Spore!

Post by **Ameena** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:05 pm

Alright, so about a week or so ago, I downloaded the trial version of the Spore Creature Creator. It has 25% of the content of the full version of the editor. The actual full game of Spore is coming out on the 5th of September (in the UK anyway), but they've released the editor as a kind of taster thing prior to that. The trial version (of the creature editor) is free. The full version costs a fiver. I didn't check that when I nabbed the free version but have since done so. The amount of stuff you can do even in the trial version is fantastic.
But...well...the trial version is only 25% of the full version. They only had carnivore mouths - I couldn't make any herbivores or omnivores. Nearly all the feet had only two toes. And, well, me plus creative stuff (especially creatures) equals...well...lots of messing around creating stuff.
So anyway, I imagine you can see where this is going. I just acquired the full version of the editor. Yeah I'm gonna be paying out again for the full game when that comes out, but meh. It's Spore. It's great

.
Sooo anyway, I was looking through the new body parts that became available in the full version, and I saw a particular mouth that just made me go "Omg! I know what I'm gonna do with that!".
So I did.

I'm sure I'll be making more stuff. In the trial version I had a good attempt at both a paramite and a gabbit (from the Oddworld series). Since installing the full version meant deleting the trial version, those two are both now gone but that's okay. I can make them again if I want

.
The above picture, btw, was done entirely from memory as I couldn't be arsed to load up a pic from somewhere and double-check I'd got stuff like the hands and tail-tip right.
Still...I'm off to see what else I can make...any requests?

ian_scho · Post by **ian_scho** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:23 pm

The worm is a good one to start with. A knight would be far more difficult I assume.... Why not a screamer?

Post by **Ameena** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:46 pm

I just made the worm 'cause I was flipping through the pages of body parts and saw the mouth and immediately had it spring to mind

. A knight would be impossible as they'e only body parts for creatures - there isn't really anything resembling a suit of armour

.
A screamer would probably be pretty tricky too, not sure how I'd do the trunk. A thief would probably be pretty easy, and a demon would probably not be too tricky either. A flying snake's probably possible, and maybe even a beholder...
I just made a beasty with a birdy-type head, five arms (two on each side and one in the middle), two legs, and a tail with a double-sting on the end. Omg so many body parts, so many ideas all over the place, arrrgh...yeah, sod the horrible complicatedness of trying to build a whole dungeon...this is just the ultimate creature maker

.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:13 am

Looks cool!

I can't wait for this game! *bounce*

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:36 am

Lol, nice one ameena, can't wait to see what the worm can develop in to if adventurers were not blowing the crap out of them!

Post by **Ameena** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 2:38 pm

I can upload pics of other creatures I've made if you like...?

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:09 pm

It's quite an interesting marketing technique this too -- getting people to pay for parts of the game before the game has even be released! Has any other game manufacturer tried this before?

It's obviously worked here, but the hype has been so huge around Spore for such a long time, it's not surprising.

Post by **Ameena** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:47 pm

Well, you don't have to pay, not if you only download the trial version, and even though that's only got a quarter of the parts of the full version, there's still so much you can do with it. I just...well, wanted more

. It's fantastically easy to use as well...it'll be possible to create buildings and vehicles (including the UFO) in the full game. The sheer size of this thing is just gona be mind-boggling...I mean, from guiding a single-celled organism around the primordial soup up to flying a UFO around every possibly location in a whole galaxy to colonise planets and meet new species or whatever, the whole just sounds like it's gonna be...wow...
And creatures made in the editor now can be used in the full ame too apparently. It probably takes me maybe twenty minutes to fully make a creature...I'm gonna end up having made loads at this rate. Oh well, it's fun

.
Another thing is, I could probably make two creatures each using exactly the same body parts, yet have them both look entirely different - you can resize and reshape pretty much every aspect of your creations to however you like

.
Right, anyway, advertisement over, I'm gonna maximise the prog again and make something else

.

Sabreman · Post by **Sabreman** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:25 pm

Heh, that's great

The first thing that popped into my mind when I downloaded the Creature Creator was to make a bunch of DM monsters too, I didn't get round to it yet though.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:26 pm

More monsters, please!

Post by **Ameena** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:54 pm

Alrighty then...
Here are the remaining pics I have, though these aren't all my creations. I'll take pics of the other species I've made later on and upload those as well if you wanna see

.

The Avidemon...the first creature I made (after the worm) once I'd downloaded the full version of the editor. I just saw all these cool-looking claws and stuff, so naturally had to throw them all together onto one big funky-looking creature

.

