Animals in Unreal 2

There are several animals found in Unreal 2. Some of them were cut from the game.

There are 20 animals that have their own actors:

• Araknids (?)
• Bellow fish
• Cyprids
• Cockroaches
• Divers
• Flying Snakes
• Hummers
• Killer Sprouts (?)
• Killer Tadpoles
• Mukhoggs
• Paratas
• Pinwheel Fish
• Rammers
• School Fish
• Seagoats
• Snipes
• Spores (?)
• Ugly Fish
• Target Drones (?)
• Water Dippers

Araknids

Main Article: Araknids

Araknids are spiders that are found on Hell. Originally they are small, yellow, fast spiders that are easy to kill. But some araknids have been affected by the energy beam of an artifact and mutated to huge red or even gigantic yellow ones, that seem to be more intelligent than the small ones. See the main article for more details.

Bellow Fish

A bellow fish, seen in the mesh browser of UnrealEd

Bellow Fish are one of the species that was cut from the game. Their meshes, textures and an actor class are still in the game. The fish itself looked like a jellyfish, had five tentacles and was yellow colored. They probably lived in the Shian ocean and helped them in their battles. Their height was approximately half a human. Their animations (that are not viewable) are named Base (1 frame), HitGut01 (51 frame), RunFwrd01 (71 frame), Fall (41 frame) and FallDeath (41 frame). Their actor class contains no specific data.

Cyprid

A cyprid, how it could look and the mesh from above

Another unused animal. It seems that cyprids can not move, they are stationary. They appear cone-like, with the top of it being transcluent. They are small, not even high enough to reach a human's knee. They are colored red and blue. The mesh, the textures and the actor class is in the game. There are only two animations provided, the Base (1 frame) and the IdleWaitBreathe (81 frame). Their actor class contains no specific data.

Cockroach

Cockroaches of Unreal 2

Cockroaches are small bugs that are found running around in places people rarely check. They resemble the cockroaches of Earth. They are easily destroyable and cause no harm. Their actor class doesn't hold any code, except references to sounds and blood particles. Their animations are: Base (1 frame), IdleWaitBreathe01 (30 frames), IdleWaitBreathe02 (60 frames), IdleWaitBreathe03 (50 frames) and RunFwrd01 (10 frames).

Diver

A diver, seen in the mesh browser of UnrealEd

Divers are huge creatures, having the height of a human, and the wings length as four human arms. They aren't used in the game either. Their name suggests that they lived above the Shian ocean. They have two wings, four legs that look like tentacles, a strange head with four teeth and two horns. They have black skin. The divers can fly and dive into the ocean. They have a mesh, textures and an actor class that contains no specific information. The animations are: Base (1 frame), IdleWaitBreathe (40 frames), Fly01 (39 frames) and Fly2Dive (20 frames).

Flying Snake

Flying Snakes, UnrealEd screenshots

Flying snakes are flying animals that are found on Severnaya. They are almost as big as a human and has big wings. The flying snakes have a tail that splits to two and a small tongue. Generally they look like snakes with wings and usually don't attack players, unless are shot. They can dodge, use melee and air attacks, land on the ground and jump. Their actor class doesn't give anything specific though. It comes with a junior class, U2FlyingSnakeCorpse, that has a mesh of bloody Flying Snake and a comment:

MWP (mdf) -- is this class really necessary -- can't the LDs set this up in the editor?

Hummer

Hummers are animals that live on Na Koja Abad. They have blue and yellow skin, only reach to a knee of a human, has two wings, a long beak (similar to the Earth's colibris) and one big eye. Overall they look similar to Flying Snakes of Severnaya. Hummers can fly and tend to attack Snipes, another animal living on Na Koja Abad. They sometimes attack humans as well. Hummer's actor class doesn't give any specific information about it.

Killer Sprout

A Killer Sprout

Killer Sprouts are strange creatures found on Acheron. They might be a part of the planet, an internal organ, but it is listed in the editor as another actor. It might a symbiotic creature as well. Killer sprouts have three red tendrils that can grab anyone that steps on a Killer Sprout. Then it binds the prey and slowly drains health. Killer sprouts can not be killed, but to get away from one you must shoot at it. Then the Killer Sprout will release the tendrils and let go. Without the tendrils, there is almost nothing more of the creature, only a small base. Killer sprouts only use melee and can not move. The comments in the code reveal some technical aspects of the Killer Sprouts:

NOTE: real (blocking) collision cylinder encompasses base only (not tentacles) and a "proxy" collision cylinder is used to detect enemies which are within reach of the tentacles.

