Artifact 4 – Animations Enemies

Seven weeks has now passed since my team 12 and I started the Space Shooter Project “Heartbeat Bat”. The original concept was designed by Team 7. The Alpha is over and we are now heading towards the Beta. 

For this weeks blog assignment I am going to tell you about the creation process of the enemies for Dash BAT. Originally there was going to be three different levels with three unique enemies representing that level. However since we decided on developing only level three because it had most potential, some enemies had to be scrapped. 

The enemies that exist in the cave level at this moment are the two different types of crystal spiders and the mosquito cloud. Early on we decided to scrap the first and second level which included the enemies hawk and owl.  

Crystal Spider One
When creating the concept of the spider I wanted to go for a more unique look. At first my team wanted realistic spider prototypes but I felt some crystal themed magical spider crabs would be something to go for. Since our game is very fantasy like themed I strated to work on spiders with crystals as claws. The first version looked kind of like a crab creature. I added fangs to make the creature look more dangerous. When I was done with the sketch I started to colorize the spider. I thought turquise would fit the cave environment and to make the spider stand out I gave it the complimentary color pink as eyes and markings on its back.

How I find out what is the complimentary color of an color is that i select the layer where the color is and then I press CTRL + I on the keyboard. This will transform the selected layer to the compliment colors. This is a very useful method I tend to use alot while drawing. 

According to myself I like choosing the complimentary color as the second color in my work. It is a good solution when I am having problems to choose colors.

However the animation was real pain to create. Having ten different layers to keep track on sometimes made me confused and also really irritated at some times. Later thanks to testing and failing and sometimes succeeding I figured out a way how to animate in a more organized way. I started with adding a layer group for each frame. This way I was able to just change the positions of the legs in every group and hide the other groups that were not supposed to be seen in that specific frame. When I was aware of this method I was able to cut down the creation time of the second spider animation with almost two hours. 

Crystal Spider Two
For the second enemy spider I went with a more slim type with longer slimmer legs. I think the long legs add to the scary factor, since I am terrified of most spidertypes that have a small body but long skinny legs. Purple body and the compliment color yellow, and another pattern on the back of the spider just for change of appearence. Now in retrospect I see the animation is not that clean that I thought it would be. I now see the second leg from behind on the left side is loosing the body connection in one of the later frames. I will have to polish that later this week.  

Mosquito Cloud first version
The traps that has been implemented in the game sofar are only traps that covers the ground or the roof. We wanted to have some danger for the player in the middle area aswell so we came up with the mosquito swarm. This enemy is a swarm of mosquitos that will cross the middle part of the screen and will move towards the player. In Dash BAT the player has the ability to dash through traps and also use the dash ability to kill enemies. However this dash ability has a cooldown and has to be used with caution. If the player has the dash ability out of cooldown she can dash through the mosquitos which will destroy the cloud. If this is not the case the player has to avoid the swarm or else she will loose the speed. I wanted to have a simple cloud that looked like danger for the player. That was why I gave the cloud the color red which is according to myself a warning color and should help the player to understand it is an enemy that should be avoided. 

I am aware of the cut of part from the cloud in one of the frames. I should have tested the animation on a white background before finishing it up. However I will leave this work for the polish week after the beta presentation.

The Owl – Cancelled
This enemy was going to appear in level two, the level before the cave, in a forest on tree trunk level. 
The first introduction to the player will be a tuned “Ho,hoo” sound and the player will be flying past a hollow tree with glowing blinking eyes.

The attack will be in a bow shaped pattern from one tree branch to another. Here many owls can appear at once in one trap.

The Hawk – Cancelled
The Hawk enemy was going to be introduced to the first level in the game which was going to take place above the tree tops in a dark forest with a moon and sky as background.
The first introduction to the player is when a flashing shadow is passing by the screen in front of the front layer. The sound effect is a “Swiiiiish” sound.

The attack is in a nosediving pattern and the hawk can only attack from the front.

Allright, that will be all for this time guys! Next blogpost is going to be about the development of the firefly Pickup and the two different Insect Powerups speedboost and being invinsible with toxic. See you next week and thank you for reading!

And remember..
             Time is of the essence!