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Skeletron V2 (Terraria)

"You just might be strong enough to free me from my curse..."


Skeletron, a giant skeleton guardian boss from the game Terraria.


Due to popular demand, I pushed back a few other things and went ahead and made another Terraria boss. The Eye was rather well received, so naturally I decided to make another "classic" boss in the same vein. Enter Skeletron, the cursed guardian of the Dungeon.

I was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to do Skeletron justice in 3D. My initial assumptions were that he would look decent from the front, and terrible from any other angle. The end result blew me away, his visage is absolutely astounding and almost unnerving. I think he's my new favorite boss if just because he gives me the creeps.

I learned a great deal while working on him, both in SFM and GMod. Skeletron is a bit more comprehensive than the Eye, featuring lods, optimizations, and a few SFM considerations. Once again, I kept with the same ruleset as the Eye. Keep it close to the sprite, and deviate only when the transition to 3D was "less than graceful".

I've also developed a new lightwarp that creates a better banding effect, which I'll migrate over to the Eye after I get Skeletron sorted out. The new lightwarp should remove some artifacting that occurs when the models are harshly lit.

I decided to go the extra mile and build a set piece and some custom props. The Dungeon you see in the promo shots is the "interior" room, which is through the door past the old man. It's built roughly to scale with Skeletron, and even then, he's still too big for it. I'll package the Dungeon map and the extra props in separate uploads later.

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I can't believe it's been almost a year since this guy was made. I've learned a lot about rigging since then, and I could tell very quickly that a did a poor job setting this guy up. Part of the trouble was due to his appearance in both SFM and GMod. Rigging for both is a bit more complicated, as you have to follow a certain ruleset in order for it to work right. I ended up fudging it the first time. I have corrected the rig, but also broken backwards compatibility in the process. As per usual, the first and second verisons of skeletron are included, just in case you don't want to move to version 2.

Another area where Skeletron was lacking was his texture. I suppose I lacked inspiration, or maybe I simply didn't have a firm grasp of texturing bone. Either way, he came across as more of a plaster/styrofoam statue, rather than a terrifying bone golem. The side by side comparison in the image section really does illustrate the sharp contrast between the new and old texture. It's subtle, but he feels a lot more threatening now than before.

I think the worst of it though, was the lack of a rig script. I did not know how to make those when I first released him, but Skeletron sorely needed one. I cringe now, thinking about all the animations I saw with Skeletron, and how unnecessarily difficult I made it for others to animate him. A new rig script will be provided this time.

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-His head and arms are scaled to 4.5/6 the size of the Eye, keeping roughly in line with his game sprite's respective size. That means he's super huge.

-He's packaged in 4 different sets. His head, his left arm, his right arm, and then the entire rig as one piece. This is mainly due to how unmanageable he is at his current size. The "full rig" version is there as a courtesy, but I highly recommend spawning in the arms and head separately, as they are simply easier to keep track of.

-His jaw bone is rigged, and can be open/closed accordingly. You can also make him do goofy faces by twisting and warping it.

-Interestingly, Skeletron's sprite shows him as having two sets of radius and ulna bones on each arm, rather than the traditional humerous -> radius/ulna -> wrist. I'm not sure if this was just a concession by the original developer, or if it was more an implication that Skeletron is extremely flexible. Either way, his arms are made to reflect this peculiar bone setup.



The original concept and design of "Skeletron" is the intellectual property of "Re-Logic".


Includes:
terr\models\bosses\boss_skeletron.mdl
terr\models\bosses\boss_skeletron_arm_l.mdl
terr\models\bosses\boss_skeletron_arm_r.mdl
terr\models\bosses\boss_skeletron_head.mdl
terr\models\bosses\boss_skeletron_v2.mdl
terr\models\bosses\boss_skeletron_arm_l_v2.mdl
terr\models\bosses\boss_skeletron_arm_r_v2.mdl
terr\models\bosses\boss_skeletron_head_v2.mdl

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