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- - By Clonkonaut [ie] Date 2012-05-18 04:57 Edited 2021-04-30 10:44
So, Matthi asked me to write a little conceptial text about animals. Mainly because I overview the settlement plans and therefore know where these animals might fit in economically.
The matter arose with Muzaff's Monster where I expressed my discomfort with alien-like creatures as animals in Clonk. I though too, that compiling a little text might be a good idea. I will describe what animals I'd like to see in OC and how these behave. Though I do not intend for everything to be done, I seek to give a little inspiration.

Basic thoughts
I have made some hard thinking on this topic in general. Especially thinking of some fitting animals was hard. Even though we had some desert scenarios in the past titles, it comes just naturally to me that the usual Clonk scenario takes place in temperate climate. Coniferous trees only strengthen this impression (although cold climate is fitting, too). When I think about animals that inhabit especially Europe (sorry Ringwaul ;)) and in particular think about animals that are big enough to serve as worthy foes, I can only think about four-legged animals. There is a common problem with these in Clonks, mainly that they look awkward. The reason is simply that Clonk heavily relies on objects only having on one contact point with the landscape. Every four-legged creatures needs 2 points and because this often doesn't work well, most oft the times even four-legged animals are made with one contacting point; thus making them look weird when as- or descinding in the often hilly world of Clonk. The old animals (wipfs and monsters, not mentioning the snake for obvious reason) therefore were very compact. Even though the wipf is four-legged, with its smallness this doesn't matter.
Bad examples are to found among the other animals notably the animals from Western (bear, bison, horse - I know the horse derived from the knights pack). Although the designer did a decent job, outstretched bodies just don't work. I tried to adapt these thoughts in my proposals. Furthermore I think unless someone feels the urge to somehow make four-legged beings work well, I would dislike anything of this kind.

Friendly beasts
Friendly animals are filling the game with movement and atmosphere, spicing everything up a bit. In addition these creatures can serve as a source for material. Although mainly as a source for food. It is not that hard to think about real insertion of animal products in production chains though. An easy example would be: Bird -> Feathers -> Arrows
But most of you will know quite well that in a regular game animals will very likely go extinct because of simple reasons (natural disasters, players killing them, a badly placed font of water). We can ignore the player's part of course and tell that it is "bad managing" if one kills all animals but the rest are valid obstacles to overcome if one wants to make animals more important. Respawning animals from the screen edges or buyable ones for example.

I do admit that I was quite without imagination about friendly animals. Come time I might think about something new but until now I can only say I was always very content with the ones we had in CR. I will go on with writing about them and mainly add some behavioural additions.

Wipfs
I always though that Wipfs are hare- or rabbit-like creatures. Very non-hazardous, Wipfs just strolled around the landscape and dug randomly. It is rather easy I think to improve their behaviour to make them look more realistic or - to state it better - more convincing. Giving them the character of real animals.
We have grass so let's make them eat grass. Though real devouring of the grass objects puts us in the need to resupply the scenario with grass. We could rather just let Wipfs preferably stop at grass and play some nibble animation but never remove the grass.
Wipfs dug the earth which I thought for a rabbit-like thing fits well. Make them dig more intelligent. The first breaking of ground can happen by random. But then the Wipfs remembers this place and afterwards considers this its den. The den may grow over time, getting one or two branches (but make sure the Wipfs can still get out by jumping). More than one Wipf can inhabit such a den thus leading to them raising their offspring in it.
Wipfs are shy and non-aggressive. But make them flee an opponent. When a Clonk hurts them they run away or seek shelter in the den.

Wipfs can provide the player with meat and/or wool. Wipf-wool then would be an alternative to cotton in making cloth.

Birds
I disliked the birds from CR because they always got stuck somewhere because of them randomly flying around and being oddly big. I would rather want small singing birds flying around whereever they have trees or bushes. Let them sit in the trees and chatter. Occasionally they fly off to another one. I would like to have them smaller than the old birds. Not bigger than a Clonk's head.
I am not about nests. But I guess it would be nice and as well feature as the place to return to and stay there without it looking random just as the Wipf's den.
If we reintroduce something like the Zaps, birds could even actively hunt these down.

Birds only provide food when killed and cooked. Unless we want to have feathers.

img removed

Fish
There is not much to say here. I liked the old fish. Behaviour (hey, it's just fish, everyone thinks that fish just do random stuff) and look. Although they could sometimes swim to the surface and jump a little bit as they were hunting insects.

