Entry #4: Creating the Spawner
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Animation has turned out to be one of my favorite things to do. I am animating in pixel art which is, in some ways easier and in some ways harder than other formats of animation. With a limited ability to make exaggerated, accentuated movement, I must use the pixels I have with great care. On the other hand, the limited workspace also limits time consumption; there are only so many pixels to use, so a clear simplicity is preferred to subtle, complicated details. For this week I am, among other things creating the Spawner enemy and animating it. I didn´t plan much about it, but rather came up with things as I went along. I decided since the Spawner is supposed to be the hardest enemy and also a type of mini-boss that it should have its own identity and personality. It´s a large machine that constructs and sends a continuous wave of Drones, like a robot factory. I designed it to have several movable parts. These parts were then taken from the base model and animated separately. Below is the full design of the Spawner with all elements attached.
The Spawner spawns enemies into two lanes, thus shielding itself from player attacks. The rest of the Spawner´s design underlines its challenge to the player as an intimidating machine, with the movable parts giving it a remarkable presence. Below are the animations for the movable parts.
The power generator makes it look like the entire ship is breathing. It looks organic in an unnerving and unnatural way and induces in me a feeling of disgust. It appears as if the machine has been granted life that was never meant to be. The bloops in the middle just give the Spawner´s details meaning and life. You can see an arrow-like pattern on the doors. This is to indicate direction and area of threat to the player. They are closing and opening in the same amount of frames to give it a stale and robotic feeling. The door opening and closing will be accompanied by a metallic clamping noise, constantly reminding the player of the incoming Drones. Furthermore, every time the player hears that repetitive clanking noise, they know the Spawner is approaching. Its ominous sound design prepares the player for the challenge. After putting all the puzzle pieces together in Unity the Spawner is complete! I´m thrilled with the result and it´s now time to move on to designing the sounds (also something I´ve enjoyed very much). Since I can´t re-use old themes for future posts, I´ll tell you all about my adventures as Lead Sound in a later post. Thanks for reading my post, dear Reader Person! Not my most entertaining post by any means, but hopefully the GIFs compensated enough. Hope you have a lovely week, and best of luck working towards GOLD! Kill´em with success //Jesper Karbing  |
