A work in progress of one of the enemies on my currect game project. the aberrants are a hive based animal with multiple castes and massive numbers. This is the hunter, a smaller pack hunter that will serve as many early waves alongside workers

the model itself is about 50% done and still needs rigging texturing after.

The current finishing is refine the tail, add the throat sack, the tongue, lower jaw, and lower leg/back plates. and refine mid torso for sure

I take it you are using a rough polygon model as a base and skinning it later?

Also is this based on the BUGS from Star Ship Troopers vaguely? If so Soldiers would also tend to have additional "features" to make them more dangerous like spitting digestive acids as they attack unless they are reliant on pure brute bite and claw attacks. I base this suggestion on models in Natural biology here. If they are reptilian like the basic model suggests then cold would be their worst enemy. Cold based weaponry would do more damage to them and slow them down.

Oddly reptiles on earth are not social animals at all. Some are Semi Social. Workers would tend to in a hive society either block and interfere but to assault a target they would only act in a supporting role ie making "body Bridges" or Ramps over walls with themselves. Using ants for a Hive mind is a good example. Then again Bees do have workers who double as warriors. You do have choices but to make your creatures viable as an opponent against players they have to have patterned but intelligent behaviors.

For example, the mission is to breach a hive. The team decides to use charges to open a hole in the side of the hive to ingress but upon entering the team comes across workers. Most of the workers will block the hole to buy time for the warriors. Although they may in themselves not attack the team has to get through them and if they are selflessly plugging the tunnel with their bodies what do you do? (BFG 9000 from Doom!!! Hoo Ra!) Now imagine the look of shock on the teams face when they do penetrate and warriors are rushing them en-mass!

In termites the workers run from combat. They will however plug entrances with themselves to slow down ant invasions! They will also block tunnels with mud and feces!

With Wasps and Hornets they do not operate in a traditional hive. there is no Queen since they are either male or female and also share duties tending the colony!

Is what you are intending more like a Caste System? Or do workers eventually grow to be warriors? You do have a lot of room for liberty since damn near anything is possible considering how evolution works.

Then again are you doing this like a Lost World or Earth 10,000,000BC??

the aberrants are of "alien" origin, they evolved on a "planet" that is a single planet sized organism with thousands of different species living on and in it. They have been seperated and as animals seek to survive, earth is where the queen egg hatched and it is where the hive will now live. They are not here to invade, but to humans they are.

The hive consists of about 15 different castes-
The names are nicknames given by the human combatants, they have no official names at this time.

1.egg
2. larva
3. pupa
4. worker - stores food in its throat to bring to the hive, also moves larva
5. hunter - basic combatant used to hunt for prey items for the hive
6.Spitter- most often used to dig hive tunnels with its acidic spray but also plays roles in hunting if prey is too much for hunters alone
7.Burster- a defendant of the hive with swollen glands, plays the role of food storage and also able to make an explosive reaction sending acidic spray in all directions but at the cost of its own life
8.Goo Spitter- using a thickened type of fluid it is used to create cocoons, protective hive walls, and also to restrain prey items if the hive needs it to be done.
9. raper- as with ants, reproductive organs become weapons in the castes. these animals the tongue is both reproductive and food consumption. The raper is a defensive caste specialized in impaling with this tongue and leaving symbiotic parasites in the host that asist the hive in tracking the most dangerous threats to the hive. the way a bee sting tells others to attack.
10.Soldier- A more fearsome version of a hunter, it lives as hive defense and has a fearsome home field advantage
11. Spewer- they emit special hormones from their carapace that send other members into a frenzy. They are used in the hive to direct larval growth into different castes
12.Firefly- a large flying member of the hive that spews a natural napalm and most often scouts and searches for small prey items
13.Firebug- A massive and rare member of the hive that can attack from range. evolved as a defense from other aberant hives.
14. Royal guard- A heavily shielded aberant who remains with the queen and egg chambers. They are a fearsome oponent with deadly tongues and chemical reactions.
15.Queen- massive member of the hive that spends her life laying eggs, but it quite capable of defending herself.


