Dwarvish Treasure and other scenarios- dungeon units

[Stilgar]

It could use some leg motion. Otherwise, looks good to me.

[theotherhiveking]

looks very nice,

and welcome to the forums

[Jetrel]

I tried to hack together a simple attack animation for the cute little imp guy. This is my first try at sprite animation, but I think it turned out quite ok. What do you all think?


I'll try to do a defence frame tomorrow.

That's a very good start:
- Exaggerate the motions to be much larger than they are now.
- Move his legs like he's taking a full stride during the animation - because he is. It's a lot more work, but it's absolutely necessary.

[Tirpen]

I tried to hack together a simple attack animation for the cute little imp guy. This is my first try at sprite animation, but I think it turned out quite ok. What do you all think?


I'll try to do a defence frame tomorrow.

That's a very good start:
- Exaggerate the motions to be much larger than they are now.
- Move his legs like he's taking a full stride during the animation - because he is. It's a lot more work, but it's absolutely necessary.

Gotcha. Is this any better or should I exaggerate still more?

Here is a simple defence frame also, nothing spectacular, basicly him raising his paws to his face, shifting the legs a bit and doing something random with his ears.


Thanks for the input.

[Jetrel]

Gotcha. Is this any better or should I exaggerate still more?

Here is a simple defence frame also, nothing spectacular, basicly him raising his paws to his face, shifting the legs a bit and doing something random with his ears.


Thanks for the input.

The attack frame is an improvement, and the defense frame is also nice, but you should exaggerate the movements MUCH MORE.



Big, sweeping motions. If you're afraid of doing something because you think it's too big, it's probably not; go ahead and dare to do it.

[Tirpen]

The attack frame is an improvement, and the defense frame is also nice, but you should exaggerate the movements MUCH MORE.



Big, sweeping motions. If you're afraid of doing something because you think it's too big, it's probably not; go ahead and dare to do it.

I was afraid you would say that. Luckily one of my most obnoxious character traits is that I never give up once I've decided to do something.
So here is my latest atempt, I've increased the range of the swing, made the leg movements much longer and added some more movement to the wings and tail. Hope this is enough.

I also started work on a death animation. It's not quite finished yet, but I think you get the idea.


Sprite art is fun, wonder why I never tried this before.

[Blarumyrran]

whoa Tirpen, you rule

really, thats just awesome. however, imp is not a default era unit, so its not very much used. once youre content with the imp, you might want to try your hand at some default era missing animations, which are used in practically every game. however, those units are also more similar, so there cant be very much innovations. so you might remain making less boring but also less used add-on units, your choice of course.

list of default era missing animations: http://zapicm.freeshell.org/trunk/animations.html

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Don't discourage the nice guy from doing these! They need some animations to be included as mainline monsters, so by all means let him do it. I don't see anyone else, but there are others working on the default era.

[Tirpen]

Thanks for the compliments.

The reason I did animations for this particular sprite is mostly because I need some kind of small demonish unit for a short campain I'm planning to make (first scenario should done in a few days) and this little fella looked perfect for the job.

And since Jetryl said that they could be added to mainline if they got some decent animations so I thought this would be a reasonably easy way to get something I've done into mainline.

But don't worry S_E, I'll probably try to do some missing animations for the normal units some time.

[TL]

The attack animation is getting pretty decent although you might want to take a look at the arm in the first downward frame, the upper arm/shoulder area seems to be getting skinnier there and the stretched out arm doesn't extend as far as would be implied by the frame when it's poised to attack. Also the line between the slashing arm and the torso should be softened or taken out during the frames when it's stretched out since it's extending directly from the torso.

The movements look okay (although it still wouldn't hurt to exaggerate them even more) but the little slashing effect definitely needs to be more dramatic. The swipes as you draw them look like they're coming from the demon's knuckles; they should follow the tips of the claws, even possibly extending outward slightly, and should be bolder and more sweeping (take a look at some of the attack animations from mainline units).

[Tirpen]

TL: Thanks for the feedback, great to have someone point out in details which parts need work.
I tried to fix the stuff you pointed out. The arm is thicker and longer in the second frame, the line from the arm to the torso is gone and I've added "swoosh" effects more similar to the rest of the game. I also polished some other parts of the animations, especially the claws in frame 1 and 2.
I'm pretty happy with how it looks now and I doubt I'll bother to fiddle much more with it for a while.


I'm trying to figure out how to do the shadows at the moment (yes, I've read the tutorial) and once those are done I'll post the png files.

