[SUBMISSION] Skinwalker

Name: Skinwalker
Difficulty: Medium (although best to only ever use one in your mod because of the way they are)
Connections: Super Shotgun (shares some sounds)
Summon: Skinwalker
Melee: No
Distance: Short ranged hitscan
Type: Demon, Human
Brightmaps: No
Actor modification: No
ACS: No

Credits:
Code: Ak47fu2
Sounds: Id Software, Ak47fu2, and Brand Name Audio.
Sprites: Xim, The Skulltag Team, Stopsignal, and Id Software.
Idea Base: Skinwalkers

Description: A skinwalker. Looks like a innocent friendly until you find out it's not.

Some issues with this one:

• once he starts shooting he never stops, regardless of distance to the target. So he can't get close enough to be effective with his shotgun
• his movement speed is way too slow and doesn't match the animation speed
• the 2nd death sound doesn't match the death animation, it's played too late

also, is it just me or does it look weird how he holds the shotgun? Shouldn't his right arm go over the buttstock, not under it? I'm no expert in wielding rifles but I don't think that looks right. At least when holding a gun that's fired from the hip, it might be different when you're firing from the shoulder.

How do I make him stop shooting and move closer without going back to the see state with the dialoge? Should I make another state that has A_chase?

I will make him faster.

I will make the sound play a bit before.

You are correct about the shotgun but those are the only sprites I could find and is consistant with the SSG zombie on the archive.

"Should I make another state that has A_chase?"
That shouldn't be necessary, just go back to the See state after firing the shotgun. Don't worry about the Seesound, it is played by A_Look once the monster sees or hears the player, right before it enters the See state. So Goto See won't play the sound again. But you should clean up the See state animation a bit, the line with A_Facetarget and the one below make it look kinda choppy. You only need the A_chase line with the full walking animation.

I just checked out the SSG zombie and yea he does have that awkward posture too. Kinda looks like he's about to lift the shotgun to his shoulder and fire from there, like a bazooka or something.

One more thing I noticed in the marine sprite, in the back frames A5 to D5 the buttstock looks way too large, should be much smaller from that perspective.

edit: here's a quick mockup of what I think it should look like, arm in front of the buttstock? Looks much better to me at least.

Okay. I will have it go back to the see state and fix up the animation.
I can try and fix the sprites. Who should I credit for the arm over the gun? I assume you got it off the ssg zombie? I will also fix the same thing on the diagonals. I see what you mean about the back sprite and that looks really cursed lol. I will definintly fix that.

Ak47fu2 wrote:

Who should I credit for the arm over the gun? I assume you got it off the ssg zombie?

Wdym? I got nothing off the ssg zombie. Both sprites are only quick mockups to demonstrate how someone holding a shotgun would look like, I didn't put much effort into it. But if you wanna use them as a base for the other frames, be my guest. No need to credit me.

Okay. Thanks. I will likely use it as a base for the other frames.

Honestly, this is not a very interesting monster. I like the idea of a creature in possession of another human, a la The Thing, but this is no different than a regular zombie with more health, and the voice clips are just silly. The death animation is cool but that's about it.

Hmm. What would you suggest to make it better? I was originally planning to give it a projectile attack like the imp (or maybe reuse the ring attack that I will eventually make for the carcass) but I couldn't find any sprites that used the normal doomguy sprites as a base (for the death animation) that looked good.

I was thinking about a sort of skinwalker-like monster too and I thought that giving it the possibility to change "weapons" matching the ones the player is using in that moment would be cool.

It's doable in ZSCRIPT, even if I haven't started coding it.

Or even make the skinwalker change its appearance every time he takes damage, revealing hit after hit a more monstrous sprite