Custom Boss!

[TechieUK]

Hey everybody, I decided to stop failing and asking for help and show something off... or at least show off what I have so far.

Anyway, I was thinking of good ways of making new bosses, when I decided "why not improve my hammer skill and remake a boss from another game?"
So, I chose Bouldergeist, from Super Mario Galaxy. I'm obsessed with that game, so it fitted perfectly.
Here's a video of the original boss, for reference:

So, I figured I wouldn't port anything and start off fancy. I started off by making a simple arena. Nothing more, nothing less. Then I added Bouldergeist himself (a cylinder). I added a tracking system using a simple func_tank. Nothing fancy:

And now I've got up to V2. He can raise spikes from the ground randomly in an attempt to kill you!

I'm having a slight problem with ClearParent, that is, the spikes are meant to un-parent from him when he deploys them and re-parent when they retract.
I've tried SetParent with a parameter override of "none" but no luck there. Keep trying, I guess! My only solution is to stop him when he deploys them so far, so I'll try that.
Anyone got any feedback on this (heavy) W.I.P?
In V3 I'm going to make him raise and throw boulders.
This was done in vanilla HL2, no mods, no code. Just pure HL2.

[TechieUK]

Just a quick update, I've given him an actual prop now (ported from the game), as well as a few custom animations (the originals sadly weren't exported).
Here's a video of them:

Next I'm going to animate the rocks being blown off by bombs, and add a bodygroup to remove the casing completely after 3 hits. (to prevent cluttering)

[SM Sith Lord]

It seems like there should be a better way to script a boss than using Hammer's entity scripting. In other games, the best way would be to make a new AI class. Looks like you're exercising your rigging and animation skills though, nice work.