[jonadab]

Dragons have wings, arms and legs;
Wyverns have wings and legs;
Wyrms have wings.

There are also lindworms, which have legs but not wings. They may or may not have small arms or forelegs, but in any case they walk on two legs. They are fast enough to overtake a man on horseback.

Beyond that...

The current monsters are hardly sufficient to allow for a good variety of opponents as mudcrawlers are pretty much the only ones around that can be considered of "normal" strenght (and who made them?)

And ofcourse some excessively powerfull units that make the armageddon drake seem like a pansy are needed aswell; with nearly all dungeon-based scenarios comming with insane powerups;

...
- Furthermore, I'd really like to hear everyone's suggestions for creep designs, keep in mind that there should be a great variety in resistances, damage types and other stats to keep it balanced;

* Cave Wight: lvl 1 or 2 ghost-like creature with fantastic movement and reasonable defense in caves but poor movement and defense elsewhere, resistant to physical dammage and cold but weak to fire and holy. Chaotic. Possibly undead.

* Rock Monster: lvl 1 or 2 elemental, basically a stocky but vaguely humanoid form made out of large rocks bound together presumably by magic. Troll-like attack options and resistances but significantly more hit points, no regen, stronger resistance to impact, only 3 MP. Moves in mountains, hills, and caves just as well as on open ground, but very slowly in forest and cannot go in water or swamp at all. Neutral alignment. There could be higher-level versions of essentially the same thing if desired. Probably immune to poison. As a rock elemental, this unit might be able to move through cavewall, which could be all kinds of scary on just the right map.

* Bog Monster (lvl1) -> Grendel (lvl2) -> Marsh Dragon (lvl3), a line of slow-but-heavy chaotic amphibious units native to swamps, first proposed in this thread:
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=
I originally envisioned these units as having a ranged attack along the lines of "frighten", "spook", "terrify", or similar wording, dealing probably cold dammage, and an impact melee. The ranged attack should do double dammage on swamps if WML can do that. Oh, and I was thinking of giving them nightstalk.

* Blood Nymph (or Blood Nyad): think in terms of a water elemental, only for blood instead of water. Chaotic. Possibly immune to drain.

* Cyclops, probably pretty powerful for a normal unit, but not insane. level 4 perhaps. Vulnerable to pierce and fire. (Homer's protagonist used a combination of the two to wound Polyphemus and then escaped by outsmarting him.) Alignment is arguable, but I would say lawful. It ought to be possible to think of an interesting special ability to give them, but nothing immediately springs to mind that ties in with the mythology, unless you let them alter the map by building walls, which seems like a remarkably bad idea. Of course, you could always just give them something that will be interesting in gameplay, even if there's no basis for it in the extra-wesnothian source mythology. For instance, they could have an effect exactly opposite that of leadership on any adjascent enemy units (or, even, any adjascent units at all, enemy ally or whatever), called something along the lines of "domination" or "constraint".

* Crocodile (or Aligator, whichever someone prefers to draw): fast in water, moderately fast on sand or grass, slow on most other terrains. Very good defense in wet terrains, especially shallow water, moderately poor elsewhere. Neutral. Could have a berzerk attack that can only be used in water or swamp, if WML can do that, called something along the lines of "death roll". Otherwise, bite and tail impact seem obvious. If desired there could different versions of this from baby croc lvl 0 up to giant/ancient croc, lvl 4. Neutral or lawful.

* Brawler: similar to thug but with no cudgel (just a fist) for the normal attack, and possibly with the addition of a berzerk attack called "brawl" or "wrestle". Chaotic.

* Caltrops: not so much a unit as a trap, dealing pierce at low-dammage high-rep. Could be concealed until some poor unit steps on them. Neutral.

* Stone Guardian: basically a stationary statue, incapable of movement, but capable of attacking and exerting ZOC and rather hard to kill. Different levels could have different strengths of attacks and hitpoints. Probably neutral alignment.

* Siren: dangerous (but possibly only capable of attacking male units, or only certain races). Probably should have the submerge ability or something like it. Swimmer movetype. Uses a ranged sonic attack with probably a special property something like a cross between plague and stone, wherein the defeated unit becomes enslaved to her song until she is killed and is then released. This could be tricky to code, but could also be tactically interesting. Not sure about the alignment.

