Baby Spiders

[ascottk]

Should we add a smaller spider? I can do the same thing I did for the belchers.

[Springheel]

I like the idea of a smaller spider version as well if it's not much trouble.

 

Would the attack animation start to look silly if it was much smaller? I think the 'baby' spiders in T2 had some kind of jump-attack, didn't they?

[ascottk]

I like the idea of a smaller spider version as well if it's not much trouble.

 

Would the attack animation start to look silly if it was much smaller? I think the 'baby' spiders in T2 had some kind of jump-attack, didn't they?

There is a jump animation oDDity did. We can use that one for an attack. Speaking of which, I managed to get a leaping attack for the belchers

[Springheel]

There's a jump? Cool. I wonder whether it would be possible to tie that into Crispy's code that detects when AI are being fired at? It would be cool if the spiders jumped around evasively when the player was trying to shoot them with arrows.

[Crispy]

There's a jump? Cool. I wonder whether it would be possible to tie that into Crispy's code that detects when AI are being fired at? It would be cool if the spiders jumped around evasively when the player was trying to shoot them with arrows.

That might be somewhat amusing... imagine facing off against a horde of baby spiders, then pulling out your bow and having them all jump up and down in unison. MOSH PIT!

 

Maybe if there were a couple of different jumps (maybe one to the left & one to the right), and they waited random periods between jumps. That would look less cheesy.

 

Anyway, yeah it would be possible - would just require some scripting on my part. I'd rather not touch the AI script too much ATM though, since it's going to be revamped somewhat once one of the AI coders (probably me) gets some large chunks of free time.

[OrbWeaver]

Would they need to actually jump to avoid arrows? Couldn't they just scuttle around? It would be cool if they could walk on walls and ceilings, but this would probably require changes to the engine code.

[Ishtvan]

Would they need to actually jump to avoid arrows? Couldn't they just scuttle around? It would be cool if they could walk on walls and ceilings, but this would probably require changes to the engine code.

There have been mods to let monsters walk on ceilings and walls. In general, Id was pretty good about using the general "GetGravity()" for each AI in the physics. However, in some cases they forgot and used [0 0 -1] as the gravity vector. I think that mod went thru and found all these cases and fixed them.

[Springheel]

and they waited random periods between jumps. That would look less cheesy

 

Yeah, I assumed the random period was a given.

 

Actually, on a related topic, I've noticed that AI seem to turn their heads in unison a lot. When I'm working on skins I often line up a bunch of AI in front of me, and I notice they often seem to turn their heads at exactly the same time to exactly the same degree. Don't know what controls that, but it's a bit jarring. It's possible they're turning towards the same sound, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way.

 

Would they need to actually jump to avoid arrows? Couldn't they just scuttle around?

 

Even after Ascottk sped them up their movement animations are still a bit on the slow side, which makes them pretty easy targets. I just thought since the jump is already there it might be convenient to use it that way. Spiders aren't such a big priority that we should have people making new animations for them, IMO.

[Domarius]

AI already has a dodge feature - you can sometimes see the spiders in Doom 3 leap to the left or right (space permitting) if you aim your gun at them.

[Ishtvan]

I think that's playing a specific "evade_left" and "evade_right" animation. I remember seeing those anims when I looked thru the trite def file briefly.