Read this whole guide in small SECTIONS. Your brain retains information better in small steps than as a whole.
Table of Contents
Overview Table of Contents
Overview
Links
Rules
Critique
Sponsorings
Creature Tips Basics
Outfitter
Mechs
Use of Knurldowns
Use of Heycorns
Creature Pics
Vehicle Tips Basics
Vehicle Pics
Building Tips Basics
Building Pics
Adventure Tips Basics
Parkaboy Quote
How to Disguise Gates
More Basics
Advanced AI
Adventure Music
Adventure Pics
Tutorials How to Get your Content Featured
Adventure Tips
Various Tips
Building Flora
Statues
Rotating Building Bases
Building Sets
Advanced AI Guide
Perfect Part Combos
Vehicle Stats
Various Tips
Creating with arastoph's Style
Underwater Adventures
Mouth Hands
Basic Invisible Limbs
Various Tips
Shoes and Boots
Ins and Outs of the Creature Creator
Overview
The main reason that I have invented this thread is to help all creators, new and old, to enhance their skills and to help them become noticed, recognized, or even renowned creators in the Spore universe. Anybody who thinks they can improve and wants to improve may use these to make their abilities as a Spore player greater. Anybody too lazy to do so, well, won't need these tips.
Any creators who can and want to take the time to do so may post any tips he or she has in order to let other creators improve. They may also join my critique team, which will criticize anybody's creations, but only if they want to be critiqued. Creators can request criticism (constructive, of course) by filling out the form at the bottom of this post.
Remember
To fill out a form, you simply click the 'quote' button in the top right corner of this post, delete everything except the form (delete the quote things too), and fill out the blanks with words. It's like when you fill out a field trip form, or a health form.
If anybody does not fill out the form, they will never get criticism.
Okay??????
The tips are set out like this:
Overview
Creatures
Vehicles
Buildings
Adventures
Tutorials
If you are in need of creature tips, find the second post.
Advanced AI in the Adventure Editor?
That's right! The Adventure Tips post!
How about statues in the Building Editor?
Check tutorials.
I think you get the point...
If you aren't sure where to look, check the Table of Contents!
If you are looking for tips, but I don't have any on that subject, please tell me and I will try to get some.
Lastly...
If you think this thread is awesome, post on it! Raise the popularity so that others may find this and become amazing creators!!!!
I will be adding more links here when I find them.
Rules on this thread:
- No rude comments or explicit words or images.
- Don't harass other people.
- Do not bully, tease, or do stuff like that.
- No threats to other people.
- Take a joke. It's the internet. There is a difference between harassing and joking.
- Smiley spam is spamming. NOT OKAY
- Don't spam.
- No destructive criticism.
- Try not to double post. Don't triple post. Page lag doesn't count.
- I can double and triple post. You can't, but I can.
- Always tell murdick he posted twice whenever he double posts. IT'S FUNNY
- You may go off-topic. Not for over three pages, though. You can end three pages of off-topicness by posting one spore or thread-related post.
- Follow rules. There are consequences.
Critique
A group of volunteer critics and I will be offering constructive criticism for anybody who wants it. Simply fill out the form with the creation's name and link/clicky image, and the critic you chose will give you ways you can improve it.
I have two lists here, one for people who need criticism and one for other people who want to give criticism.
Remember that if you are giving criticism and you say anything mean to the creator being critiqued, you are kicked off the list. Keep giving mean criticism and I'll get a SporeMaster to block you from the thread.
If you are being critiqued, don't take anything in a negative way. We are trying to help you, not harm you.
-
Requester: onacondafarr
Critic: pwurman
Creation: Xenoplanet New Grunkowai Due Date: Soon
Post on Thread: Yes
-
Requester: Drag0n0us
Critic: Xenopologist
Creation: Subturgen Due Date: Any time this week is ok
Post on Thread: Yes
-
Requester: dragockon
Critic: Xenopologist
Creation: four clawed lung Due Date: Any time this week please
Post on Thread: Yes
-
Requester: 999Horse
Critic: pwurman
Creation: Akuma's Temple Due Date: Monday, June 20, 2011
Post on Thread: Yes
-
Requester: Tufty100
Critic: onacondafarr
Creation: Sentle Due Date: Fairly soon
Post on Thread: Yes
-
Requester: Tufty100
Critic: Xenopologist
Creation: Stenjams Due Date: Fairly soon
Post on Thread: Yes
-
Requester: MarkyDMan
Critic: Whoever feels adept to critique spaceships - I don't want to pick someone who specialises in creatures
Creation: Exodus VT Due Date: Really don't mind - whenever it can be done
Post on Thread: Yes, but a PM might be useful too
Request Form
Requester: <Name Goes Here>
Critic: <Name Goes Here>
Creation: <Name of Creation, Link or Clicky Pic>
Due Date: <Optional or Approximation–Must be at least three days from the day you request>
Post on Thread: <Yes or No>
Critique Form
Requester: <Name Goes Here>
Critique: <Name of Creator, Name of Creation, and a Picture>
Ups: <Good Parts>
Downs: <Bad Parts>
Things you could add: <What You Would add if you Remade it>
Overall rating:
<Choose from these>
Now sponsoring...
This message was edited 102 times. Last update was at 09/29/2011 14:09:42
Here are a few tips I have found and made, starting with the most basic:
1-NEVER add parts just for stats. Creatures look terrible when you randomly place parts down.