* Shryad (name subject to change), basically a mushroom spirit in similar fashion to how dryads are tree spirits (which do not occur in Wesnoth because we have woses, which are basically walking trees). These would have very high defense in fungus terrain and also be hidden there (the way woses are in forest), moderately high defense (say, 70%) in swamps, good in caves (50% or 60%), and not so good on most other terrains. Movetype negotiable. Neutral alignment. I'm thinking of a "decaying touch" attack with an effect similar to plague and possibly also drain. If a ranged attack is desirable, perhaps spores, but I'm not sure what dammage type that would deal, though. Neutral alignment.

* Gorilla. Smaller and less powerful than the Yeti, and without the snow afinity (reduced movement cost and improved defense on tundra) that the Yeti has. Black coloration. Otherwise similar to the Yeti.

* For that matter any real-world megafaunum could be adapted for use, especially the ones with fierce or scary characteristics: lion, tiger, rhino, hippo, shark, ...

* A common theme in mythology is to take two real-world critters, or a critter and a man, amalgamate them, and augment the result with apparently random special abilities. Sphinx for instance is basically an overgrown lion with a human-like head. Centaur is a combo of man and horse. And so on. Well, guess what, you can make your own amalgamations. Some ideas follow...
** The body of an elephant with an enlarged ape torso and the head of a lion. Carries a spear in each hand and stabs down with them, overhand, repeatedly. Roars when attacking. Also has a trample attack with charge. Not very fast. Call it Panthominoderm or Feliaphant.
** A giant bipedal rat with four human-like (but fur-covered) arms and the head of a wooly rhinoceros. Wields four light swords (low dammage high rep) or it can also gore you with its horn (high dammage low rep). Call it a Roditaur.
** Need a desert-based baddie? Use a camel as a base and make something centaurish (only much meaner) from it. With an eyepatch. Maybe uses a lance. Very good movement on sand. Call it a Macheremon.
** The head of a goat (possibly somewhat anthropomorphized) on the body of an orangutan. Arboreal (i.e., very good movement and defense in forest). Uses a compound bow, for a good strong ranged attack. Weak impact melee. Call it an Affeziege.

* Armory Beast: When dark magic knits together the contents of an armory into a mindless walking servant to do its master's bidding, the resulting creature has few soft parts and many sharp edges. Impervious to blade and pierce and resistant to cold and impact. Weak to holy, obviously, probably neither weak nor especially resistant to fire. Probably immune to poison and drain. Should have blade and pierce attacks, and possibly impact also, but all melee, no ranged. Chaotic or perhaps neutral. Movetype similar to largefoot but able to move around reasonably well in caves. 4-5 MP.

How many ideas were you wanting? Are some of these worthwhile, or should I leave off?

[Neilarmius]

Shryad (name subject to change), basically a mushroom spirit in similar fashion to how dryads are tree spirits (which do not occur in Wesnoth because we have woses, which are basically walking trees). These would have very high defense in fungus terrain and also be hidden there (the way woses are in forest), moderately high defense (say, 70%) in swamps, good in caves (50% or 60%), and not so good on most other terrains. Movetype negotiable. Neutral alignment. I'm thinking of a "decaying touch" attack with an effect similar to plague and possibly also drain. If a ranged attack is desirable, perhaps spores, but I'm not sure what damage type that would deal, though. Neutral alignment.

I'd like to call it a Mycad- for the moment. I had a similar idea abut sometimes someone getting descriptive spurred me to try it. Poison spores and drain! Actually Spores should probably recruit (or not) and poison be separate.
A bit huge at the moment.

[jonadab]

ex post the forum reversion, here are some resurected comments:

Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 9:26 pm
turin wrote:

Dragons have wings, arms and legs;
Wyverns have wings and legs;
Wyrms have wings.

There are also lindworms, which have legs but not wings. They may or
may not have small arms or forelegs, but in any case they walk on two
legs. They are fast enough to overtake a man on horseback.

Beyond that...

Neoriceisgood wrote:

The current monsters are hardly sufficient to allow for a good variety
of opponents as mudcrawlers are pretty much the only ones around that
can be considered of "normal" strenght (and who made them?)

And ofcourse some excessively powerfull units that make the armageddon
drake seem like a pansy are needed aswell; with nearly all
dungeon-based scenarios comming with insane powerups;

...
- Furthermore, I'd really like to hear everyone's suggestions for
creep designs, keep in mind that there should be a great variety in
resistances, damage types and other stats to keep it balanced;

* Cave Wight: lvl 1 or 2 ghost-like creature with fantastic movement
and reasonable defense in caves but poor movement and defense
elsewhere, resistant to physical dammage and cold but weak to fire and
holy. Chaotic. Possibly undead.

