Idea for an enemy: a physically simulated corpse that sprouts spider-like legs. Uses procedural animation to walk along terrain.
I based my implementation off of this wonderful post on Reddit.
First prototype. Lots of issues here. Legs look bad, animation isn’t correct, ragdoll would look better upside down. Also lots of hidden bugs that won’t pop up until later.
Attempt at improving animation. Still syncs up weirdly:
At this point I try to see what happens if I let the enemy steer. This is the result, which in my head was it just dancing to this classic tune from Chicago:
I decided to not try and fix the bug, and instead focus on getting the leg animation correct. Doing so meant I had to implement step 8 in the guide, not moving a leg if its two neighbors are also moving. That lead to this:
My partner informed me that the legs look like garbage, and she helped me design some new ones based off of spiders like the Golden Orb Silk Weaver. I also tweaked the movement such that the front legs should move further than the back legs, and do so a bit slower. I also added some (exaggerated here) bobbing during movement:
You know what would make everything creepier? Random twitching. I relocated the legs to the limbs such that the IK would kick in and compensate for the twitching:
The current version of this creepy boi. Now he stays 1.5m off of the surface below him, as well as locking the IK targets to that same surface.