If you have helpful creator tips, post them here.

Holding ALT

Then clicking AND draging a part, will copy that part.

Holding ALT in Paint mode

Then clicking on a part, will copy that part's paint style along with its color to the brush.

Holding TAB in Construction mode

Will offer you more twist/turn commands (this is unbelievably helpful)

Bone kneepads make for good spine work.

--Give creations a description. It isn't always obvious if your creation is an airplane or ufo, a factory or city hall, or an herbivore or carnivore (or omnivore!).

--Coloring is as important as the model itself. A great model can be ruined by a garish, inappropriate paint job, and likewise.

A Reminder...

Placing a part in building editor than holding CTRL and moving will place vertically.
This thing looks better in editor
An Example

Two thirds of this creatures body is legs with the first two joints on the hind legs fused together leaving them joined at the hock. The front legs have no joints....it is really cute to watch them walk.(from shoulder back..all leg)

I put this in the Creature stage tips thread already, but in retrospect this is a better place for it. This could be considered a greatly expanded version of the creatortip in my Mounted / Rider Creatures sporecast:

You can create compound creatures by building the base creature normally, then building the extra creature or creatures on top as limbs using the Alt and Ctrl options. You can lay down flat details like Shellshards to create "saddles" to separate the creatures, but only if you place them before you build the limb. It almost goes without saying that you usually shouldn't use actual foot parts for the feet of creatures riding other creatures, since they'll go down to the ground: try using foot-like details, weapons, or senses instead.

This is recommended mostly for creatures designed to start in Tribal or to be used to populate planets in Space, as in the actual Creature stage this will cost a good deal of DNA and complexity that you probably can't afford. Note that the animations will not always play well, especially in the head area, but it's much better than any other options I've seen. (I've seen ones using spinal extensions, and I am not impressed.)

Example (Image is link):

Dirai Guappan is intended to represent two predators fused together due to a freak Abductor accident. The avian top (Dirai) was built as normal, while the piscine bottom (Guappan) was build as a complex limb. Note that the bottom part could not have been built as an extension of the spine, both due to the thinness of the connection and the detail piece separating the two halves.

Try experimenting with different combinations and arrangements. You can create some very interesting stuff this way.

When creating vehicles the lights/sport mirrors....the sport mirrors will take on texture and almost look like little pictures...I used this for my rogue laptop to give the keyboard an alien look and also as a screen backdrop instead of leaving the screen blank. It worked well. Also, you can bury lights inside layers on your ufo so that the light fixture is covered but the light beams escape....did this on spock's brain.

Use a limb on the end of your creature's spine to make a tail, if you want your creature's spine to be longer.



The angle of the creature makes it a little less than obvious, but you can see the tail extending much farther than it normally would. Putting a limb on the other end of the spine would probably make a passable neck.

When creating vehicles, hiding lights next to or underneath some other parts can look very cool. You can't see it in the pic, but this guy has glowing joints and arms.

These might not be for everybody but I thought they might be useful to some...

Make a collection
I highly recommend making a collection where you use a set bodyshape and decorate it to fit various themes (eg the elements.) I've learnt a lot from forcing myself to only use colours/details that would fit a particular theme. It's surprising how many uses 1 part can have when you train yourself to look at it differently!

Choose your 3 colours early on
Flick between build and paint modes regularly, checking what colours every object you add goes. Don’t just settle for the right shape, think about the colours too… a lot of details can be stretched into similar shapes but will go v different colours.

Making colours pop
I generally pick a dark/unsaturated base colour and brighter coat/details so they really pop. Don't forget to hold down on the colour swatch to access the full pallette. (My face could barely contain my smile when someone showed me that hehe!)

Some paintjobs also affect the detail colours
The Aurorabura is a good example:

- There is no pink paint selected… the pink is a result of the metallic orange base coat
- The feathers on its shoulders/forearms/skirt are all the same type but picked up different colours from the paintjobs

It takes a bit of experimenting and some luck but you can get some nice effects by taking your time in paint mode.

For those who have no idea how to rotate base parts since Tab doesn't work. I'm sure most of us can figure it out but this may be quicker for some.

Try putting the base parts on a rotatable piece. I use Connectors (L shaped pieces). take them off and use SHIFT (horizontal movement) and CTRL(Vertical movement) to move into desired position.

These are all base parts.

lucas182 wrote:Holding ALT in Paint mode

Then clicking on a part, will copy that part's paint style along with its color to the brush.

Pressing the 3, 4, and 5 keys while in Paint, then Paint Brush mode changes the behavior of the ALT key. 3 causes it to select only color, 4 only texture, and 5 both. The paint tutorial on the official site is actually really helpful.

play with every morph arrow, especially clothing parts like spideycrest and wings for vehicles

If you look at his legs, you can see the little bubbles. To make this detail, just use the Waspen Jet Pack, shrink or enlarge it to the size you want, then make the top of the jet pack round. Align these in patterns that fit your creature!

Also, you can mix hats to get great effects. The one on this creature has the bug eye hat flipped over, with another placed on top. Just play around!

(To see this creature, visit this link: http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=sast-500104474782)

~Bookmagician