian style”², which i must assume means “ornate”. maybe we’ll see more examples to compare it to in the future so we can get a handle on what that actually means or if it really means anything.

i will say, the one thing that seems to unite several narratively important beasts is flippy acrobatic attacks³. blaidd’s attacks range from human knight behaviors to rushing you on all fours. besides attack animations, nearly every file will include falling animations, animations for getting hit, death animations, animations for getting stunned, being on fire, and other universal experiences in the lands between. here’s one of blaidd eating complete shit⁴.

there’s also rigging tests? impact tests? each one is accompanied by an impact sound so i assume they were testing how things break when hit. this results in some very strange animations we can laugh at⁵.

c2030 – rennala, queen of the full moon (phase 1)

this is the first model with a display problem: rennala’s eyes are straight up fucked. this is a common problem for some of the more important models that get rendered in cutscenes and i assume that this is specifically because they require being rendered in engine to display properly. i have done my best to make them not super distracting, but it’s a limited success. i will not be focusing on things already addressed by storied community member zullie the witch in her videos about rennala’s egg so i highly recommend giving her vids a watch if you like looking at properly restored content.

i was under the impression that rennala’s hair was dark, but it’s actually a very light brunette or blonde¹. which means either the hair gifted by rennala to her sister didn’t come off of her head (?!) or it’s another lighting issue lol (although, it is awfully light in screenshots from the game). the idea of getting someone else’s hair as a gift extremely funny, but i really have to cut the knot here and assume you’re intended to see her in specific lighting that gives her hair the color its intended to have. or she steals hair. i don’t know!

her crown also offers another potential look at the previously mentioned carian royal style².

despite spending a significant amount of time trying to get her eyes to work, rennala does not have much to offer in terms of points of interest.

c2031 – rennala, queen of the full moon (phase 2)

different boss phases can have separate models, especially if you (the player character) are loaded into a new area for the fight. within the fiction, this version of rennala is an illusion or a puppet or some combination of the two. i also lightly edited this model to give the carian regal scepter the approximately correct coloring.

this model is not the same as the other; unlike the real rennala, this recreation of her has a (wedding?) ring on her pinky. ¹⁺². this model also offers a clearer look at her unique pearlescent skin tone.

c2040 – juvenile scholars

there are two types of juvenile scholars: those in the red with the short hat and round face, and those in white with a big hat and a sallow cheeks. for some reason the blinking animation is broken and makes their eyes wider instead of closing them lol. i doubt its like that in game, but it’s kind of hard to ignore here.

the scholar’s eyes are generously graced with gold¹ and they do not appear to have any legs at all below the knee². i then found a bunch of completely insane looking animations that only made sense when i realized the scholars and another enemy share the same skeleton.

c2041 – rot larva

the rot larva is actually just a skin of the scholars. not much to say about these guys except they have a layer labeled “meat”¹⁺².

c2050 – ranni the witch

because it doesn’t render correctly, i turned off ranni’s ghost face and hair for visual clarity. despite being such a consequential character, she has basically three animations: steepling her fingers, unsteepling her fingers, and handing you an item. riveting stuff. there’s also not much to glean from her model that can’t be seen in game.

c2060 – the two fingers

the fingers actually have a bunch of unused animations where they writhe and wiggle more. and die¹!

1. the two fingers dying (zullie the witch video documenting this)

c2070 – the three fingers

no animations for this one, presumably because you only see it in a cutscene and those are stored differently. tried my best to get it to look as close to in game as possible. freaky little thing.

c2100 – black knife assassin

i wonder if this model is supposed to read as someone with a shrouded face or someone with no head. its just not there; you can see straight through her¹. the armor is pretty bizarre, with the silver leaf motifs and the teal tufts². the white bits are simply referred to as “chestscale”. here is a sample of their distinctive fighting style³.

c2110 – gurranq, beast clergyman/maliketh, the black blade

these are, surprisingly, the same model. without any of his armor on, maliketh actually looks quite silly¹. he doesn’t seem to have any eyes², just dark sockets. here is a better look at where he keeps destined death³ which is labeled “medal” in the files. the center of it is labeled “medalcrystal”, elucidating nothing.

this sounds rather conspiratorial, but maliketh has a lot of similar looking moves compared to the black knife assassins. i would go as far as to say the fighting style is the same⁴.

here’s a cute animation (with his bulky robes removed, so you can see what’s happening) where he puts his sword in his mouth to free up his hands⁵. this also demonstrates how extremely strange his proportions are. he also has a few unusual animations where he’s acting quite casual⁶; he’s eating, sleeping, and sitting around looking at his sword.

that’s enough for this update. enemy and character models have a tendency to be grouped together based on developer intent, suggesting that there was least one point in development where all of these models were connected in a more concrete and meaningful way. this is not a hard and fast rule, but a generalized observation. the next models are less connected to the carians or the night of the black knives, so we can pick up from there next time under the assumption we are looking at a new set of ideas and intentions.