Messing around with leg connections. Ended up as a sort of cute avian-ish herbivore

.

A fleech, from Oddworld. Wel, my version of one. I forgot to give it a different name

.

My version of a glukkon (Oddworld).

Ever seen the film "The Dark Crystal"? If not, never mind

.

Post by **Ameena** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:23 pm

Here are the other creatures I've made (so far)...

This one's called a Rockskipper. I think he's kinda cute (the noises he makes too).

This one is a Mauve Strider. Couldn't be arsed to think up a better name but I can always change it

.

The type of mouth you give a creature (it has to have a mouth...and a name...in order for you to save it) determines whether it's carnivore/herbivore/omnivore. This dude has a carnivore head at the front and a herbivore one at the back, so he's classed as an omnivore

. Oh, and he's called a Tripedal Dicranium

.

Back view of the above creature.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:22 pm

Looking cool!

Is the camera freely rotatable? Can you pose them in attack positions?

If so, you could screengrab all the necessary positions for making 2D versions for RTC, DSB, etc...

Post by **Ameena** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:26 am

Yes, I can rotate the camera at will and have them perform various actions. If you'd like me to send you any pics of specific poses or whatever, just let me know

.
You could also download the free version and I can then send you the actual creature file, I think...they're only about 20-something KB in size, so not exactly huge. Of course, you'd have to download the software first and I can't remember how big the free version is. Anyway, I don't mind taking pics of stuff if you want poses to mess around with

.
Someone (Trant I think) asked me in chat earlier if I could make a DM Dragon in Spore. Provided I actually remember, I'll probably give that a go tomorrow morning. Should be able to get pretty close

.

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:04 am

I thought i'd try it myself, but gosh darn and cock it -- the trial won't even run because my graphics card isn't supported.

I've been making do with this heap of shit for long enough. I just need to secure one nice big project for a few months so I can afford to buy a new comp. Wish me luck!

Post by **linflas** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 7:23 am

did you try it ? i thought my laptop wouldn't be supported too and it worked anyway, a bit slowly but it did.

ian_scho · Post by **ian_scho** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 8:27 am

Can you change the background to be blue né power-pink? There is no 'magic wand' in my repertoir of skills and I wouldn't know how to cut the beast away from the background.

MitchB1990 · Post by **MitchB1990** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:18 am

ian_scho wrote:Can you change the background to be blue né power-pink? There is no 'magic wand' in my repertoir of skills and I wouldn't know how to cut the beast away from the background.

You can change it to black then probably find a program with a magic wand to chang ethe black to power pink.

MitchB1990 · Post by **MitchB1990** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:21 am

Ameena wrote:Alright, so about a week or so ago, I downloaded the trial version of the Spore Creature Creator. It has 25% of the content of the full version of the editor. The actual full game of Spore is coming out on the 5th of September (in the UK anyway), but they've released the editor as a kind of taster thing prior to that. The trial version (of the creature editor) is free. The full version costs a fiver. I didn't check that when I nabbed the free version but have since done so. The amount of stuff you can do even in the trial version is fantastic.
But...well...the trial version is only 25% of the full version. They only had carnivore mouths - I couldn't make any herbivores or omnivores. Nearly all the feet had only two toes. And, well, me plus creative stuff (especially creatures) equals...well...lots of messing around creating stuff.
So anyway, I imagine you can see where this is going. I just acquired the full version of the editor. Yeah I'm gonna be paying out again for the full game when that comes out, but meh. It's Spore. It's great .
Sooo anyway, I was looking through the new body parts that became available in the full version, and I saw a particular mouth that just made me go "Omg! I know what I'm gonna do with that!".
So I did.
I'm sure I'll be making more stuff. In the trial version I had a good attempt at both a paramite and a gabbit (from the Oddworld series). Since installing the full version meant deleting the trial version, those two are both now gone but that's okay. I can make them again if I want .
The above picture, btw, was done entirely from memory as I couldn't be arsed to load up a pic from somewhere and double-check I'd got stuff like the hands and tail-tip right.
Still...I'm off to see what else I can make...any requests?

Sorry for double posting in advance, but man I have been waiting 3 years since they announced this game. I saw it on a magazine rack in some obscure PC magazine. No pictures only the concept was mentioned. Then a year and a half later the teaser from E3 was released! I watched this game develop from the beginning and man my life will be complete on the 7th! Anyway I also bought the full version of the editor and it is AMAZING! I will post some of my creatures up soon.

