Ghastly

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Darker_Dreams
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Re: Ghastly

Post by Darker_Dreams »

Thrawn wrote:very rough WIP, but what I imagine it's like: as it keeps piling on flesh, it kinda starts being bloated, and the mouth in the stomach becomes an actual mouth. Also, just to again keep up the groteque greediness, a head is forming.

The coloring sucks, and the legs aren't right (I'm gonna make them mostly obscured by stomach, make them smaller ad less wierd.
Now I've got an image of a unit that spawns new ghouls through a budding process- a plague power that only works after the unit has killed and eaten enough other creatures.

I'm not sure what I should be taking away for this discussion, though.
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Neoskel
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Re: Ghastly

Post by Neoskel »

I have a bit of a concept idea. It involves the concept jdsampayo brought up about a 'thing' (physical or incorporeal) being implanted in the ghoul (as part of the transformation from live men) which causes the ghoul to hunger for flesh. As the ghoul becomes stronger by devouring victims it turns into a necrophage, the flesh it has consumed directly being added to it's bulk without digestion (the red tinged chest) and it's 'native' flesh being transformed (more muscle mass and the spikes). As the necrophage continues to gorge itself on corpses, the 'thing' (maybe some sort of cannibalistic spirit) continues to grow as is evidenced by the 'imported' flesh starting to cover the limbs of the necrophage like some sort of grotesque creepers (they'd act as an extra layer of muscles). It is both a separate entity and fully a part of the necrophage. Finally, the grisly maw opens in the belly showing the full awakening of the 'thing', the undead's original head sunken in folds of 'collected' flesh. More spikes have emerged from various junctures of mutated 'original' muscles (like shoulder blades and knees) and the digits of both hands and feet have been manipulated into vicious claws. The claws on the hands are so wicked that they are folded up against the forearm to prevent them from dragging along the ground when not in use. The necrophage has fully metamorphosed into a ghast. Ugh, perhaps a rename is in order. 'Something Maw', maybe 'Devouring Maw' or 'Ravening Maw' to refer to it's voracious appetite and the obvious gaping maw in it's belly. Now it will only draw more strength from devouring fresh kills with no more mutations (unless we want a level 4 ghoul running around).

Ok, in short my idea if for the level 3 ghoul to have more of that pink coloring spreading out from the chest, more spikes, bigger claws, a sunken head and a big toothy maw in it's stomach. I'd put up a sketch or something, but i don't have access to a scanner on this computer. Oh, and i think i like 'Ravening Maw' the best.
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JW
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Re: Ghastly

Post by JW »

Darker_Dreams wrote:JW;
comparison shopping2.png
I think it looks more like a diaper or gratuitous effort at censorship and less like a loincloth at the smaller size... That's actually part of why it grew initially.
You appear to be right. Well, you can't win 'em all. :wink:
(referring to me.)
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woodmouse
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Re: Ghastly

Post by woodmouse »

What about this? It has spikes in the shoulders and knees, and it's a little bit slimmer. It's also taller like you people see.
(Necrophage for comparison)
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thespaceinvader
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Re: Ghastly

Post by thespaceinvader »

Not bad, but not as good, or as striking a concept, as Darker_Dreams is working on =)

Nice work, though.
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woodmouse
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Re: Ghastly

Post by woodmouse »

thespaceinvader wrote:Nice work, though.
Thanks. :D
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Darker_Dreams
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Re: Ghastly

Post by Darker_Dreams »

given that a number of people have moved back to the drawing board with alt ghast concepts rather than commenting on what's being worked on- I'm assuming there aren't comments to make and I'm just moving on. This is what I've got so far of a defense animation. Figuring out how to do the motion on that (currently) stationary arm is giving me some trouble.
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ghast-defend.gif
ghast-defend.gif (8.22 KiB) Viewed 2984 times
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woodmouse
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Re: Ghastly

Post by woodmouse »

Hmm, it seems like he is going to show us his... erm, you know what... under the loincloth. :lol:
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JW
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Re: Ghastly

Post by JW »

That actually looks like it is half of an excellent walking animation!

