Spore!

[Ameena]

Rofl no that won't work...can't keep just dropping one game to go back to playing the other :O. Unless I can finish Epic mode and and get through the entirety of Legendary mode by Friday...hrm...
Or I might actually manage to refrain from installing/playing Spore before I'm done with TQ :O.

[beowuuf]

O.O

Good luck, I don't think you will manage that

[Trantor]

Today, I found out that Spore contains the M.U.L.E. song as an easter egg. How cool is that? Still not cool enough to get me playing Spore, but I really love this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GIgwEWYqE4

[Ameena]

I've never heard of "M.U.L.E" but listening to that I'm guessing it's some really old game...

[Rasmus]

This is fantastic, and I think I just learned how to export the creatures into 3d models, gotta try it out, if this goes well I can create creature after creature in no time!! Thank you!!!!!

[Bit]

/me presses thumbs that this will work.

...and here's another idea for your DMT enhanced difficulty:
What if monsters regenerate too - what, if they gain levels?

[Ameena]

I don't know about exporting the creature themselves for use in other programs, but you can certainly grab pictures of them (if you use the blank background in the creature editor, it comes out as transparent in screenshots). I posted a bunch up myself in a thread here somewhere. Might have even been earlier in this one, actually.

[Rasmus]

Bit: About the generation and levelgaining, this is possible, but I will not use it in normal mode, more like if you complete the game once, you can choose a higher difficulty to complete the game in where these attributes will be used!

Ameena: I tried it out, if Spore is uppgraded to v1.5, then you can export your creations as 3D models to you in 3DSMax for example. I will not try this on every creature, but I think I will use this way to create the dragon and the demon creature, and of course give Electronic Arts credits for the creatures. As long as I don't sell the game this seems to be okey..

[Ameena]

I absolutely love that creature editor - it's by far my favourite of all the editors (creating creatures has always been something I've enjoyed doing, though) and I've made loads of stuff in it (including a few DM creatures, which might have been linked in the earlier pages of this post). It's just so easy to use (well, that was the idea when they designed it), and once you know a few of the slightly more advanced controls (like holding the Tab button down to erm...do whatever that does, I can't remember now), that opens up even more possibilities . I had actually mentioned using the Spore creator for creatures on previous occasions - could export a few screengrabs and edit them a bit if they look too cartoonish or whatever, rather than trying to draw all critters from scratch.

[Rasmus]

That sounds real nice, if you are interessted and have a dragon or demon creature created in spore and want to share them with me, I would use them in my game and give you credits for them I'm not complely satisfied with my wormcreature either :S

[Ameena]

My username is Ameena in Spore too - just look me up . If you want anything made specifically, I'm happy to do that - I haven't been at Spore for ages but I don't mind using the creature editor to have a random mess around to make some new stuff - if there's something in particular you want (but can't be arsed to make yourself or whatever), give me as much description as you care to (in PM if you want it kept private) and I'll take it from there .

[Rasmus]

I will look you up It's not like I don't have the energy to do it, haha. I just think that it is fun that someone else gets involved in my work But I will inform you if/when (probably when) I use some of your creatures..

[Ameena]

Sure, just let me know if you want me to make anything new - it's always fun .

[Rasmus]

Ameena: I have exported some creatures to my 3d modeling program, the only problem is that the keyframe animation or the mesh bonestructure is missing. One option is to create a bonestructure for the creatures that I import as I do to my own models after completing them, but they are all stuck in a pose that makes all the vertices overlap eachanother, in other words, it's a mess

Well, I went from happy to very annoyed...
Anyway, I thank you for showing interest in my work

[Bit]

Perhaps there's anything that you could need at sourceforge.net.

[Gambit37]

Hey can someone tell me this... if I buy the full version of Spore, does it include a full Creature Creator, or do you still have to buy that seperately?

[Ameena]

The creature editor is part of Spore - it's only one of the editors the game contains. The lone Creature Creator that was released before the full game was really just a taster of what the full game was to contain, and also presumably to populate the Sporepedia (ie the big online catalogue of player-made stuff which anyone can access).
The full game contains the following editors...

Creature
Basic Creature (for creatures just evolving from the Cell Phase, so only the most basic parts that you get at the end of Cell)
Advanced Creature (the one that was released on its own prior to the full game - contains all the advanced creature parts)
Tribal (basic clothing)
Civilisation (more advanced, technological-looking gear)
(Some extra bits, namely a bunch of exoskeletal limbs, are also available for free along with one of the earlier patches)

Building
Tribal (basic building editor, with low-tech fittings)
Civilisation (more advanced, technological stuff)
(Errm, I can't remember what more there is in the Building editor right now, if anything - I don't use it that often)

Vehicle
Land
Sea
Air
Space (which contains all the bits from the previous three vehicle editors, plus some extra stuff too)

If you have the Galactic Adventures expansion, there's also the Adventure creator, which basically gives you free reign over an entire planet - colour the land, water, and sky, choose what plants you want (if any), shape the landscape in any way you want, add in creatures, vehicles, and buildings (created in the other editors, or you can just get stuff from the Sporepedia plus there's a bunch of Maxis-made stuff that comes with it anyway), and set chapters and scripts and stuff for how your adventure plays out.