* Rock Monster: lvl 1 or 2 elemental, basically a stocky but vaguely
humanoid form made out of large rocks bound together presumably by
magic. Troll-like attack options and resistances but significantly
more hit points, no regen, stronger resistance to impact, only 3 MP.
Moves in mountains, hills, and caves just as well as on open ground,
but very slowly in forest and cannot go in water or swamp at all.
Neutral alignment. There could be higher-level versions of essentially
the same thing if desired. Probably immune to poison. As a rock
elemental, this unit might be able to move through cavewall, which
could be all kinds of scary on just the right map.

* Bog Monster (lvl1) -> Grendel (lvl2) -> Marsh Dragon (lvl3), a line
of slow-but-heavy chaotic amphibious units native to swamps, first
proposed in this thread:
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=
I originally envisioned these units as having a ranged attack along
the lines of "frighten", "spook", "terrify", or similar wording,
dealing probably cold dammage, and an impact melee. The ranged attack
should do double dammage on swamps if WML can do that. Oh, and I was
thinking of giving them nightstalk.

* Blood Nymph (or Blood Nyad): think in terms of a water elemental,
only for blood instead of water. Chaotic. Possibly immune to drain.

* Cyclops, probably pretty powerful for a normal unit, but not insane.
level 4 perhaps. Vulnerable to pierce and fire. (Homer's protagonist
used a combination of the two to wound Polyphemus and then escaped by
outsmarting him.) Alignment is arguable, but I would say lawful. It
ought to be possible to think of an interesting special ability to
give them, but nothing immediately springs to mind that ties in with
the mythology, unless you let them alter the map by building walls,
which seems like a remarkably bad idea. Of course, you could always
just give them something that will be interesting in gameplay, even if
there's no basis for it in the extra-wesnothian source mythology. For
instance, they could have an effect exactly opposite that of
leadership on any adjascent enemy units (or, even, any adjascent units
at all, enemy ally or whatever), called something along the lines of
"domination" or "constraint".

* Crocodile (or Aligator, whichever someone prefers to draw): fast in
water, moderately fast on sand or grass, slow on most other terrains.
Very good defense in wet terrains, especially shallow water,
moderately poor elsewhere. Neutral. Could have a berzerk attack that
can only be used in water or swamp, if WML can do that, called
something along the lines of "death roll". Otherwise, bite and tail
impact seem obvious. If desired there could different versions of this
from baby croc lvl 0 up to giant/ancient croc, lvl 4. Neutral or
lawful.

* Brawler: similar to thug but with no cudgel (just a fist) for the
normal attack, and possibly with the addition of a berzerk attack
called "brawl" or "wrestle". Chaotic.

* Caltrops: not so much a unit as a trap, dealing pierce at
low-dammage high-rep. Could be concealed until some poor unit steps on
them. Neutral.

* Stone Guardian: basically a stationary statue, incapable of
movement, but capable of attacking and exerting ZOC and rather hard to
kill. Different levels could have different strengths of attacks and
hitpoints. Probably neutral alignment.

* Siren: dangerous (but possibly only capable of attacking male units,
or only certain races). Probably should have the submerge ability or
something like it. Swimmer movetype. Uses a ranged sonic attack with
probably a special property something like a cross between plague and
stone, wherein the defeated unit becomes enslaved to her song until
she is killed and is then released. This could be tricky to code, but
could also be tactically interesting. Not sure about the alignment.

* Shryad (name subject to change), basically a mushroom spirit in
similar fashion to how dryads are tree spirits (which do not occur in
Wesnoth because we have woses, which are basically walking trees).
These would have very high defense in fungus terrain and also be
hidden there (the way woses are in forest), moderately high defense
(say, 70%) in swamps, good in caves (50% or 60%), and not so good on
most other terrains. Movetype negotiable. Neutral alignment. I'm
thinking of a "decaying touch" attack with an effect similar to plague
and possibly also drain. If a ranged attack is desirable, perhaps
spores, but I'm not sure what dammage type that would deal, though.
Neutral alignment.

* Gorilla. Smaller and less powerful than the Yeti, and without the
snow afinity (reduced movement cost and improved defense on tundra)
that the Yeti has. Black coloration. Otherwise similar to the Yeti.

* For that matter any real-world megafaunum could be adapted for use,
especially the ones with fierce or scary characteristics: lion, tiger,
rhino, hippo, shark, ...