For it to look more like defense I would recommend that he raise an arm to block or something of that nature. The animation is quite smooth! Though a small point: the gap between the loincloth and leg doesn't look right. I would expect the cloth to shift as it moves, I also expected his leg to be thicker (so that there wouldn't be a gap between his leg and the cloth).
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Darker_Dreams
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Re: Ghastly

Post by Darker_Dreams »

JW wrote:That actually looks like it is half of an excellent walking animation!
too much going on with the mouth/torso/head area for my taste... I don't think I'd like the chewing-as-you-walk thing. but I've already got plans for recycling some pieces I developed for this into a walking animation.
JW wrote:For it to look more like defense I would recommend that he raise an arm to block or something of that nature.
That'd be the much-maligned right arm, I'm trying to get a step-back/block thing- and the blocking arm isn't cooperating yet. The big problems are the joints- which always look like I've grabbed a hunk of pixels and shifted them (often in weird directions that have nothing to do with any moves I have made), and that arm-spike, which has deformed in ways that range from annoying to downright bizarre.
JW wrote:The animation is quite smooth!
Thank you! It's only 3 frames (not counting the base, and recycling in-out), but I've tried to limit any moving piece to about a single pixel of shift... as it provides that smoother motion. I made some larger moves initially, but I really wasn't happy with how jumpy everything got.
Incidentally, the small steps are easier to interpolate what's going on in the space vacated by a moved pixel, and to extrapolate what's happening at the edges.
JW wrote:Though a small point: the gap between the loincloth and leg doesn't look right. I would expect the cloth to shift as it moves, I also expected his leg to be thicker (so that there wouldn't be a gap between his leg and the cloth).
Yeah, me and that loincloth have gone a couple rounds already, I'd kinda moved on for a bit with plans to come back- but I forgot to. :oops:
Thank you for calling my attention back to it.


Anyway, thanks for the comments, onward and upward.
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thespaceinvader
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Re: Ghastly

Post by thespaceinvader »

You need to move the whole body - it looks odd to have half of it move when the other half stays in an identical position the whole time. Moving the arms to block or something would help too.

Nice work though =)
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Darker_Dreams
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Re: Ghastly

Post by Darker_Dreams »

getting the right arm to come up and block the way I want it to is killing me, so I've moved on for the moment.
a walk, or rather limp, animation. I need to work on the timing of the motion
a walk, or rather limp, animation. I need to work on the timing of the motion
walk.gif (8.27 KiB) Viewed 2819 times
not sure if I stuck up the base frame I decided to work from so everyone was on the same page.
not sure if I stuck up the base frame I decided to work from so everyone was on the same page.
ghast.png (3.78 KiB) Viewed 2816 times
ghast.zip
since this is generally right about the point in a project where my computer crashes and I irretrievably loose all my work, I'm going to use this as a last-ditch backup. In case anyone's wondering, I had an external hard-drive and usb-stick crash too. Apparently I'm a tech-geek with a machine-killing aura.
(109.91 KiB) Downloaded 134 times
edit; updated backup file.
Last edited by Darker_Dreams on February 3rd, 2009, 10:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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zookeeper
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Re: Ghastly

Post by zookeeper »

For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of the stomach mouth thing. Even if it's portraying a hideous creature I don't enjoy sprites which look ugly. The necrophage is kinda leaning towards that direction as well, but it stays within reasonable limits.
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woodmouse
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Re: Ghastly

Post by woodmouse »

zookeeper wrote:I don't enjoy sprites which look ugly.
You mean like... "nightmare causing" ugly or uglily made?
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ShikadiQueen
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Re: Ghastly

Post by ShikadiQueen »

I personally go for the second.

A clown is more scary than that thing. Way more scary.
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