TouchingHeight [is counted] from ground (including 2x normal collision height)
allocate a proxy collision cylinder for detecting when the tentacles are touched without blocking anything
collision proxy handles all touch/untouch notifications
Let Controller.NotifyTakeHit handle hit.

Super.PlayDying <...> [--] this is normally done in the animation controller, but this npc doesn't have one.

Killer Tadpole

A Killer Tadpole, seen in the mesh browser of UnrealEd

Killer Tadpoles are unused creatures. They are fish-like, so it is most possible that they lived in the Shian ocean. They have blue, black and red coloured skin and two fins. It seems that it has bones and strong jaws. They have ten teeth on each side of their mouth. They also have two long limbs that probably helps when swimming. Killer Tadpoles could use only melee attacks and could swim normally and extra fast. Their actor, despite the fact that it is in the U2PawnBasic parent class, doesn't hold any code.

Mukhogg

A Mukhogg, a mesh and the scenery

Mukhoggs are creatures found on Hell. They were probably brought there by the Axon Research Corporation for testing purposes. One Mukhogg is guarding the entrance to the facility. Mukhoggs are big bull-like animals that look scary. They aren't tough though. They have four big bloody fangs and a long tongue. Mukhoggs walk on four legs and have a small tail. They have wide backs, almost suitable for carrying things. Their skin is blue, white and black. They are often found near Paratas and it seems that Mukhoggs enjoy eating them. The creatures charge, trying to hit the enemy with their long fangs. There aren't many Mukhoggs in the Hell level, but you get to watch the process of mutating a Mukhogg into a huge Mukhogg. In UnrealEd, Mukhoggs are called MiniMukhoggs and the giant Mukhoggs are simply called Mukhoggs.

A few statues of Mukhoggs are featured in the XMP map XMP-Alcazar.

Parata

Parata

The Parata is an armored, slug-like alien that lives on Hell's surface. Normally docile, the Parata will counter-attack by using some kind of glands underneath its movable sclerites.

Paratas, even though their moving style is similar to the Earth's snail, they are surprisingly fast. That way it is similar to the bloblets of Unreal. They don't make much of a threat though, as they can only attack from close range and are easily taken out by a few shots from the Shock Lance Energy Rifle primary fire.If they are not disturbed, Paratas will simply wander on the surface. Nothing is known about their relationship with Mukhoggs, even though they live in the same area.

Pinwheel Fish

Pinwheel Fish

Pinwheel Fish are very small fish that live in shells in lakes or aquariums. They have a form of pinwheel, that's where the name is from. They are seen in Severnaya and Hell. In Hell they are only kept in aquariums for animal research, while in Severnaya a few of them are seen swimming in the main lake. Pinwheel fish are only decorative. All they can do is swim around while constantly rotating. They can be easily killed as they have only 50 health. They can not retaliate or defend.

Rammer

A Rammer

The Rammer is a bipedal, reptilian animal with a large, armored forehead. It has no other limbs, but it has a tail and a number of spiky protrusions on its back. It has two big fangs that they use to get food and defend. When it stands in its full height, it can reach the height of a human. When they move, though, they only reach half the height of a human. The Rammers live on Elara V. They can live on other planets too, but they are not shown in Unreal II. Rammers are also seen in Hell as experiments.

Normally docile, Rammers will defend themselves if attacked. Their presence can be detected by their mournful call, somewhat comparable to that of an Earth whale.

Rammers are very similar in appearance to Nali Cows. As with Mukhoggs, in UnrealEd Rammers are classified as Rammers and MiniRammers, although the usual Rammers are actually MiniRammers.

School Fish

A School Fish

School Fish are very small fish that live in schools. They are not used in the game and have no specific code. They might be left-overs from the cut Shian level. They appear to be somewhat similar to Biterfish of Unreal. They are colored red and somewhat appear to be similar to the Earth's Trilobites. They have 30 health and can swim quite rapidly. The School Fish version that is provided with Unreal II rotates, much like the Pinwheel Fish.

Seagoat

A Seagoat

The Seagoat, the alien, bunny-like pet that shows up on the player's ship during mid-game, was created very early on in development and originally thought to be a huge, bovine creature that could inhabit one of the alien worlds in the game. During development, the name "Seagoat" started to stick for the creature, and it was greatly reduced in size and given the role of cute, slightly weird pet.

The Seagoat is a small, green, rabbit-like creature that lives in the marshes of Elara V. It has a vertical mouth, two large, yellow eyes, and two curved antennae on top of its head. The Seagoat is docile, but will bite to defend itself when attacked. It is similar to the Nali Rabbit of Unreal by it's use and somewhat by appearance.