* A common theme in mythology is to take two real-world critters, or a
critter and a man, amalgamate them, and augment the result with
apparently random special abilities. Sphinx for instance is basically
an overgrown lion with a human-like head. Centaur is a combo of man
and horse. And so on. Well, guess what, you can make your own
amalgamations. Some ideas follow...
** The body of an elephant with an enlarged ape torso and the head of
a lion. Carries a spear in each hand and stabs down with them,
overhand, repeatedly. Roars when attacking. Also has a trample attack
with charge. Not very fast. Call it Panthominoderm or Feliaphant.
** A giant bipedal rat with four human-like (but fur-covered) arms and
the head of a wooly rhinoceros. Wields four light swords (low dammage
high rep) or it can also gore you with its horn (high dammage low
rep). Call it a Roditaur.
** Need a desert-based baddie? Use a camel as a base and make
something centaurish (only much meaner) from it. With an eyepatch.
Maybe uses a lance. Very good movement on sand. Call it a Macheremon.
** The head of a goat (possibly somewhat anthropomorphized) on the
body of an orangutan. Arboreal (i.e., very good movement and defense
in forest). Uses a compound bow, for a good strong ranged attack. Weak
impact melee. Call it an Affeziege.

* Armory Beast: When dark magic knits together the contents of an
armory into a mindless walking servant to do its master's bidding, the
resulting creature has few soft parts and many sharp edges. Impervious
to blade and pierce and resistant to cold and impact. Weak to holy,
obviously, probably neither weak nor especially resistant to fire.
Probably immune to poison and drain. Should have blade and pierce
attacks, and possibly impact also, but all melee, no ranged. Chaotic
or perhaps neutral. Movetype similar to largefoot but able to move
around reasonably well in caves. 4-5 MP.

How many ideas were you wanting? Are some of these worthwhile, or
should I leave off?



Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 10:29 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Neoriceisgood wrote:

Which of those should I sprite?

Only the ones you think would make good units. Ideas are cheap. I can
come up with ideas for units easily. Sprites are harder. If you aren't
convinced a particular idea is a good one, it's not worth drawing a
sprite for it. (Unless you just think it would be fun to draw and feel
like doing it for that reason, of course.)

Upon reflection, I don't entirely disagree about
mix-and-match-random-animals chimera units being somewhat lame,
although I hope none of the ones I suggested are quite as lame as the
owl-bear.

irrevenant wrote:

Jonadab, I really like the way you think. Since the year dot fantasy
games have been trotting out the same old Ancient Greek & Mediaeval
Europe based monsters. It would be great to see some genuinely
original monsters in this game (or at all!).

Some of the things on my list were pretty standard Greek mythology stuff.

However, it's probably possible for monsters in a fantasy game to be a
bit too original. I mean, I can spin out ideas like this...
* Nillirov: a pink furry swimming creature with trilateral symetry:
three bulging fish-like eyes on the top of its head, three arms on the
sides of its head, three fins on its torso, and three legs extending
backward from its abdomen, with three fin-like feet on each leg. Loves
shallow water, swamps, and caves. Chaotic. Can jump/spin/pirouette,
slapping you with its fins (3-6 impact melee) or squirt liquid helium
(14-1 ranged cold) with uncanny accuracy (marksman).
* Mrulmich: a reptile with radial symetry that hovers by continuously
blowing air downward under its "skirt". Hovers just an inch or so
above whatever surface (land, water, ...). Covered in black, white,
and grey scales in a calico-like pattern. 10 MP, uses 1 MP on grass,
sand, water, or cave, 2 MP on hills or swamp, 3 MP on forest or
mountains. Phosphorescent, it lightens its surroundings like a MOL.
Lawful. Vulnerable to blade, cold, and pierce. Uses a smother attack
(7-5 impact melee).

But those sorts of things would fit better in a sci-fi context than in fantasy.

So I think we want to strike a balance: not too far out of the line of
what is normal in fantasy, but not too incredibly trite, either. Among
mainline units, I rather like drakes and saurians, because they're
just not as trite as orcs and dwarves, but OTOH they're not bizarroid
either.

As far as which of my own ideas strike that balance, though... I don't
know, not for certain. They're my ideas, so of course I'm partial to
them (even, to some extent, the roditaur), but that does not make them
good. Use your own judgment.

[zookeeper]

Just something I felt like wasting some time on: a lantern zombie. It carries its head which it can kick towards enemies as a weak ranged plague attack (it magically returns to the zombie) and it has a magical lantern, which either gives it daystalk (useless in caves though) or makes the unit lawful and grants it illuminates.