Building a MASSIVE DRAGON in Valheim

this is the story of how I brought Deathwing into the world of valheim I'll show you my thought and build process used to take a monster project like this from concept into reality and the triumphs and failures along the way but before we head back to the start of this journey let me introduce you to Deathwing I was once alive [Music] up all right [Music] let's speak mortal okay okay no need to be rude it began as nothing more than a curiosity you may have noticed while journeying through the messlands that almost all of this amazing scenery is made up from two objects Cliff missed lands one and Cliff missed lands too look there's a one there's one a bunch of twos here the amount of interesting Peaks and plateaus they've achieved with these alone is simply staggering but as I explored I noticed something about this green goopy texture you see the way it only appears on the upper side almost as if it fell from above yeah it's green snow if that's now something you can't unsee you're welcome so off I went to investigate just like snow it acts as an overlay that's applied onto the base object this gave me a bit of a hunch that I might be able to employ a trick I'd previously used to prevent the snow appearing on structures over 100 meters tall one biome in particular held the key to this technique space [Music] foreign is unusual it's some cursed blend of ashlands and ocean but despite being around 400 meters below sea level there's no water and I mean no water which is pretty unpleasant for all these fish but most importantly being anywhere below sea level removes the goop and with 500 meters of build height to work with less than 200 background instances and very flat terrain this was the perfect building environment for this project my curiosity was satisfied but now the gears really started turning with these unblemished rocks and all of the black marble pieces in mind new possibilities emerged fiery dragony possibilities you address the world breaker indeed how are you even talking right now are you using telepathy I am having the worst case of lockjaw well I certainly wasn't going to animate you talking I decided to make a single scale that could form the basis of the design I could use this scale to repeat a pattern tiling it over the body and after giving it a try I was immediately sold on the idea the technique would be similar to how I built the Sentinel but with some important Lessons Learned first each of the Sentinel scales were 18 pieces deathwings would be four they make a huge amount of instances across the build as a whole secondly the thickness of the marble pieces meant layering them in a curved manner would be much more forgiving despite that I was all too familiar with how painstaking this process could be and I'd even promised myself not to do this kind of build again for a good while but you can see how that one turned out so we have the who the where the what leaving just the how our toolbox would consist of Gizmo for free rotation and the infinity Hammer package for making builds like this even remote possible I thought the meteorite Rock would be perfect but deathwing's exposed chest and Fishes along the length of his body but that presented a problem even with infinity Hammer's dark magic the meteorite likes to fall to Earth fitting I suppose to fix that we will deploy structure tweaks which lets you do all kinds of weird things from resizing build pieces [Music] to whatever this is this power comes at a cost though unlike these vanilla-friendly mods entering the world without structure treats will revert any of the changes made with it pieces resize this will cease and gravity is obeyed this is what we call foreshadowing with a whole host of reference images gathered preparation was done and it was time to start work in earnest I began with the front feet black marble pieces were shaped into two claw designs then attached to toes after copying them several times for a right and left foot I resized and rotated several misland Cliffs to build up the rest of the feet and legs I was really pleased with how the rocky textures formed muscles veins and scales it would make up his extremities and underbelly deathwing's ill-gotten power was tearing him apart from within so his minions had crafted hastily made plates and bolted to him whilst building up each leg I added meteorite into the cracks and locked them in place with some support brackets to replicate this effect my first attempts at scaling were decent in places but others not so much however I was firmly in the build honeymoon phase so there was no time for Corrections this section along with these spikes would eventually be changed but for now we pushed off [Music] foreign [Music] with the front legs done it was time to move them into position the width of the placement would Define the rest of his proportions and posts so this was a pretty critical stage I made some measurements with wood beams and decided to whip up some towers for him to rest on emulating his iconic scene in the cataclysm trailer thank you with those measurements in mind it was time to make the body oh boy things are starting to get big I made a friend that would slot onto the legs and Define his upper chest then added in sections to begin the neck and back the whole thing was moved into place but after checking from multiple angles I wasn't pleased with how it looked I decided to rotate the whole section backwards which gave a much more Dynamic pose and manually adjusted the shoulder part of the frame I continued these curves