One Seagoat was accidentally taken aboard TCA Atlantis. It lived in the ship from the Swamp mission onwards. There the Seagoat was seen eating doughnuts. It was also the main cause of the emergency landing on Kalydon as it managed to somehow damage the internal systems of the ship. Except for these incidents, the Seagoat is just a friendly little pet.

The people of the development team liked their creation of the Seagoat so much that they included a lot of easter eggs throughout the game with the Seagoat theme. Most of them can be found in the Atlantis Interlude maps. Matthias Worch even registered the domains seagoat.us and seagoat.org that are still active. Originally it was planned to have some more information about the animal on those domains, but they were never complete.

Snipe

A bunch of dead Snipes

Snipes are animals that live on Na Koja Abad. They are small, dinosaur or lizard-like and are somewhat similar to the Pack Hunters of Unreal - Return to Na Pali. Snipes have blue/green skin, sharp teeth, four claws and a tail. They can dodge, jump and even swim. They can only attack from melee range with their teeth. They live in caves on Na Koja Abad.

Snipes are known to be the arch enemies of the Hummers. Although Snipes can not fly, they still battle Hummers - Hummers can only attack with melee too. Hummers tend to assault Snipes' caves for some reason, but unfortunately for the Snipes, these dinosaurs can't climb up the polyps of Na Koja Abad that Hummers make nests in.

The warriors of the Izanagi Corporation have established a series of defences from these creatures. For that purpose they have force walls and automatic turrets that usually repel any hostile creatures. But not always that works and even near the core of the facilities on Na Koja Abad players can see quite a lot of these creatures.

Snipes are also commonly referred to in phrases such as "If this is true, then I'm a Snipe!".

Spore

A few Spores on Acheron

Spores are creatures that defend the planet Acheron from too much damage. They are seen at the end of the Acheron mission. They are round and can fly. They are colored red and are extremely hard to kill, although in the code it is stated that they have only a single point of health. They are spawned by the planet after something very damaging happens to it. Spores have a single purpose of killing anything they find and that don't belong to the planet. Spores can't attack from long range, but will do that once they come to the melee range. They can also swim, but they swim only a half as fast as they fly.

Ugly Fish

An Ugly Fish

Ugly Fish are unused creatures that probably lived in the Shian ocean. They are giant (their length is of 3 humans), have 12 sharp teeth, fins with sharp spikes on them, and a long tail that splits to 5 smaller, sharp horns. They are striped and have white and black skin. Despite their name, Ugly Fish aren't too ugly. They were made to be quite intelligent opponents - they could hunt enemies, cover from enemy weapon fire and possible dodge under water. They have 250 health.

Target Drone

A Target Drone

Target Drones are small robots that were created by humans. They aren't used in the game. They are half as high as humans. Target drones can fly and probably shoot. They have a huge red crosshair-like holographic projection in front of them that animates. They are round and have four "legs" that they can land on. They have one antenna on top of them that is probably used by humans to control the robot. They have the initials "TMC" painted on them that probably mean the company that created the robots. Target Drones have an "access panel" at the bottom. It is not known where the humans could use them, nor what company the drones belong to, although due to the Liandri drone that can be found in the same package, the Target drones might be the property of Liandri.

Although another pawn type wasn't created, but a static mesh of another drone can be seen in the 343M Static Meshes package called "Patrol Drone". The Patrol Drone is shaped like an air balloon, but is from metal parts. It has antennae, and their name suggests that they patrol the areas. The Liandri Scout Drone, seen on Kalydon, was one of the Patrol Drones. They are controlled manually using radio or other connections. They have a mounted camera that records what is happening just below the drone. The serial name, written on it, is VL-K018. It has three defensive shields, and in the inner side of them it reads "WASTE IS A THIEF." The patrol drone, having no pawn class, can only be used as a mover.

Water Dipper

A Water Dipper, as it could appear on Severnaya

The Water Dipper is another unused creature in the game. Although it might be more of a plant, it has some animal properties. The official comments in the Water Dipper Class states:

This is an ambient creature that should never move (at least as a first cut).

LDs place this in/near water and one of its idle animations has it "dipping" down into the water. We should put the collision around the "stalk" and use a proxy collision cylinder for the basket (tbd whether this will be moved when

the plant dips).

The creture itself is huge. It is three times taller than a human, is coloured green and has a single leaf - the basket that already has water in it. The basket itself is transcluent but seems to hold the water. The water texture inside seems to be unique. The Water Dipper has three green roots that are usually in the ground. It can not be killed, but collides with players. It is not known in what level the creatures should have been used, but it might be the Shian level.