1) According to Ross King, Ernest Messonier, exemplar of the Beaux Art style during the decades in which it was being toppled by Impressionism, went to great lengths to add realism to the many horses appearing in Freidland, the painting he worked on for the better part of three decades:
"Unfortunately for Messonier, the technology required for these motion studies, a multi-exposure camera, was still just out of reach in the late 1860's...Messonier had a team of workmen lay a set of iron rails in grounds that had formerly featured only the bucolic delights of cherry trees and grazing livestock. He next installed on the track a small carriage, or what one witness called a "wagonette" and another "a rolling sofa." Parallel to this length of track he fashioned a bridle path along which the horse could gallop. With these two lengths of course complete, he climbed into the wagonette, whose motive power was not steam or even horses but a pair of men. These two unfortunates were ordered to push the painter as quickly as possible along the rails in his wagonette as a horseman galloped full-pelt down the bridle path beside them. This bizarre feat was performed time and again as Messonier, whisked along the track with pencil and paper in hand, "jotted down the action, the strain pf the muscles, every detail of the motion and the different transitions." Entire albums were filled with these scribbled observations."
2) Josh Bass, Rockstar Art Director, on motion capturing horses for digital recreation in their new Western-themed video game, Red Dead Redemption:
"The horse we used was a long-time Hollywood ‘stunt horse’ named Blanco. His owner was a proper old-time cowboy, and we were assured that Blanco had seen far more studio time than any of the staff on the shoot...Blanco didn’t have to ride a treadmill, but we did have to glue positioning markers all over him in order to capture the movements correctly, which was definitely an unusual sight.
"At first, we had to spend some time trying to determine where we needed to place the markers in order to capture the best data. Once we resolved that issue, we went straight into shooting, pausing after each take to replace the markers that had fallen off the horse during the take. After every take, we literally had to pick up a dozen markers off the floor and glue them back on, trying to figure out where they’d fallen from before we could continue.
"Once we’d mo-capped the horse, work began on modelling the barrel and hindquarters of the horses, as this was the anatomical area we knew would be viewed most by players, given the third-person camera. We then shifted our focus to the specific types of movement: the various types of motion, or gaits, that horses use. Research came from live, image, and film studies, as well as a state-of-the-art motion capture recording, breaking movement down to five common states that translate best into in-game motion: idle, walk, trot, canter/lope, and gallop.
"As the primary mode of transport in the game and one of the most significant animals in every aspect of Western iconography, the horses needed to move realistically in all contexts..."
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