backwards until they met and added collarbones to define the outline of the chest cavity the next task was filling the chest with meteorite I made a base layer then went over it adding more depth and details veins of fire were made by clipping most of the object into the Rock and following the curve of their texture this was a really fun stage of the build I continued to add in black marble and as all the elements of skin scales and fire came together I knew at this point we were onto something as I mentioned the armor bolted onto Deathwing is said to be made by lousy metalsmiths but my first attempts at his chest plates were a bit too lousy I had feared that making these from black marble would blend in too much with the rest of his design so it opted for stone and built an array of variations that I could rotate into place moving them into place I could tell something wasn't right they looked very flat and frankly stood out too much I wasn't sure what to do with them though and really wanted to avoid getting stuck on one aspect whilst I had momentum putting that aside I set to work on the base of the neck and created another scale design to layer it with so as to break up the overall texture of the build this was a much easier design to work with and allow me to zone out a little and Ponder my options on the chest plates before I knew it the majority of the neck was scaled and I'd begun to add the wings once again the cliffs proved perfect for the musculature but as far as the patagia goes I had no idea what I was going to use now with two big unknowns it was time to check in with my build inspector I sent over some pics and he immediately felt the same about the chest plates taking his advice to use the black marble I tried a few more designs this one was close but felt a bit too uniform for the poor quality look I wanted eventually I landed on a winner working in sections as before I made a chunkier version of the previous design with various lengths and curvatures made from these smaller sections then a little greebling here and there and it really gave me the feel I was after so much better [Music] it was getting late now so I logged out relieved to have solved one of the big unknowns and ending the day on a Triumph if four quitting out though I decided to check in on my friend's world and see his build progress all right can you join I just had to disable structures week so I should be able to join now let me know what you think of the build once you join okay yeah ah this is what you should be earlier right foreign [Music] [Music] by the time they started falling it was already too late [Music] you just have to say that you're fine when you're not really fine but you just can't get into it because they would never understand I felt pretty stupid even the most recent backup would mean hours of lost work I sat back to have a good old think and come up with a solution the plan was simple Logan's the back up and delete everything except the meteorites not in this one at a time fashion though that would take ages a hundred meters at a time now we're talking we'll leave this piece intact to line it up on the existing build then area copy the whole thing and save it to a blueprint back into our main world now and after deleting the pile of shame I summoned the blueprint lined up the arch pieces and all was made right in the world with the meteorites back in place I finished up the chest with additional plates and completed them with some Stone loops then came the rear of the body continuing the flow at the spine I brought his body to a point where the tail would begin and set about constructing the hind legs I made copies of each of the front feet and modified them to suit a squatting pose before shaping several Cliffs into the legs getting the right shape to emphasize the muscles took a little bit of work but I was very pleased with how they were turning out further scales and Fishes were added over time a task that I was doing in batches rather than facing the daunting task of scaling the entire body in one go I decided to tackle the headlines once again I built it separately giving me the option to rotate and resize before deciding on Final position basic frame was constructed before layering Cliff Mist lens 2 around for the upper jaw the scaly texture of Cliff Miss glands 1 was doing wonders for the upper face and its Reggie edges helped Define the eye sockets which were filled with meteorite once I moved it into position I realized it was far too large ah look at the top of his head and resize the whole thing down to around 80 now that I was happy with the frame details could be woven in without worrying about size issues I added his nose horn and made some measurements for the lower Jaws once again working on a flat plane we simplify the process of working with angles we make each section of the jaw individually before snapping them together then adding teeth in a variety of shapes this section was then copied for the other side of the jaw and embellishments added to each of the outer sides finally I rotated each one together and built out the front edge to connect the two halves [Music] just a few finishing touches were required to bring the head to light a giant Amber Pearl served as a suitable eyeball the mouth was filled out with meteorites teeth added to the upper jaw and some de Virgo wood beams became the jaw muscles [Music] this beam had been in my mind as one of the Front Runners for what I could use for the potato this had the right sort of color was a decent enough size for ease of curving and