Fish are only good for food!

Crabs
More like a gimmick but worth a try. Wandering around on the bottom of seas/lakes and waving their little claws. When a Clonk comes near they could even pinch him. Furthermore if we reintroduce clams they could interact and become hermit crabs. Everyone thinks these unexpressingly funny!

Snakes
Little to add, I liked these too. But they could flee Clonks and other big animals. Their restlessness was odd though. What about a sleeping animation where the snake curls up, preferably close to objects? When an innocent Clonks comes by and grabs the object he gets bitten! But this would be a gimmick.

Hostile beasts
These creatures often actively hurt Clonks to get them away. They pose a real threat. They are not evil but grumpy and easily angered!
I did like the old Monsters but I have no true concept how to make them more animal-like. Because of what I said about four-legged animals I could not help but to dismiss anything that lives in temperate climate (bears, wolfs, cats of prey). I tried to be more 'creative' ;) I don't have any witty names for these yet. I'm open to any counter-proposals. I don't think that we should implement all of them. But let's see.

Apes
My first idea were some kind of trolls. But then I thought that Clonk is no fantasy styled game and trolls do not fit. But the idea of a humanoid cling to me. So these are some kind of forest apes (instead of jungle apes...).
They do not like having Clonks around. They punch them or throw objects at them (which makes them really dangerous if they get hold of something like a firestone). They form groups which then attack together. They are curious and try to steal interesting objects or food from Clonks.
A nice gimmick could be that they climb up trees to hide/sleep in them. When a Clonk tries to chop down the tree, the Ape will fall down and pound its fist on the ground sending the Clonk fly away.

img removed

Flightless bird
These birds run fast and maybe they can leap a good deal by fluttering a little bit. If they spot a Clonk they try run him over or peck him. They construct nests openly and then defend them.
Maybe these could serve as a mount?



Electric blowfish
Easily frightened, these fellas defend themselves with electric shocks. Blowfish are always funny because they look clumsy!



Sharks
Cheap shot to have some underwater foes. The behaviour in CR was okay.

Birds of Prey
Something like an eagle but bigger. So big that they actually see Clonks as good prey and rush down at them. These birds always seek a very high place to build an aerie.

img removed
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Parent - - By Ringwaul [ca] Date 2012-05-18 06:24
Certainly a lot of good points and ideas here. I like the changes to the existing creatures; we'll need a lot of effort to script these behaviours though. For the flightless bird, something like Terrorvögel would be cool. For some reason I find the ape strange, but I do like the idea of it being able to throw objects as an attack.
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Parent - By Clonkonaut [ie] Date 2012-05-18 14:05

> we'll need a lot of effort to script these behaviours though.


I don't think so. These are very simple reaction based things. "Oh, I need to get moving" -> Tree nearby -> Move there. Or "Oh, I want to sleep" -> Move to den (no den? -> Sleep somewhere).
This stuff is more complex than the old animal, agreed. But not that hard to do anyway ;)
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Parent - - By ala [de] Date 2012-05-18 08:32
I like the hostile birds of your concept, mainly because I can imagine their artificial intelligence working fine. They could even dive after some fish or grab wipfs - not only clonks. And if the sky is open, they could just leave the map entirely if not on the hunt - or, they could rest in some sort of nest similar to the CR dragon nest.

But with all other land animals, their still remains some doubt. Wouldn't they get stuck in complex landscapes?
Parent - - By Clonkonaut [ie] Date 2012-05-18 13:50

> But with all other land animals, their still remains some doubt. Wouldn't they get stuck in complex landscapes?


Yes, at some point certainly. This is the crux in Clonk and we have to deal with that. The only possible solution I see are only flying animals which sounds kind of boring.
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Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2012-05-18 19:03

>The only possible solution I see are only flying animals which sounds kind of boring.


There are a lot of other solutions - but all of them involve a more or less "cheating" movement, that has to be convincing enough for the player (jumping frogs, armadillos/snakes digging into the back only to appear again, birds flying into the background and coming back, spiders using the front side of the landscape as if it was a flat wall, wipfs becoming a fur ball and flinging themselves away...)
Parent - By Sven2 [de] Date 2012-05-18 21:11
What about an animal that has the same physicals as a Clonk and just records and mimics the movements of the last Clonks passing by? :)
Parent - By boni [at] Date 2012-05-18 08:34
You forgot the Bearodactyl! :(
Parent - - By Newton [de] Date 2012-05-18 11:01 Edited 2012-05-18 11:08
Heh, who did the cool sketches? :-)

