Mudcrawlers

[Zerovirus]

A thought- if you do the same thing with the other side instead of finishing this as a move anim (which I'm not sure is really necessary or even good for a tbs like Wesnoth), it would make a neat idle animation.

[thespaceinvader]

It's intended to be a standing anim. The move will be something different. The file name's misleading, apologies.

EDIT: realised I didn't have anything approaching a cycle going on for the standing anim. Went back to first principles. I think this cycle will work. Now I need to sort the edges out, shade it, and add some blobbiness to the ripple edges. The face I'm happy with, so it'll stay.

[thespaceinvader]

Returning to another version. This is final for the animations, but I'm retrying the standing anim, attempting to strike a happy medium between the ripples of the prior version and the nice blobby, bubbly appearance of the original base frame. The head is fine. The rest is a challenge. I don't know whether to try for the 'bubbling' version, the 'rippling' version, or something with dripping. Plus, animation cycling makes my head hurt. I have 5 frames to play with, because that's how long the mouth-drip is, though that could easily be extended.

Blarg. Any thoughts?

[Fog]

Just curious, have you seen the attack in-game yet? Its direction is quite close to 180°. I would think that the projectile would look like it it coming from its side rather than its mouth.

[thespaceinvader]

Yes, I have. It looks OK to me. I might try to do some work on a more ballistic trajectory, but it looks OK as it is.

[Mica]

Kinda looks like it's sneezing xD It's cute I love it tsi, you do great work!

[LordBob]

We were discussing monsters yesterday and someone mentionned those mudcrawler revisions and the giant mudcrawler that never made it into mainline. Since I've been itching to try sprites, here's my attempt at a defense animation.

Attack anims to come soon.

[homunculus]

Have you looked at the mudcrawlers in-game, on terrain and next to other units?
I mean, to check if the palette looks too radioactive in-game.

(Also, there is one detail that the old mudcrawlers had that I miss a little bit in the new ones: the old mudcrawlers closed their eyes while shooting the mud glob. It looked as if it wanted to say: "The best thing in the world is being a pile of mud," and I think that gave it some more personality and was both cute and original for an otherwise horrible monster.)

Edit: checked it, and I didn't seem to find the mudcrawler that closes the eyes, though I certainly remember seeing it somewhere. Could have been an UMC that used the first death frame as the last ranged attack frame. If you have not seen the same version and the above about closing the eyes did not make sense, here are gif-s that should illustrate what it might have looked like.

[LordBob]

The palette is the exact same as the small mudcrawler, which was agreed upon by Jetrel & TSI and is already used in game. So I 'm not touching it.

I will edit the defense anim so as to introduce movement in the shoulder and flowing mud in the body, though.


Also, wireframe animation for his ranged attack.
Edit: and the blocking for his melee attack.
Edit (2): and now the blocking for the ranged attack

[beetlenaut]

That melee looks especially awesome. Good use of the fluidity of the unit.

[Amorphous]

Aha, nice to see you working on sprites! You've obviously done your homework on animation, and these are looking great so far. I agree the defense animation could use more overall movement in the body, though.

[Adamant14]

That melee looks especially awesome. Good use of the fluidity of the unit.

Yes indeed, that looks really cool.

[LordBob]

I've completed the anim for ranged attack and defence. I haven't tried them ingame yet.
Melee attack coming shortly, with some good advice from our very own art director to give it even more impact !

Compared to the initial blocking, I removed a frame in the ranged attack right between the back charge and the spit: it looked like he was moving too slowly.
However, if this makes the animation too jumpy, maybe I can insert it iback and play on frame timing to compensate

Edit: added the individual frames in the current unfinished state if anyone wants to try them ingame

[LordBob]

Blocking for his death anim. The idea is to have him dissolve into a puddle of mud with a lone eye hovering shortly until gravity remembers to do its job.
I'm a bit concerned that the puddle probably expands beyond the hex occupied by the unit, even briefly. Does this cause problems ?

[Zerovirus]

If we can get away with fire dragons, we can more than easily live with a few creeping pixels. Keep at it! Good to see you trying out pixelart too.