keeping instances low but I wasn't satisfied with the wooden texture and felt I could find something more suitable several friends had suggested the deer rug which was fantastic in terms of color and texture but the shape and thickness meant curving it would be a nightmare of clipping proportions this hanging cloth seemed promising at first a nice texture a more uniform shape and slightly thicker than the rugs but because it's a cave-specific object it has no need for a low quality version you would see a distance and hence just disappears I considered countless other options through the course of the build but was no closer to finding an answer at this point I put it aside and turned my attention to finishing off the net now that the head was in place spikes were made from a few rocks and meteorites were layered in using the same vein technique that I'd used on the chest now that the whole upper body was done it was time to venture into the unknown I had made big bodies in the past but never anything that had wings how they turned out could make or break following a similar process to the head I made a rough measurement and assembled a shape before checking its scale against the build as a whole after a bit of tweaking I copied the bone and rotated and resized each one into position to create a curve of the Wings though wanted spines were added to the wing tips along with armor plating for the outer bone and Main joint a bit of bulking was now required for these muscles as they were looking a little atrophied with the rest of the Wings built out without taking care of I flew back to take a look and down it was looking menacing all will burn beneath the shadow of my wings that brings us to a problem it was around this time I noticed that even with maximum Shadow quality the distance that Shadows are cast is pretty pathetic you won't be burninating anyone with a shadow like that failing to find a solution I was pretty gutted at what this meant for the final composition the image of a dragon's Shadow blotting out the Sun's light had been floating around in my head since the Inception of the build and wasn't something I was prepared to let go of so easily they say desperate times call for desperate measures so it's time to bargain with the dark powers making a pilgrimage to his shrine I made an offering at the altar of my Patron God 100 hammers were sacrificed in his name and I departed to resume work on the scaling unsure whether I would be blessed with new powers or banish from this realm as I awoke a day later I got my answer [Music] how much better does that look [Music] spurred on by my deities favor I approached the wing conundrum once more more and more objects were trials at one point even contemplating using item stands with secret trophies or flower bags but reminded of the 23 000 instances they added to the Sentinel I quickly moved on The Surge continued but with little progress being made major build that he could set in and I almost settled for the de Virgo wood but still just felt the ideal object was out there eventually I found my answer right back where I started hiding in plain sight all along had been the giant sword caked with a layer of green goop it had escaped my attention but once vacuum cleaned it's Rusty uneven texture would be perfect it had a decent thickness and I mitigated its odd shape by rotating it on itself now I had my shape with which to build unlike the scales which I'd been doing in chunks as I progressed through the project I was now faced with the daunting task of completing all of the Wings in one go moreover I would have to curve them freehand using all three axes without a guide or Surface to layer them onto I put some music on and set to it [Music] foreign [Music] began to zone out two days had passed in a blur and the wings were done finishing off the wings with some additional armor plates I was utterly relieved the task has been hanging over my head from the beginning was complete [Applause] and if I do say so myself looking pretty Epic [Music] the end was clearly in sight now I worked up some armor plates of various sizes and angles with which to layer the spine [Music] I tidied up the join between the head and neck finishing off both his broken and intact horns and giving them armor of Their Own foreign [Music] all that remained was the tale I continued the curve of the tail layering scales and armor plates as I went I bought it to a point where the title weapon could be mounted [Applause] the main Spike was built in force actions each one being flat to the ground they were then rotated and replaced 45 degrees relative to the cardinal directions [Music] copying them from this position means the axis of rotation is aligned with the edge meaning that rotating them into a curved spike is much easier the tail weapon now installed I place the final scales and the build was complete a month had passed from first idea to the final scale many lessons have been learned and many obstacles overcome but at long long last Deathwing had arrived foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] my God begun enjoy what little time remains

Channel: Dhakhar - Valheim Mechanicus

Views: 9,280

Keywords: valheim, infinity hammer, gizmo, valheim mods, valheim build tips, wow deathwing, wow cataclysm, deathwing cataclysm, valheim dragon, dhakhar, world of warcraft, wow dragon, valheim moder, mistlands, valheim mistlands, valheim builds, valheim megabuild, valheim best builds

Id: S7Q5zwB9XvE

Length: 23min 19sec (1399 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 20 2023