So for this week I animated the death animation for Alien 02. The animation shows how the alien either melts, vanishes into thin air, or is simply vaporized by the player. We can also see how the alien’s metallic spine strains together, into what looks like a liquid ball of whatever material the spine is made out, and is violently split into four projectiles that are launched away from the remains of the alien.
When I looked at the blog post submitted my Markus Holm; about his work on the attack animations for the trees used in the game Green Warden as envisioned by Team 9, I was inspired by the effects he had created for two of the trees. Holm had visualized energy channeled by the trees and then used as an attack against the enemies for their game. If you want to see the animations and read about his work process I suggest you follow this link and take a look at his post:
https://markusholmgame.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/week-7-more-animating/comment-page-1/
I wanted to create a similar effect for the death animation of Alien 02 so I added a ring that would shrink at the center of the liquid ball, what is left of the alien’s spine, as if the ball would channel some sort of energy from its surroundings in order to launch the four projectiles. The colors of the rainbow was added to the ring in order to give it that flashy and energetic look I was looking for.
On a technical standpoint, what I did was to take a single frame from the idle animation and then lower the opacity of the body, teeth and eyes and raise the opacity of the spine. For the last time (as I’m writing this March 12th 2015) I had to strain the spine by moving all ten pieces closer to each other until they are liquefied into the metal ball, which I painted in separate layers. There really is not much else to the animation.
In all honesty I am a bit disappointed with the animation. The death animation for Alien 01 was a very creative piece of work for me, with unnecessary little personal flavor added to it, such as the spikes piercing the four balls inside the alien, shrinking with the pyramid only to explode after the slime has been absorbed by it. You can check out the animation here:
https://darethus.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/the-eighth-passenger-of-icaros-1/
I knew that Alien 02 had the potential of providing a more spectacular death, with crazier animations and flavor; with all the teeth, spikes, eyes, flesh or goo and the spine to play with. Would it explode? Implode? Both? Perhaps it would gouge its eyes out with its own teeth and proceed by swallowing itself as the spine would extend itself and pierce the sides of the alien as it opened a black whole and- you get the idea.
Sadly I knew that I would not have the time to realize Alien 02’s potential so it had to be reduced a change in opacity, with some effects added for the sake of flashy effects. I do not think I did a bad job by any means, just not the job I would have liked to do on my alien. But you do what you can with what you have, with the hope that you can improve and do better next time.
Look forward to more next week!
Darethus 
Hello Erik!
I have read trough your post and I have some feedback for you.
Your blog post is written in a clear way, describing your work with the animation of Alien 02. In other words: it is very clear what you have done. You also give a good explanation of how you made the animation. I really like that you refer to another classmate’s blog post from which you have gained inspiration to your animation. That’s awesome! I also like that you motivate all your choices. You tell why you chose that the ring would have all the colours of the rainbow, for example.
When you refer to other blog posts and motivate all your choices, it makes me think about how i design my own assets. I realize that we all can learn from each other, not only from books or teachers. That these blog posts are not just something we all have to write just to pass the course. That makes your blog post really valuable to me. Thank you!
It is really great that you reflect on your own work. That you tell how you feel about the result and what could be improved about it. I think we all can learn form other peoples reflections on their own work.
I can not come up with any big improvements with your post. It was kind of hard to read the text while the animation was moving so fast. So maybe you could slow down any future animations before you attach them in the blog posts? But that’s all, I think!
I am looking forward to see your game when it is finished.
Keep up the good work!
Thom
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