[SUBMISSION] Guardian Of Hell

Information:
Name: Guardian Of Hell
Difficulty: Hard
Connections: None
Summon: GuardianOfHell
Melee: Yes
Distance: Projectile
Type: Demon
Brightmaps: Yes
Actor modification: None
ACS: None

Credits:
Code: Xim
GLDefs: Xim
Sounds: id Software
Sprites: Duke Nukem 3D, Doom 3
Sprite Edit: Xim
Idea Base: Doom 3 The Lost Mission version of the Guardian of Hell

Description:
A massive volcanic demon that guards the portals to and from hell.
It attacks with a barrage of meteors and has a deadly melee attack.
Based on Doom 3's 'The Lost Mission' end boss version, which still has it's vision.

Sprite:

Download Link:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Al4yf_bIZOPOiH1GfJMLyKRt92Qo?e=nZQAlk

could you post the front angle in the image, it isnt very visually clear and the rest of the beastiary uses front facing sprites for the icon

Yeah I agree with Dio on it not being very clear what the thumbnail is, using the GRDHA3A7 sprtie instead may be better.

But besides that, here are the things I think should be changed for the submission:

• The PNG sprites should all be optimized with the 3 compression programs SLADE supports, compressing them will significantly decrease the submissions' size at the cost of no quality loss, for example, the brightmaps are all 55 KB in size total, but can be compressed to only 18 KB as they are just black and white, if you don't know how to compress PNGs, here is a tutorial album I made on how to do it .
• The actor already has a //$Category editor key, but it could also use a //$Title editor key to give it a proper spaced out name.
• It should also have a predefined editor number.
• It's hitbox radius is way too large, a radius of 80 is far more accurate to the dimensions of the sprites, the height is fine though.
• Its' ground slam attack could use some angle randomization, since currently the attack is too easy to just dodge when it fires the fireballs in predefined angles.

And lastly, the indentation is pretty messed up, the formatting itself is perfectly fine, thought I myself wouldn't type ACTOR in all caps, and just do it like how it's done in the GuardianMeteorTrail actor, anyway. The actor definitions should be indented by using spaces created by pressing the TAB key in SLADE, instead of the normal spacebar, and should be indented like shown below, using the aforementioned trail actor as an example:


Those are all the issues and potential changes I could find and think of right now.

KILLA DIO post=9230 userid=11563could you post the front angle in the image, it isnt very visually clear and the rest of the beastiary uses front facing sprites for the icon

Not necessarily, there's no requirement for submitted actors to use forward facing sprites or shots for them. It just happens that the vast majority of the submissions use such thumbnails, but there are exceptions such as my own tank submission, which would look kinda awkward if it used i ts' front facing full editor sprite instead of the side one. Same goes with the Shark and Shark with Laser , which also kinda look weird from the front.

Okay made some changes.
-New thumbnail
-Radius/hitbox changed to 80
-Editor number and $title added
-Ground slam should be a bit harder to dodge and projectile speed increased (I thought it was too slow)

Unfortunately I can't seem to get the PNG optimizer to work. I followed the tutorial you posted and I get an error message (for each individual png attempted to be converted btw) saying "PNGCrush failed to create optimized file" and "PNGOut failed to create optimized file". I have converted the PNGs into paletted with only existing colours though to reduce their size, but I don't know why the optimizer doesn't work for me.

Personal preference may apply ere but this would fit into vanilla doom alot more if it was recoloured a more tannish colour and it might need a bit more contrast

Have you checked if maybe you have limited permissions on whatever directory you put the compression programs on ? I myself have SLADE and the 3 PNG compressors inside a folder on my desktop. If changing their directory to one you definitely have the permissions to use the programs from doesn't work. Then I can just compress all the sprites for you.
It wouldn't be the first time that NTFS messes with the functionality of Doom editing programs, Ultimate Doom Builder's updater for example can't run unless I run UDB with admin rights, because it's in Program Files, and by default NTFS only allows read and run access there without admin rights.

That aside, I noticed that the indentation on the code is still messed up..

Ah yes, it was indeed in a limited permissions folder, moving them to a different folder with full permissions has fixed that.

File reuploaded with optimized pngs and (hopefully) indenting that is good.

But not to be rude but why is it so important to have perfect indentation if the code is already easy to read?

EDIT: Here's also a new suggested thumb if the admins wish to have the D3 logo with it.

Indenting it makes adding additions or changes to the code a bit easier and less tedious, and makes the code look "prettier". But it's not as much of a concern as something like optimizing PNG sprites to make submissions smaller, which does have objective effects and improvements to it, compared to just how the code is indented.

As for the thumbnail that could be used too, since some other beastiary entries like the Overlord,  Hierophant, and the Trite which is also from Doom 3 has the same corner logo, though I suppose that submission is why you add the same logo here.

Something doesn't look quite right with the sprites, I can't tell what's going on with the face, and there are some white spots on some frames. I like the idea of converting a Duke 3D monster into a Doom demon, but some sprites need extra work, like this frame where the thigh just disappears:

Speaking of side frames, the hoof on the X3X7 attacking frames should be more centered.
The death sprites also look kinda bad, the Overlord's death frames show him looking to the right then up then slightly to the left and then centered tilted. Did you use a 3D model viewer to get the Doom 3 sprites, or were they already ripped from somewhere else?


The See state has a weird pattern, instead of making stomping noises on the AD frames, it should be the AC frames, like this:


The long range attack, instead of launching fireballs randomly, it should be on its field of view.
The melee attack should leave more feedback, it doesn't look like the dangerous attack that it is, maybe it should spawn a shockwave, like the Moloch's death attack:

So I made the sprites taking print-screens in the built in windows 3d viewer, took screenshots from certain angles and then copy and pasted the parts. The model is from models-resource.com. I use Paint.net for the main editing. I'll see what I can do, but I honestly don't know if I can do much better other than fixing up a few sprites, which I might need help with.

I did some updates fixing the missing thigh at least, and tried to get rid of a few white pixels I noticed. I took your suggestion and added a smoke ring to the melee attack, and increased the quake intensity. The stomping sounds should be fixed now too. The projectile attacks now shoot more projectiles directly at the target, but I still kept the other projectiles going around, since that what he does in Doom 3, and I think it's cool.

Hopefully this is okay enough, but I might be burnt out on making the sprites. But again, I'll see what I can do, but it's a big monster and I'm just one guy who barely knows what he's doing .