Post by **linflas** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:21 am

i'm afraid there's no other way that the classic Lasso tool on GIMP or Photoshop.. if you don't have a tablet, try the Polygonal lasso.

Post by **Ameena** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:27 am

I can indeed change the background to black - it's one of the options. If you wanted any particular creature in DM-style poses (or even a new creature...I'm taking rquests

), just let me know and I'll e-mail you my results or something

. At a guess I'd say it takes me maybe twenty minutes or so per creature.
When I'm done checking the forums this morning, I shall see if I have time (before going to work) to make a DM dragon as requested last night

.
Oh yeah, regarding your comments, MitchB...I've been waiting years for this game too

. First I heard of it was a video from back in about 2006, Will Wright demonstrating the kind of "prototype" version of the game, briefly showing everything (35-min video), and in which he creates the (later named by fans) "Willosaur" - the three-legged little beasty with a grasper on the end of its tail. Look, I've gone and fond it for you - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA
Obviously some things have changed since then, for example in the cellular phase things are now more cartoony - the creatures have little googly eyes, just to make it look cute and stuff. That's in another vid that's floating around the Net somewhere.
Right yeah that was only supposed to be a quick edit, arrgh look I'm back in Mega-Waffly-Post Mode...

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 6:31 pm

Black background is probably a better idea than power pink, as the pinkish edges are hard to get rid of. As for poses: front, back, side(s), attack.

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 7:29 pm

I didn't think anyone bothered with power pink anymore! If you're using PNG with alpha-transparency you can anti-alias your lasso for cutting out and get nice smooth edges.

linflas wrote:did you try it ? i thought my laptop wouldn't be supported too and it worked anyway, a bit slowly but it did.

Yes, I ran it and It gave me a prompt saying my graphics card was not supported and it wouldn't run at all.

Post by **linflas** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 8:28 pm

ahhh Gambit you should really have a look at it ! that's a wonderful base for monsters, and when you choose black background, the image is saved in PNG format with transparency !!!

unfortunately, trial version do not provide wings...

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 8:35 pm

I'll need to buy a new computer to use it.

Still, I need a new one for work anyway, just have no money at all for such things.

Lovely screenshot though, I feel a Spore Dungeon coming on...

Post by **linflas** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:03 pm

ah ? ahhh ? ahah ?! ahaAHhAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!

because of this : http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=vPKvwd9vJZY

EDIT : sorry in advance...

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=0lh6r43p8gQ

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:20 pm

That's hilarious, plus all the others that follow it. Ha ha ha!

So how does the creature creator tie in with the actual game? Considering your spore grows from a single cell, I don't see the connection?

Post by **linflas** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:35 pm

i don't know either.. maybe for a multiplayer game ?

Post by **Ameena** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:15 pm

No, Spore isn't multiplayer...it's "Massively SIngle-Player"...you play the game alone but your creations can be uploaded to a kind of mas Spore database online where you can browse for other content to add to your game. You can also set it so that it automatically keeps track of the things you download, makes a note of it, and proceeds to keep an eye out for things it thinks you'd like.
The game has five phases - Cellular (microscopic world), Creature (guide a single creature around), Tribal (take care of a very small community of a species who are now sentient and have huts and stuff), Civilisation (whole cities of the creatures interacting with each other - trade, diplomacy, war, etc), and Space (build your UFO, expand to other planets - terraform, abduct, colonise, contact, blow up, etc). I'm not sure, but I think that from the start of the game, all of these are available (though I don't think you have, say, all the abilities of the UFO from the start...you need to build the thing first anyway). There are of course gonna be a ton of already-existing species, otherwise there wouldn't be much going on, would there?

But I think you can choose to start a new species from scratch, as it were, in the Cellular phase, slowly building up DNA points (apparently the "currency" in the early stages of the game) in order to purchase better upgrades - body parts etc, and particularly evolving the brain toward sentience which would seem to be the trigger to send you into the Tribal Phase, once you get that far.
Something like that, anyway. There's a fair bit about it on the Wiki page...not sure how much detail's on the official site.

ian_scho · Post by **ian_scho** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:07 pm

Ameena wrote:... There's a fair bit about it on the Wiki page...not sure how much detail's on the official site.

You know it's curious but that's how I got my info about Spore as well. I wouldnt be surprised if the game designers already knew of this way of advertising their product because the quality of the wikipedia entry is well above average and interesting!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(video_game)

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