Anatomy- aberants due to their unique evolution do not breath, but they need a metabolic source, their tails function as a reactor of sorts and is the life source of the body, the brain and heart are so heavily armored it is pointless to aim at.
The animals of the planet evolved from small squidlike animals that have since became very specialized, the aberants show the fusing of the tentacles into limbs and specialize in speed and precision but are very poor at stealth in a human environment, the sounds of plates clanking on floors is a telltale sign one is attempting to ambush.

inspiration has come from many sources, the biped anatomy was inspired by tremors, the alien caste life from good ol SST, and so forth. lifestyle from ants, termites, bees, wasps, various social insects.

Inspired by Tremors- you mean the a$$ blasters?

more like the shriekers, Duhhh

I won't turn this into a Tremors Love thread.

jaw done, smoothed the tail region, deciding if i want to add a hole into lower jaw bone before merging with completely with the body. next is torso/back

nearly done, any opinions? feet back tongue and torso left. then good ol optimizing of the model, etc

I'm not sure what program you're using, but from my experience, Maya 3d rendering software does a better job in producing quality renderings and comps than other software I've played with.

i use 3dmax and work with maya sometimes, but it doesnt matter if your doing a movie or such then thats important, but the rendering is done with the game engine, the model is low poly and all because of huge numbers on screen at a time. and im not one of those make it look real types. style is better anyday. and runs better.

Is it going to be brown? Just curious, doesn't seem to have a lot of detail to it right now. The feet also look kind of blocky, but that is probably more engine related than programmer. What engine is this based on? How many poly's are you working with in total?

yeah feet are work in progress thats a rough outline of te leg plates. The detail is actually pretty well its just untextured currently thats the base mesh.

the final coloring will be a dark earthy tone with black head plates, black jaws, black tail plates, and a bioluminescent glowing tail end pseudo firefly like under the plates. black leg plates aswell. small bioluminescent patches in the plates etc.

poly count is 1,000 tops, because im looking at major numbers on the screen at a time, texture and animation will compensate for the detail

Aye, textures is what I meant, sorry. Are there hinges for movement of the head and body? Just curious as to how smooth the movement will look with the model. ^^

yeah textures will be hand drawn and styled, im doing a subtle cell shaded graphics style

the animation is using the bone tools and will be smoothly done. i know the value of animation. so many companys forget it and it takes away from the atmosphere of the game

feel free to advise and wants while im workin on it, once it hits texture stage im not goin back to model haha

Just the feet really, and maybe add more shape to the body...but I don't know how far back that would take you. Really looks pretty good, waiting to see it textured. ^^

yeah i just modeled the back plate to cover leg portion of the back and blend those tail plates properly, adding small ridging to the back, few more neck vertecies for smoother animation, tongue almost done, still need to clean feet plates, modifying leg muscle definition. and adding more torso emphasis to see where neck and ribcage breaks

rough texture, detail work, etc. getting there

You might want to change the lower half of its form a little. Either make his feet bigger, or longer legs with more arc. If you look from the front and side; while standing idle they have a high chance of falling on their face. Longer legs with them pushed forward up to the front of the rib cage more would also added the benefit of clawing while leaping (like a raptor) and running faster (longer gait).

Otherwise, it looks good!

yeah im still working on the leg ratios, it will have the muscled balance design and built for spreed not power.

the ribcage is actually being shrunk down a little now aswell, but in reality the current ratio is ideal balance, the plates are very heavy while basic body is quite light.

because of their anatomy none but the hunters will have a leaping for claw attacks. They simply cant risk jumpingas it would damage many major organs, namely the tail and throat, a poor jump would make them land on it and rupture the tissue. the weapon of the species is powerful jaws, and an extreemly deadly tongue. and other caste members will have much different weapons as the hive needs. which was posted above.
All in all they are very fast and large numbers.

the main issue not is getting the legs right, i may delete them and redo it ha. but the jaws are blunt and simple, for the worker caste doesnt need much. Stubby up the body for sure aswell

I know nothing about this, but it looks like it's coming along really well, Emily. Cheers.