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There are three kinds of enemies in C.I.N.D.-E 1.4: "red shirts", "mid-bosses", and "level bosses." |
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"Red shirts" is a term coined by Stephen Clarke-Willson when he was at Virgin Interactive that describes enemies frequently encountered and dispatched. The term comes from a Star Trek joke: "Four guys beam down to a planet: Kirk, McCoy, Spock, and a guy in a red shirt. There is an accident on the planet and one of the guys is killed. Which guy isn't coming back?" Clearly, it is going to be the guy in the red shirt. The red shirt enemies in C.I.N.D.-E 1.4 are numerous and annoying but not too difficult to dispatch. They frequently leave power-ups behind. In most cases, they are created from 3D CAD models but are "stone" models: they have no or few moving parts. Some have one moving part, namely the gun turret, which can track the Rover regardless of the direction the red shirt enemy is driving or flying. For red shirt enemies the emphasis is on how they move in the world. While it is important for the red shirt enemies to look cool, it is much more important how they move, as this is what will define them from a game-play perspective. |
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In the following picture, the camouflaged tanks are red shirt enemies: |
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Mid-bosses, of course, appear once only in the midel of a level. Each boss requires a unique method to kill him. In C.I.N.D.-E 1.4, mid-bosses are almost always rendered sprites. These sprites are placed inside a tunnel so the view of the mid-boss is carefully controlled. These sprites are like the enemies in Doom, except they are much more sophisticated in their rendering and abilities. Each one is individually scripted in C++, and consists of over one hundred frames of animation. Since there is only one view of the boss, no space is wasted on 3/4 or side views of the boss. |
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Rendering the mid-bosses allows the full power of Alias PowerAnimator to be applied to creating the boss. The boss can emit smoke, flames, have hair, smooth animation, any kind of texture, and so on. |
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The two pictures above show a mid-boss for the first system of caverns, the Rock Caverns. (The Cavern the boss is in is just a simple square room with textures slapped on - not a real Cavern.) The model was licensed from Viewpoint Datalabs and textured and animated in PowerAnimator. This mid-boss picks up rocks and hurls them at you. When the rocks strike the ground, the screen shakes and additional rocks come raining down on you from the top of the cavern. The second picture in the series shows how 2D effects from Adobe Premiere can be applied to the sprites. In the second picture, the mid-boss is dissolving into nothingness after being killed. |
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The picture above shows a mid-boss from the final system of caverns, Underwater Caverns. This model was built by Mike Burke in TrueSpace (from a rendering by Stan Gorman) and then textured and animated in PowerAnimator. |
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The third kind of boss is the level boss. There are four main systems of caverns in C.I.N.D.-E 1.4, corresponding to four levels or stages. (See Caverns of Nebulon.) The level bosses will be fully-articulated, hierarchically animated 3D CAD models. The level bosses, since they are animated in real-time, will have fewer special effects applied than the mid-bosses, but will have increased gameplay value because each part will be able to move intelligently according to the action. Also, you'll be able to shoot off parts of each boss as you try to defeat him, without completely killing him. The level bosses are a secret and will be unveiled at a later time. |
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