My first Spore creature...

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-06-24 05:43pm

Resinence wrote:Umm, if your talking about skeletal animation, that's been around for a really long time now

Or is it something else?

It's the actual spine in the creature that you begin with. It presumably dictates in large part the way the whole creature moves, which end is the front, etc.

Argosh · Post by **Argosh** » 2008-06-25 03:56am

Less than 10 minutes with the editor:

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2008-06-25 09:07am

I give you... The winged Starkian Centaur:

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-06-25 10:06am

Look me up on the Sporepedia. LLJKLoomer.

gtg947h · Post by **gtg947h** » 2008-06-28 06:31pm

Rhinolobster (from Armageddon)

And a Pierson's Puppeteer

salm · Post by **salm** » 2008-06-28 06:44pm

Zuul wrote:
Resinence wrote:Umm, if your talking about skeletal animation, that's been around for a really long time now

Or is it something else?
It's the actual spine in the creature that you begin with. It presumably dictates in large part the way the whole creature moves, which end is the front, etc.

And is there something special about this spine that it can only be done in the spore editor?

phongn wrote: It is indeed a fairly sophisticated method and also takes into account things like the skeleton of the creature, which most 3D models lack (and even if they had one, the program would probably have no idea how to interpret it)

Actually all moving characters in modern games have a skeleton. It´s been like this for quite a while now. Without a skeleton, ragdolls for example, or animation blending would be impossible.

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2008-07-05 02:17am

I think it was Half-Life that first used skeleton animation in a video game, however, there's a huge difference in playing recorded animation and actually generating that animation on the fly, even more so for that animation to be as fluid and natural as Spore's is. That has never been done before in a consumer product, at least.

Resinence · Post by **Resinence** » 2008-07-05 05:38am

Shogoki wrote:I think it was Half-Life that first used skeleton animation in a video game, however, there's a huge difference in playing recorded animation and actually generating that animation on the fly, even more so for that animation to be as fluid and natural as Spore's is. That has never been done before in a consumer product, at least.

It depends how they implemented it, if it is generating new animations for every skeleton layout - that's impressive. But if they are just faking it by having each limb type with it's own animation and blending them, well, that's really not that amazing.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-07-05 10:18am

Resinence wrote:
Shogoki wrote:I think it was Half-Life that first used skeleton animation in a video game, however, there's a huge difference in playing recorded animation and actually generating that animation on the fly, even more so for that animation to be as fluid and natural as Spore's is. That has never been done before in a consumer product, at least.
It depends how they implemented it, if it is generating new animations for every skeleton layout - that's impressive. But if they are just faking it by having each limb type with it's own animation and blending them, well, that's really not that amazing.

IIRC it generates new ones for every layout and saves it in some small text file. Having every limb just do the same thing in slightly different positions would be extremely obvious.

Resinence · Post by **Resinence** » 2008-07-05 11:55am

Ok, I got sick of this and just looked it up.

Spore uses a rudimentary "training" system for procedural animations, the theory has been around for quite a while but it should be the first game to use it IF it beats the indiana jones game from lucasarts out. It's pretty cool, but I don't see why people are going all *SQUEEEE* about it.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » 2008-07-05 05:47pm

Is anyone else reminded of Monster Rancher with the art style of the creatures?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-07-05 09:25pm

Resinence wrote:Ok, I got sick of this and just looked it up.

Spore uses a rudimentary "training" system for procedural animations, the theory has been around for quite a while but it should be the first game to use it IF it beats the indiana jones game from lucasarts out. It's pretty cool, but I don't see why people are going all *SQUEEEE* about it.

Spore fanboys != intelligent, qualified or objective.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2008-07-06 02:04pm

Ah, it lets the bones learn what they´re supposed to do? That is pretty cool.

A couple of years ago i saw some software that did something like or even a bit more. It let objects evolve. The software created random objects and the objects were give a task, for example jump as high as you can. Then the object would try to find ways to jump and every once in a while evolve random new parts. if these new parts were helpful in jumping higher the new parts would stay, if the were not good for anything they´d go away again.

Unfortunately i can´t remember what that thing was called.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2008-07-11 08:24pm

Guess who has been having a blast with the stand-alone Creature Editor?

I like to keep them fairly simple, especially with the amount of doodads.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2008-07-11 09:10pm

Here's a link to mine.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2008-07-28 08:26pm

Anyone remember the VGCATS Comic sometime ago about Spore Loooong before the Creature Creator came out? Seems Will Wright himself found out about it recently and made their own version.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2008-07-28 08:55pm

That's been up for quite awhile

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2008-07-29 12:41pm

I might have to get this program.

Time to make the planet of the Tarrasque (and it's varities).