I may have missed one or two bits there but that's mostly what's there. There isn't a straight Cell Phase editor, but you could just play a new game through till the end of the Cell Phase, unlocking everything as you go, and make a cell creature that way, or something.
I recommend that if you get full Spore, download the latest patch - amongst other things it enables asymmetry in the Creature editor - I think you just hold down the "A" key when hovering over/clicking on a body part, which "detaches" it from its "twin" (ie if you use it on an arm, it splits it from the arm on the other side of the body so you can manipulate it as you like without having the same thing happen to the other one). I haven't tried using it yet, though. But it sounds fun .
I'm pretty sure that answers your question, Gammy .

[Gambit37]

Cool, cheers. I'm unlikely to play Spore in full, so I'm just going to get the creature creator standalone and play around with it -- your suggestion about using it for creating RTC monsters whetted my appetite now that I have a computer that can actually handle it

[Ameena]

Lol. It might be useful anyway...I've already made a couple of vehicles for someone else, then took pics of them in the Adventure creator (because it offered better camera aiming than trying to do so in the editor). Got a bunch of pics of plants too, 'cause the person wanted a certain type of tree or something. There isn't a Plant editor with Spore, but there's tons of plants that come with GA anyway so it's no biggy, really.
Don't forget there is also that Parts Pack, "Creepy and Cute", which adds extra body bits for the Creature editor - I don't think I need to tell you what the theme is, the title being pretty much self-evident . And there's those exoskeletal limbs you get with whatever patch as well.
The Creature Creator standalone thing I think was free if you want only a small quantity of parts (though these are enough to build plenty even by themselves) - I think the full version of the creator cost a fiver. I presume it's still available even though the full game has been out for about a year and a half now. I dunno if full Spore has come down in price at all - for obvious reasons I haven't needed to look .

[Gambit37]

OK, so I bought the Creature Creator and the Creepy & Cute pack and had great fun coming up with some creatures. The interface is just so intuitive, they really did a good job with making it simple yet powerful. Here's my first attempts, which includes some sort-of-ok DM beasts at the end (although my giggler uses severe artistic licence!)

EDIT: Darn, it looks like a lot of the good downloads don't work with the creature creator, I think I should have bought the full version of the game

[ian_scho]

WAY COOL!!!

[Ameena]

Rofl hey those are fantastic .
You can also change the background used in the photo-taking - the landscape you have in yours is the default one but there is also a fiery volcanic one and the blank one available in the plain Creature Creator - the blank background comes out as transparent when loaded into arty programs so would probably be the best one to use with regard to editing mobs for a dungeon or whatever.

[Gambit37]

Yep, I've been experimenting with the transparent images in a RTC dungeon, it works pretty well.... I'm now convinced that this creature editor would be the quickest way to generate new monsters for RTC, although obviously they have a certain style and might not work well with other style creatures. If you're creative with what's available, you can also make stuff look quite "realistic".

I was reading up about the asymmetry feature but it doesn't look like that's implemented in the CC. And I wish there was a bit more control over the basic body shapes; it would be very useful to be able to totally flatten parts of it, but it always creates spheres when you increase a vertebrae. So trying to do something like the Swamp Slime from DM is virtually impossible.

Still, it's pretty powerful and I can see lots of potential

[Ameena]

See, I told you it was cool .
And depending on what you want to do, sometimes it's possible to get away with having a tiny body (ie the bit with the spine) and doing it all with limbs and stuff. Even better if it's for a dungeon since all you want is just one set of good images to use and don't need to worry about what the critter looks like when it walks, or whatever .
You could probably even build a basic sort of one-level dungeon thingy in GA if you had the inclination - you can make building interiors (I think basically you just put walls, floor, and ceiling, and then put stuff inside it - you get in there via teleport which is activated when you walk close enough to the door) and could probably make some kind of attempt and putting something like that together.
Hey, maybe you could even make a new wallset there...although I suppose getting the angles right when screengrabbing it might be tricky. Hrmm, I dunno - I'll leave it ti someone who can be arsed .

[Gambit37]

I learned a bit more and had a go at the CSB Slime Devil. There aren't enough menacing eye types, so this will have to do for now



I also saw that a lot of people have done creatures from other games; quite a lot of Half Life beasties are available, but I didn't see a good Gonacrh, so here's my attempt:



This stuff is great fun

[Bit]

Hehehe, those are just great. Bad luck for Hajo - that zoo idea is already done.
Close the thread for Rasmus, or he comes up with a new interpretation for 'monster generator'

[beowuuf]

These are all pretty cool!

[Gambit37]

Ta. It's great fun, you should try it out

I'm most happy with the second muncher, that's pretty scary, but the Oitu came out pretty well too. However, Oitus should only have two legs (it just looks like more on the original images due to a weird double leg support). I tried it with two and although it worked fine, it just looked weird. Four legs looks more convincing.

[Ameena]

You can also have legs coming off legs and stuff, if you detach a leg at a joint you can then merge it with another leg (so for example have something with two legs down to the knee, then four lower legs coming off both knees, so four feet) if you're holding in the right key.
I think there's some sort of evilish eyes in CnC - the "Creepy" ones, fairly obviously, are intended to be so.
The Spore editors are all great, though of course the creature one is my favourite - they're all designed the same way, they just have different parts. This was done deliberately by the makers of the game - they designed the editors specifically so they'd all be pretty much the same, plus being easy to use, so players wouldn't have to spend much time learning how to use them and could just get on with making stuff that looks bloody cool .

[Gambit37]

How do I get a grab of a creature with its wings flapping? You can preview the flapping by clicking the Glide abilities icon when in build mode, but you can't grab images from here. And in test mode, where you *can* grab images, you can't invoke their flying animations. Bah!!!!!