>birds of prey


We already got a model for a small dragon or big bird: A Tree dragon or giant Quetzalcoatl - http://forum.openclonk.org/topic_show.pl?pid=5490
Parent - By Clonkonaut [ie] Date 2012-05-18 13:52

> Heh, who did the cool sketches? :-)


I did them ;)

> We already got a model


Oh, that's neat :o
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Parent - By Ringwaul [ca] Date 2012-05-19 04:06

>We already got a model for a small dragon or big bird


I'd like to redo the texture and rework parts of the mesh for that creature (especially the head). I seem to recall having made a nice flight animation for it, but its feet need IK rigging.
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Parent - By Newton [de] Date 2012-05-18 11:08
Here is the link to an older discussion where I also mentioned "domesticable animals". My ideas could be understood to further complete the concept

http://forum.openclonk.org/topic_show.pl?pid=12155#pid12155
Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2012-05-18 13:19
Thanks for writing that up so far! I'm not too sure about the ape, it feels a bit forced, especially with what you said about the climate in mind. Do like the blowfish, though. I'll play around with some more refined sketches and post stuff~
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Parent - By Clonkonaut [ie] Date 2012-05-18 13:59

> it feels a bit forced


Yeah, maybe. I liked the idea of having something that throws your stuff at you ;)
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Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2012-05-18 13:30
Oh: And i think we need frogs. They are four-legged, yes, but they jump, so it could work out fine. I mean, come on, riding on giant frogs is something EVERY game should have, right?
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Parent - - By Clonkonaut [ie] Date 2012-05-18 13:56
Yeah, sounds nice :D
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Parent - By Matthias [de] Date 2012-05-18 14:39
Based on an older design I made for fun.
I hereby license the file frog.png under the CC-BY license
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Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2012-05-18 13:41 Edited 2012-05-18 13:44
I hereby license the file electricblowfish.png under the CC-BY license

I hereby license the file flightless_bird.png under the CC-BY license

I hereby license the file wipf.png under the CC-BY license
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Parent - By Clonkonaut [ie] Date 2012-05-18 13:56
:o
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Parent - - By Newton [de] Date 2012-05-18 16:11
wow, cool sketches! The bird looks very refined!Why is the blowfish so sad?
Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2012-05-18 17:12
Because he is the only animal in the ocean so far and thus very, very lonely. :(
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Parent - By Sven2 [de] Date 2012-05-18 17:16
Parent - By Nachtfalter [de] Date 2012-05-18 21:30
Add a spycrab. They must be repopulated :>
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Parent - - By Ringwaul [ca] Date 2012-05-19 04:32 Edited 2012-05-19 05:49
I love them all! :D

Edit: Small bird concept added
I hereby license the file bird.png under the CC-BY license
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Parent - By boni [at] Date 2012-05-19 09:50
It looks like it's about to burst into flames any moment now and go all I'MAMOTHERFUCKINGDRAGON on you. :D
(for sense, replace dragon with phoenix)
Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2012-05-19 09:58
Cute! I think those small birds could maybe get several meshes or at least a few different textures to give the impression of different species.
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Parent - - By Clonkonaut [ie] Date 2012-05-19 13:00
Since these birds are very small, wouldn't sprites be better?
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Parent - By Matthias [de] Date 2012-05-19 16:12
Well, sprites have the downside that you need a relatively high resoluted graphic. It's just plain ugly if things show pixels once you start to zoom in. Also, you can't switch textures on sprites or create an oversized version of that thing. But it's worth a try, maybe.
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Parent - By Ringwaul [ca] Date 2012-05-19 23:13
Since the bird is so small, a mesh with around <500 polys seems very possible. Also, I think being consistent with our character graphics should be important.
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Parent - By Heyub [us] Date 2012-05-18 15:23
Your forest ape idea sounds like sasquatch.
Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2012-05-19 21:54

> fish [...] hunting insects.


Based upon a real animal: The celestial goldfish. I thought that those big eyes just look too cute on it, while actually having the function of looking upwards, where insects might get too close to the water.
Not so much a deep-sea fish, though.

I hereby license the file goldfish.png under the CC-BY license
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Parent - By ala [de] Date 2012-05-20 13:12
Lovely <3
Parent - - By roboclonk [de] Date 2012-05-29 21:47
That would be funny! (the Bird :P)
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Parent - By Fluff [gb] Date 2012-05-29 22:20
I kinda want the house in Clonk now as well.

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