Even more zombie sprites needed

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octalot
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by octalot »

An idea for a different direction: "The life force pathways of the spiders were different to the other species that I had studied, even the extinct bird that forms the Chocobone was more familiar to me than the spider. I could not find a way to make the eight legs work together. Finally I kept just the ideas of movement and poison, and fashioned a creature with a human torso mounted on four legs. I doubt it will prove useful in combat, but the study opens questions about my own body, and whether I can easily add extra arms and legs"

Frankstein sources: the spider-lich from UtBS, and the regular walking corpse / soulless.
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walking_corpse_on_spider.xcf
(6.31 KiB) Downloaded 487 times
walking_corpse_on_spider.png
walking_corpse_on_spider.png (9.07 KiB) Viewed 8950 times
soulless_on_spider.png
soulless_on_spider.png (9.46 KiB) Viewed 8950 times
enclave
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by enclave »

i think its more like mutated spider corpse :D or centaur zombie :)
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beetlenaut
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by beetlenaut »

It does sound like something Ardonna would do, but not what would result if you killed and immediately raised a spider.
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ghype
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by ghype »

what do you think about elvish zombies? its the only race which has not its own zombie.

if I have anytime in future, i might want to look into spriting an idea, but no promises.
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Vyncyn
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by Vyncyn »

ghype wrote: December 2nd, 2018, 8:29 pm what do you think about elvish zombies? its the only race which has not its own zombie.
Orcs (goblins excluded) and ogres don't have a zombie version either and nagas share the same with merfolk.

Anyway here's the soulless rat
soulless rat.png
soulless rat.png (1.14 KiB) Viewed 8908 times
Unsure about the TC in the eyesocket (zombie and soulless version). Personally I'd rather keep it empty, but there aren't many options with rats
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ghype
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by ghype »

right, forgot it. maybe some day ...

i like it. but on light background it looks like it only 1 pixel connects claw to body.
as the claw would fall of on next move.
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by beetlenaut »

ghype wrote: December 2nd, 2018, 8:29 pm what do you think about elvish zombies? its the only race which has not its own zombie.
I think the "human" zombie serves well enough for all the bipeds: humans, elves, orcs, and ogres.
Vyncyn wrote: December 2nd, 2018, 8:37 pm Anyway here's the soulless rat
That looks great! Thank you.
Vyncyn wrote: December 2nd, 2018, 8:37 pm Unsure about the TC in the eyesocket (zombie and soulless version). Personally I'd rather keep it empty, but there aren't many options with rats
I don't like the TC eye either. A lot of the monsters don't have any TC, and I think it's fine. It certainly doesn't matter in this campaign.
ghype wrote: December 2nd, 2018, 8:41 pm on light background it looks like it only 1 pixel connects claw to body. as the claw would fall of on next move.
It won't be on a background that light in the game. Also, I think the necromancer is keeping everything stable magically anyway, so the body hangs together even as it's decomposing.
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by beetlenaut »

So, here is where I am with this.
Rats: Die frames are important for zombies, so I made those. And, die frames should be modifications of defense frames, so I cut and slid some of those too. If someone gets ambitious and wants to make attack frames, I'll stick them in, but I consider these good enough. Most players won't buy many rats after the first scenario or two anyway. They are cheap, but too weak to be really useful.
zombie-rat-die.gif
zombie-rat-die.gif (5.77 KiB) Viewed 8566 times
soulless-rat-die.gif
soulless-rat-die.gif (5.61 KiB) Viewed 8566 times
Spiders: At this point, I may have to go with my placeholder for both levels and even skip the die frames. This will be rather awkward since the player is likely to want to recruit a couple spiders in the next few scenarios--They have good movement in caves and more hitpoints than most other corpses. But, this update is done and tested except for that, and I'm out of free time for a while. Is anyone working on arachnids, or should I just go with the placeholders?

Edit: Oh yeah. The Gnat's Wolf Riders are in too.
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Re: even more zombie sprites needed

Post by SFault »

I think the spider looks actually pretty good. The rat seems too much like the actual rat unit. Against gray tile with darkness on top (like in a cave) it would be hard to distinguish zombie rat from giant rat. I suggest to take some different approach to it, like making the body almost skeletal. At least, it should have different pose and overall color.
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octalot
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by octalot »

beetlenaut wrote: December 9th, 2018, 9:17 amSpiders: At this point, I may have to go with my placeholder for both levels and even skip the die frames. This will be rather awkward since the player is likely to want to recruit a couple spiders in the next few scenarios
My art skills aren't enough to do much, but here's a slight edit that could be the level-0 version of your placeholder, so that the player can see which are zombies and which are soulless. My own attempt produced something different :)

When I attempted to raise the spider, it immediately flipped itself on to its back, and seemed to be fighting inside itself. Ras-Tabahn recognised what was happening from his research - the outside of a spider is a hard shell, and it will occasionally shed the old shell to grow a larger one. The walking corpse that emerged was almost as large as the shell, it will be interesting to see if it grows further in unlife.

The old shell seemed a complete skeleton, so I tried raising that too.
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zombie-spider.png
zombie-spider.png (1.28 KiB) Viewed 7359 times
skeletal-spider-melee-5.png
skeletal-spider-melee-5.png (1.46 KiB) Viewed 7359 times
skeletal-spider-melee-2.png
skeletal-spider-melee-2.png (1.88 KiB) Viewed 7359 times
skeletal-spider.png
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by beetlenaut »

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that you drew the body of the spider upside-down, but left the legs right-side up?
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octalot
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by octalot »

I tried drawing a zombie where the exoskeleton hadn't changed, just the innards, so most of the damage is on the central body and the legs can be in exactly the same position as the already-animated living unit. The result looks like a skeleton rather than a zombie style undead, so it didn't work for the original purpose.

Then I read about spider moulting, and thought it makes sense for a dead spider to be turned in to two undead units, both with good cave movement - a walking corpse (without exoskeleton) and a skeletal unit that's just the exoskeleton.
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by beetlenaut »

octalot wrote: January 13th, 2019, 11:56 am I tried drawing a zombie...it didn't work for the original purpose.
Then I read about spider moulting
It's an interesting idea, but you are suggesting a significant change in game play to cover for our lack of art skills, which seems fishy. It also ignores several facts about molting like: The spider is extremely vulnerable and sensitive while it's exoskeleton hardens which takes days in large spiders, the cast-off exoskeleton is very thin and delicate (because most of it has been absorbed), molting can't be triggered by trauma, etc.
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by doofus-01 »

Hi beetlenaut,

If you still need zombie spiders, would one of the ones in this image work? The one on the right is the WC, the bottom is the soulless. If they are otherwise OK, I would change the leg positions of one of them, so they are less similar at a glance.
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They do have more of a "face" than might be right for a spider, but maybe they were related to jumping spiders.
They do have more of a "face" than might be right for a spider, but maybe they were related to jumping spiders.
demo.png (124.88 KiB) Viewed 7250 times
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Re: Even more zombie sprites needed

Post by beetlenaut »

doofus, I totally missed that you did this! I must have cleared the notification without actually checking the thread. Yeah, those are fine. You are the zombie master. The soulless one could probably stand to be a bit larger still, but maybe just spreading its legs out would be enough.
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