So, for this week I present an attacking Prowler, one of the hostile creatures found in the caverns of Echo Six.
It looks like this:
As usual, I used GraphicsGale for this. The animation is 16 frames long and each frame consists of four separate animations: the arms, wings, head and body (this is the order in which I animated them). The animation is only played when the Prowler comes within a certain range from the player.
I began with the arms and claws, rotating them appropriately for each frame and cleaning up afterwards. For the slashing motion I added a trail that lasts two frames, it is very prominent in the first frame and significantly reduced in the second to create the illusion of a swift strike without the need of extra frames in the animation.
And yes, the rigidity of the two limbs is intended, as I wanted them to feel all tensed up for maximum force transferred to the target.
For the wings, I drew the arms and index fingers of the wing in each frame to get the general motion. I then drew the two other fingers and lastly I drew the wing membranes to make it look like the wings were pushing air.
The wings were probably the most problematic part of the whole animation, since our game is supposed to be in true top-down perspective. I originally intended the wings to strike backwards so that the Prowler appeared to be “pushing” itself forward through the air.
However, it proved to be extremely difficult to pull off this motion, so I reused the frames I had already made and made it look like its wings were beating downward in a gentle fashion. This also fit our vision of the Prowler as a silent hunter, hiding in the shadows and sneaking up on its prey on soundless wings.
The head is not really animated per se, I just moved it up and down so that it looks like the Prowler is rearing back somewhat in preparation for each strike.
The same can be said for the front-most chitin plate on the body, while the two rear-most ones are synced with the beating of the wings. With the second from the front I tried to even out the two motions, to a questionable degree of success.
Speaking of the body, I really should not have designed the Prowler with a tail that curves up under the body. It will probably only be visible when the prowler dies, and the player will be like: “Huh. Weird.”
I don’t know. It just seems like a weird, unnecessary thing.
Oh, well. Live and learn.
Onward to the next week!
GameDev Shenanigans 
Heyo
I will start by saying, good job. You have a good red string throughout the blogg and it is very, very easy to follow you step by step. One thing I thought about in the comparison of the hovercraft and the prowler, do they have the same amount of pixels? Because the Prowler looks like it is much more lowres compared to the hovercraft (for the sizes they are). But it does look good!
The face looks horrifying 😛 Maybe a little to white, but You guys have the Colossus Core concept, right? So if the background will be dark I do not think that will be a problem. But if you do have a white one it is a little to bright. One thing about the animation though. The arm that does not swing looks extremely stiff and still, not moving one single pixel. If you have time I would recommend to do something about that. Otherwise I do not believe that it will be so much of a problem ingame.
Also, good that you write what you have done wrong and what you can do better and the last thing about that tail. Good that you talked about that and said why you chose not to have it.
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