Uh I was asked to make a Squirrel. It is a custom creature. Custom skeleton and animations as well as model and textures.
The squirrels have 1 attack that I call "Tail Whip".
Other than that they have an idle animation and a movement animation.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJf3_voQkTE

Now how can I make them feel more natural to the game? Should there be only 1 squirrel who is a pet like dogmeat? Should they be a passive or aggressive creature?

IMO, they should be passive creatures. as already stated in one of the other threads, there aren't enough passive animals in this game. also i think there should be many squirrels. got to justify all that squirrel everyone in the wasteland is eating somehow.

I vote aggressive. They are big and would not survive long in the wasteland if they could not protect themselves.

The squirrel is a good start. It did not look like they had any animations on them yet.

Should I release? Or try to blend them into the game?

@Willie, so a redo of the animations is in order?

I wouldn't release them until you are done with them. They don't look finished yet. They need eyes for starters Take time to modify them so they don't look like robotic stuffed animals <-- sorry, I know that was a bad joke

It is an incremental process. It is exhausting to bring in incomplete models to the game, but I benefit from the fact that I get a better understanding of my capabilities, as well as how the game handles my creatures. Other than that I can visualize things in my imagination more vividly. I am getting more comfortable though.

I bet it is. I give you lots of credit, cause I couldn't even make a box dance if I tried (not that I have, but you know what I mean). I know you can do this, you just have to remain focused You have done excellent work so far, I just don't want you to release it yet and then lose track and never go back to it and finish it

I say fine tune the body before you work on fine tuning the animations, cause who knows, after you do that, you may not have to alter animations. The whip tail is a neat attack feature, so maybe you can make it so that the squirrel will not attack anything unless it is attacked first. That way everyone is happy

AHHH! What the [censored] were those things? If I saw one of them running at me it would be creepy as hell!

Perhaps it was because there were so many squirrles that the video could not keep up. It just looked like they were stiff statues.
But I must also say that I could not have done what you have done there. Its a very good start on your critter. Very good! :goodjob:

I agree that they shouldn't attack unless you attack them.

Here is the new squirrel remake!

http://img717.imageshack.us/i/squirrelredo.jpg/

2,000 faces you see.

A key point about blending something into a game is making it look like it should be there, and this includes all aspects of the creation, from its model, texture, and animation.

And a little experimentation can't be all that bad either right?




Edit: new pic url
http://img190.imageshack.us/i/squirrelredo.jpg/


Also thanks to everyone for helping with this!

In my opinion, they should be aggresive. Make them fast, silent, hit hard, and let them die quickly. Would be cool if you could let them travle in packs.

I say make them passive.

Make two kinds of squirrel so everyone will be happy: One agresive and one passive lol

But imo they shouldn't be too strong, like molerats or so.

That would work, though how would you tell the aggressive ones apart from the passive ones?

In my opinion we already have enough weak enemies. Bloatflys, vicious dogs, molerats, raiders, I would like to see an enemie that is strong, but not a bulletsponge. A bit like the Yao Guai at earlier levels.

The passive ones could be normal scale, and aggressive can be about the size of a mole rat or like in the video.

Yet another solution to yet another dilemma.

This is more of a dino-squirrel now. http://i49.tinypic.com/2hsc5uh.jpg

Dont make them too strong...

There're too many "squirrel stick" arround there haha... they should be easy to hunt you know...

If you make two versions I'd like the agresive and stronger one to be a little weaker than the Yao Guai.

That squirrel only has 1 ear? It doesn't have any feet What happened to the other one you were working on?

I see what happened, you created those dinos on the other thread, and they ate up your lab experiment squirrels

I been practicing my modeling skills in preparation for using Unity3D. I don't know if I will follow through with my Unity3D plans. But I don't understand why I never finished this squirrel project. It can't be that hard to make these buggers!

I have nothing to do today until 1pm (doing testing for job placement). so i guess i will start again on teh squirrels!