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Description
Inspired by: "Gravity"

"This thing was almost as horrifying as the SA-X. Though for very different reasons. The SA-X was something you were just scared [...] to face, but this thing... it leaves one to wonder simply what it used to be, WHY it's in that metal casing and WHY it has that face. "Why" was the only thing I could really ask myself when fighting that thing."
- The 25th Gallifreyan

Having finally played through the Metroid Prime Trilogy, I can say at last that I'm now a fan of Metroid. Sure, I made some Metroid-themed pictures in GMod before, such as Nemesis Ridley: Dark Intelligence and Samus Aran versus Xen Tentacle (which, ironically, strongly resembles the Reaper Vine from Metroid Prime, making this picture look even more genuine), but I hadn't actually played any Metroid games before. So, now, here's a tribute to... a Metroid game I've never played.

Ah, good ol' Nintendo, always getting away with E-ratings from the ESRB despite slipping in some of the most disturbing content ever seen in videogames. For instance, the aptly-named Nightmare from Metroid Fusion, a mysterious creature encased in a metallic shell that looks almost stitched-together, like someone had sewn its mouth shut... and, after being teased with something green oozing out from the seams, the mask comes off, and you're treated to the most pleasant imagery of watching its face melt over the remainder of the battle. You know, for kids!

Of course, this would not be Nightmare's last appearance in the series... Metroid: Other M came along and shoehorned it in at one point due to being a prequel (or, as some may call it, "vastly inferior rehash") of Metroid Fusion, giving us this lovely horror in full 3D. Someone took the time to port Nightmare, as well as several other Other M aliens, to Garry's Mod... but, and I'm sorry to say this, the rigging on these models is downright terrible. You can barely move Nightmare's arms, and what little you can move stretches and breaks the model. Therefore, getting Nightmare in a decent pose is a... ahem, nightmare.

As a result, for this picture, I had to find a good camera angle so that the borders would hide the fact that Nightmare has very stiff arms and a dislocated left shoulder. This also inspired me to play around with the camera angle; after all, since Nightmare controls artificial gravity, I thought it would be fun to try to get the battle in an unorthodox perspective. Actually, in Garry's Mod, I made this picture upside-down ; I ultimately decided to rotate it as you see here because I was afraid that the subject matter was a little too unclear in the original upside-down picture, though please let me know what you think.

I guess what contributed to that fear of clarity was the background. Due to Nightmare's metallic exterior, I wanted to bring out the idea that it blends in with the walls of the space station and you don't notice it until it's too late, a la the original Alien movie (you know, the inspiration for the Metroid series?). As it turns out, the aesthetics of the Combine Citadel blend a little too perfectly with Nightmare's design.

Pop quiz - which map did I make this picture on? Something from Half-Life 2 or Episode 1's Citadel chapters? Wrong! Believe it or not, this is actually Flatgrass. The Citadel walls and props in the background were all individually spawned and placed there by yours truly. The map was darkened with the Fog Editor, and Nightmare was highlighted with purple and blue lights. Funnily enough, I wasn't actually planning on making this on Flatgrass; I was just putting together a mock-up, and as I put more and more into it, I liked what I saw so much that I made it the final product.

Other effects include using the Paint Tool to simulate Nightmare's ooze, Glow Tool for his arm lasers and Samus's missiles, a combination of the Vortigaunt's shield and the Energy Ball Tool for Nightmare's gravity manipulator, Super DOF to help Nightmare stand out visually, and the recently-released Morph post-processing shader to warp the area around the gravity manipulator and create the effect of gravitational distortion. One thing I would have loved to have added would have been rocket trails for Samus's missiles, but I have yet to find a method that works for that; the Particle Attacher's smoke trails only work so long as the prop in question is actually moving.

Metroid belongs to Nintendo. Garry's Mod belongs to Garry Newman.

Description
Inspired by: "Gravity"

"This thing was almost as horrifying as the SA-X. Though for very different reasons. The SA-X was something you were just scared [...] to face, but this thing... it leaves one to wonder simply what it used to be, WHY it's in that metal casing and WHY it has that face. "Why" was the only thing I could really ask myself when fighting that thing."
- The 25th Gallifreyan

Having finally played through the Metroid Prime Trilogy, I can say at last that I'm now a fan of Metroid. Sure, I made some Metroid-themed pictures in GMod before, such as Nemesis Ridley: Dark Intelligence and Samus Aran versus Xen Tentacle (which, ironically, strongly resembles the Reaper Vine from Metroid Prime, making this picture look even more genuine), but I hadn't actually played any Metroid games before. So, now, here's a tribute to... a Metroid game I've never played.

Ah, good ol' Nintendo, always getting away with E-ratings from the ESRB despite slipping in some of the most disturbing content ever seen in videogames. For instance, the aptly-named Nightmare from Metroid Fusion, a mysterious creature encased in a metallic shell that looks almost stitched-together, like someone had sewn its mouth shut... and, after being teased with something green oozing out from the seams, the mask comes off, and you're treated to the most pleasant imagery of watching its face melt over the remainder of the battle. You know, for kids!

Of course, this would not be Nightmare's last appearance in the series... Metroid: Other M came along and shoehorned it in at one point due to being a prequel (or, as some may call it, "vastly inferior rehash") of Metroid Fusion, giving us this lovely horror in full 3D. Someone took the time to port Nightmare, as well as several other Other M aliens, to Garry's Mod... but, and I'm sorry to say this, the rigging on these models is downright terrible. You can barely move Nightmare's arms, and what little you can move stretches and breaks the model. Therefore, getting Nightmare in a decent pose is a... ahem, nightmare.

As a result, for this picture, I had to find a good camera angle so that the borders would hide the fact that Nightmare has very stiff arms and a dislocated left shoulder. This also inspired me to play around with the camera angle; after all, since Nightmare controls artificial gravity, I thought it would be fun to try to get the battle in an unorthodox perspective. Actually, in Garry's Mod, I made this picture upside-down ; I ultimately decided to rotate it as you see here because I was afraid that the subject matter was a little too unclear in the original upside-down picture, though please let me know what you think.

I guess what contributed to that fear of clarity was the background. Due to Nightmare's metallic exterior, I wanted to bring out the idea that it blends in with the walls of the space station and you don't notice it until it's too late, a la the original Alien movie (you know, the inspiration for the Metroid series?). As it turns out, the aesthetics of the Combine Citadel blend a little too perfectly with Nightmare's design.

Pop quiz - which map did I make this picture on? Something from Half-Life 2 or Episode 1's Citadel chapters? Wrong! Believe it or not, this is actually Flatgrass. The Citadel walls and props in the background were all individually spawned and placed there by yours truly. The map was darkened with the Fog Editor, and Nightmare was highlighted with purple and blue lights. Funnily enough, I wasn't actually planning on making this on Flatgrass; I was just putting together a mock-up, and as I put more and more into it, I liked what I saw so much that I made it the final product.

Other effects include using the Paint Tool to simulate Nightmare's ooze, Glow Tool for his arm lasers and Samus's missiles, a combination of the Vortigaunt's shield and the Energy Ball Tool for Nightmare's gravity manipulator, Super DOF to help Nightmare stand out visually, and the recently-released Morph post-processing shader to warp the area around the gravity manipulator and create the effect of gravitational distortion. One thing I would have loved to have added would have been rocket trails for Samus's missiles, but I have yet to find a method that works for that; the Particle Attacher's smoke trails only work so long as the prop in question is actually moving.

Metroid belongs to Nintendo. Garry's Mod belongs to Garry Newman.