#metroid dread npc models

[molagboop]

Would you like an egg in this trying time?

This is cavegg01.

You may recognize it from the first set of rooms in Artaria, particularly where the counterattack tutorial takes place. This is a muzby egg, and it's the vessel from which muzby grubs are born into the world.

You can see muzby eggs in the background of the tutorial itself. In this shot, they're in the background below the muzzle of Samus' arm cannon.

But that's not all: there's a cavegg02, and—get this—it features two eggs. The smaller one's a bit dented on top, but we pay that no mind: this is a background asset, so we wouldn't notice that during normal gameplay.

Something interesting to note is that the egg models are hollow, likely to save space on the cartridge or to give the game less to render, allowing those cutscene transitions between maps to end quicker.

Wham, double feature! You thought I'd show you the eggs, but not the babies inside them? Nay! Muzbabies be upon you!

The grubs are orange, and their bodies grow pink near the extremities. It has a tiny head, dark pink in coloration, and mandibular structures that remind me of the grubs of real-life goliath beetles. They appear to lack eyes.

When Samus approaches the grubs, they hide behind their large forelegs. Adorable! And smart. These grubbies aren't being eaten today!

The model for this creature is called bigfistgrub. Its textures are simply labeled with "grub". "bigfist" is the internal name for the muzby, which is featured in this article on the official website for Metroid Dread (The website is now down, but fortunately, the Wayback Machine and Wikitroid have our backs!). Given that these babies are called grubs, I'd wager they pupate at some point during their life cycle, transforming into the lumbering pink pals we see in Artaria.

Speaking of Muzby...

That's right! Triple whammy.

Of the humble Muzby, MercurySteam says:

Muzby This terrestrial creature with heavy arms is one of the larger lifeforms on Artaria. It drags its arms behind as it walks. Because it dwells and has evolved in darkness, a Muzby doesn’t have the equivalent to a face. It has tough, rugged skin and high endurance, so high-powered attacks like the Missile or Charge Beam are effective. Samus can also slide between its legs when it lifts its arms to attack.

Muzby may not have a "real" face, but it does appear to have little mouth parts with mandibles in the front. Given the developers' description, I'd hazard a guess and say the muzby is blind. If those spots on its face aren't proper eyes, they may be sensory organs of a different stripe. Perhaps they process olfactory information, or sense heat. Maybe they exist to fool other creatures into thinking the muzby can see them when approached from this end, like eyespots on the wings of the Polyphemus moth?

The muzby also has nubby feelers atop this segment of the body. Perhaps the muzby uses them to sense vibrations in the environment, or maybe these organs release pheromones. Who knows!

The muzby has two huge arms on one end of its body, and a pair of smaller limbs on the other. It carries two pairs of even shorter arms behind the mid-sized set: you can see them curled up behind the animal's small "head".

The article says the muzby has a tough hide, and its exterior certainly doesn't appear to be overly chitinous. The muzby reminds me of a soft-shelled crab in this respect, especially considering the layout of the underbelly.

In-game, the muzby attacks by turning so that its large arms are facing the threat, then rearing up on its hind legs, slamming its big meaty appendages down on the opponent. It doesn't seem to have any trouble navigating in either direction.

Muzby: a beautiful creature with very cute babies!

[molagboop]

Model Reference Masterpost

I might as well compile a list of all of my reference posts. You may also find something of interest by looking through the "blender shenanigans" (no quotes) tag on my blog.

Model References

Sapient NPCs (Chozo, etc)

Raven Beak turnaround (no T pose): posted because I was mad at Chozo necks.

Raven Beak's head

Chozo Soldier general anatomy reference (long post)

Elite Chozo Soldier: Elite soldier intro cutscene shots, Elite soldier combat animation shots

Creature Model References

Armadigger

Caterzilla

Chozo Zombie: Part 1, Part 2

Corpius

Deer

Dissected Creature (Experiment Z-57, corpse)

Dredhed

Dropter, Iceflea, and Sharpaw

Experiment Z-57

Infester

Klaida (part 2)

Kraid

Kreep

Magma Crab

Muzby, grub, and egg

Nailong

RB-X

Scourge

Takumaku

Vulkran

Background Assets

gravitysuit_chozo (Cataris)

The giant robot in the background of the Cataris EMMI Zone

The mural from the Quiet Robe cutscene in Ferenia

chozobaseasset04, aka "table with bug"

Hanubia jets

Ferenia elevator /background mural

The spider magnet statue in Artaria (the one that crushes Corpius)

Raven Beak's desk

chozosancstatuel2: the four-legged guardian animal statues in Ferenia

The statues in Escue's arena

This list is going to get longer, and will be updated as posts are created. I'm linking this in the pinned post.

Examining Details On Dread Models

Raven Beak's shoulders

Quiet Robe's everything

Chozo height: Wherein I line up all the Chozo and Chozo-adjacent models to compare their height. Here's Raven Beak and Samus back-to-back.

chozosancstatue01

Peeling back the moving panels on Raven Beak's arm cannon

Raven Beak X's chest markings.

Ferenia's guardian beast statues look like armadiggers.

An analysis of Corpius, the Dissected Creature, and Experiment Z-57: Parts one and two. 2023 update: concept art and extra shots.

Chozo Soldier: Elun model quirks (featuring concept art)

[molagboop]

What do you plan to showcase next? The details of what you’re sharing is amazing!!! I can’t wait for your analysis of the hyper suit.

I've taken screenshots of muzby and sakai that I haven't done anything with yet. I have a bit of prep work to do before I take on muzby, because that subject is bit more broad than the average creature. Not quite as loaded as Corpius was: that one came with a lot of baggage by virtue of sharing obvious similarities with the experiment, but muzby is also related to another creature (three I think; one of those is an almost obscure X-form), and there are background assets I need to get shots of too.

I need to replay Metroid Dread before I do anything with Sakai because I was going to say a thing about it, and then I found something that contradicted that thing, so I need to check my work to make sure I'm not pulling anything too far out of left field.

I also have about a billion different shots of Raven Beak, but almost none of them are the kind of shot that I take for the express purpose of a showcase. I need to organize them into groups based on criteria such as "this is a shot of his head at an angle" and "this is a shot of his arm cannon at an angle".

I also need to figure out how I'd do a post for him and other sapient NPCs. There's so much to cover there that it couldn't be confined to one post, and I don't know how possible it is to find the Chozo Soldier reference that started this with the greater Tumblr search bar, so I need to consider that as well. "What good is an artist's reference if they can't find it" and all. It's a matter of formatting, and I have a few options:

Make a post, hit the image limit, post it, save a reblog of that post to drafts and delete the posted version, rinse and repeat with consecutive reblogs until it's done.

Publish it in fragments like Experiment Z-57, but with each issue covering different regions of the model.

Wing it??

Also relevant to this point, I made a post a while back about Quiet Robe's more obscure features, but I'll need to remaster that post on top of covering the expected bases because I managed to rip him in a way that provided me with better quality textures. Haven't quite put that one to bed just yet, but all the different variations of Samus' suit are definitely on the list! There's so much to talk about there. I haven't ripped the morph ball yet, and I can't remember how much the actual physical model of the ball changes from suit to suit, so it'll be fun to figure out whether or not I'll have to extract like six different morph balls.