[SUBMISSION] Crawler

Info:
Name: Crawler
Difficulty: Very Easy
Connections: None
Summon: Crawler
Melee: Yes
Distance: Thrust
Type: Demon
Brightmaps: No
Actor modification: No
ACS: No

Description:
A small, crawling, fast demon that can leap towards the player. Dangerous in bigger groups.

Credits:
Code: Haban
Sounds: id Software
Sprites: Haban



This is my first submission on this site, I've been trying to make various Doom related stuff for a while now and finally decided to share some of my work online.

 
 

With sprites like these, I pretty much see a high potential to be added to 667 repository

Great job!

I'll second that, great work indeed. I love the concept of this monster and the sprite looks really cool.

After playing with it for a while I have some (hopefully constructive) feedback.

• the leap looks more like it's sliding on ice. Try increasing the ThrustThingZ value from 15 to ~25, imho that looks much better.
• I think this monster would benefit greatly from unique sounds, the current mix of vanilla monster sounds seem a bit out of place, especially the Lost Soul sound. Also it would be cool if the leap and landing had sounds too. If you want any help with that let me know, I have many unused/not yet overused monster sounds in my resource folders.
• the obituary references the monster as Ghoul instead of Crawler.
• the eyes and nose kinda lack depth. Unless that's the art style you were going for, maybe try adding some shading around the eyes to make them look more natural, and paint the nose in a different color than the eyes.
• the editor number 3101 is already used by the VoidDarkImp's old decorate which has been since converted to zscript without a DoomEdNum, so it's not really an issue, more a note to myself since I try to keep track of those to not have any duplicates. If you don't need the number you can safely remove it since it's not a requirement for submissions.
• I'd recommend using pk3 format instead of wad.
• if you PNGcrush the sprites with Slade, you can reduce the filesize from almost 1 MB to ~130 KB.

All in all a very nice monster and an excellent first submission, can't wait to see your other doom stuff

I'm glad someone decided to make a such complex analysis, I will try to reply to your points:
- At first I was trying to use A_SkullAttack for the leap but it didnt work so well, so I decided to change it to ThrustThing. It does look a bit too slippery so there is still room for futher testing and improvement.
- I had no idea for any intresting sounds so these are just place holders.
- My oversight, "ghoul" was the first name for this monster I came up with but later found out that its already used by one from the Legacy of Rust expansion so I changed it last minute.
- Those 3 dots are 3 eyes, not eyes and nose xd. They are slightly glowing thats why there is no shading.
- Editor number 3101 is the one I used for testing, dont mind it.
- Still learing how to create pk3 files, will use them in the future.
- Havent tried this yet, thanks for the advice.

- Those 3 dots are 3 eyes, not eyes and nose xd. They are slightly glowing thats why there is no shading.

Ah ok, but I still think that 99% of people will see the 3rd eye as a nose since it sits exactly where most creatures have one. In any case, consider creating brightmaps so the eyes actually glow in the dark.

- I had no idea for any intresting sounds so these are just place holders.

No worries I got you covered, I found some sounds that imho fit nicely (after I edited them, most of them were too long and too quiet at first). These sounds are from Dungeon Keeper 2 so I added Bullfrog Productions to the credits. I also put everything in a pk3 and crushed the sprites. 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mUZwSHchZZHidiGqu57qXQohUnx01zy6/view?usp=sharing

- Still learing how to create pk3 files, will use them in the future.
- Havent tried this yet, thanks for the advice.

I assume you are using Slade3, so it's gonna be pretty easy.

1. click File -> New Archive -> ZIP Archive
2. copy/paste text files such as DECORATE, SNDINFO, GLDEFS etc into the root folder (or create them by clicking New Entry)
3. click New Directory to create a folder for each type of asset, ie. sprites, sounds, graphics. Don't name them anything else or the game won't find them. A full list of accepted folder names can be found here
4. inside each folder create another folder for your actor, eg. sprites/crawler. This is optional but highly recommended for organisatorial purposes, it really helps other modders when they use your actor in their mods
5. copy/paste the assets into their corresponding folders
6. save the file. Slade uses the .zip extension by default, change it to .pk3 and you are done

As for crushing the sprites, you need to have the following files in the same folder where Slade.exe is located: pngout.exe, pngcrush.exe, DeflOpt.exe. Then in Slade you can select all the sprites you wanna crush, right-click the selection -> graphics -> optimize PNG and Slade will do the rest.


edit: small update to the file, forgot to replace the AttackSound (its the same sound as the jump sound, but cut short if a hit is landed. btw melee hits will still play the imp scratch, I don't think this needs a new sound)

Good choice with sounds, really makes monster more unique. Also thanks for the tutorial I will use it in next projects.

Any update on this?