2- Basic controls in the editor: "control" button allows you to separate the joints on a limb. "option", or "alt" copies a part. "tab" gives you more handlers, and allows you to make better designs with parts. "delete" removes a part (Duh). "A" (Yes, the letter A) makes parts asymmetric, or not symmetric. Once you use it, there is no way to make it symmetric. The "I" key will show you what part was used for whatever your cursor is on and how much it costs.
3- Experiment with the handlers and parts. Great designs include parts inside each other, making organ-like designs, also making your creature more interesting. Not everything has to be what it is. Mouths can act as hands, arms and limbs as details, antenna can be mouths, and other stuff can be other stuff.
Thought wrote:In the creature creator, you can take off a part of an arm (or leg), add a detail to the nub, and then replace the limb in order to better situate details. This is the basic concept behind using jellybuttons to nest other parts. However, when done to a hand or foot, it can make a fairly nice glove/boot effect.
You can see an example here.
You can also put certain parts down on the body, and then put a limb on that to make the same effect in a different place.
Lexington08 wrote:It's also great for hiding parts.
4- Paint is VERY VERY Important. Choose paints that compliment each other, and then your creature will stand out more.
Thought wrote:Coloring is quite important since a good coloring job is one of the things that will strike people's eyes the most and get you noticed: take a look through the most popular creations and compare them with just the latest creations. I think you'll notice that a lot of the most popular ones have colors that pop off the screen, while just the run-of-the-mill creations sort of blend in with one another.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there are many coloring tips out there. The topic is often briefly included in other discussions, but considering how important it is, it seems like it deserves more attention. The basic ones that I've seen around the most are:
Do color (since blank ships, buildings, and creatures are lame)
Do spend time coloring (since a great creation can be hindered by a poor coloring job)
Avoid garish colors
Use complimentary colors
That isn't particularly a wealth of information for people who are having trouble getting their creations to really shine. While I don't think my coloring sucks, it has certainly been lack-luster for the most part so my insights aren't going to be particularly stunning, but...
Use contrasting colors: Complimentary colors are good, but this shouldn't be confused with similar colors. Again, looking at the most popular creations and you'll notice that there are almost no creations that have dark red, light red, and pink as their colors. They'll often have black and a bright purple, red, or green. Or maybe they'll be white and black. Contrasting colors help your creation pop.
Turn the creature upside down for more coloring variety: Almost all coat patterns are painted onto the creature depending on whatever surface is up or down. However, there is one that will always paint the side farthest away from the spine, regardless of the creature's direction. This is under "coat", on the first page bottom middle. The default is a white texture. Normally is seems to create a soft underbelly sort of look, but if you flip the creature, that same pattern will be on its new "back" instead. I think the only variation to this is if you add a mouth, there will be a small patch of the texture "below" it (which if you have the creature flipped, will be above it)
Tufty100 wrote:Some very shiny creature paints are:
-Page 2, Column 3, Row 4 in Base.
-Page 2, Column 3, Row 2 in Coat.
-Page 1, Column 3, Row 2 in Detail.
5- Experiment with arms and joints. If you make single joints, you can add parts on to those to make cool organs. Example-
It might be hard to tell, but here I used a special bone joint you get from a patch (I forget which one), and made it a single joint. Then I added a wing, and used the "option/alt" button to copy it, making two pairs of wings.
gexsiun wrote:Limbs can make good heads for creatures. Parts that stay ivory-colored make good armor when layered correctly, and if you lay a part down correctly on the body, you can get a nice pattern of it that molds well with the paint style.
6- If you don't know how somebody did something, take it apart in the editor! Look at what the did, and even use the "I" key to view the part's name and info.
7- There are many types of animals on earth. Avians (Birds), Mammals, Reptiles, Insects, Amphibians, Crustaceans, Mollusks, Fish, Cephalopods (Octopus, squid, things like that). All of these can give inspiration for creations.
8-I did not really invent these, but I kind of discovered some great leg designs and decided I should share them here...
The first one is very simple. You take one of the early creature legs, the most simple one, and put some cool feet on. Then you scroll the joint connecting the foot to the leg so that the joint covers up some of the foot. Next, you make the knee joint almost as small as possible. The hip joint you then scroll to be between the foot and knee joint in size. This looks good if the knee is behind the other joint and if the knee is in front. I use this technique often.
The second one is a little less simple. This version includes making four joints. The middle two joints should be the same size as the knee in the first design. Then scroll the third joint from the hips so that it is a teensy bit larger than the one before it. The foot joint should be big again, and the hip joint should be medium sized.
If you look at my creations, you may find that I use these designs almost ALL the time.
9- Practicing your skills will make you better. The saying "Practice makes perfect" isn't true, but a saying I invented, "Practice makes better" is. So practice! Practice! Practice!
10-
rokgol12 wrote:Remember: Change description, name, tags, and color. It is realy important unless you want all your creatures to be edited version and not something new themselve.
11-THE OUTFITTER The outfitter is to some people one of the hardest parts of spore.
The truth is, it's quite easy. All it takes is an understanding and a little practice.
Parkaboy wrote:
I have always been unhappy with how some of the outfitted creatures turned out: most of the time, your alien species' suit or armor ends up looking as if each part was glued on the being's sking. Of course, that's how the editors work: you attach stuff to a creature's skin.
But I'm going to share today a technique I have developed to help create outfits that are a lot more convincing. There are a few limitations to this technique, and it takes a lot of practice to create suits that animate properly, but here it goes...
This is what we're aiming for. This technique allows you total control over where you place an outfit part, and it's used mainly to let you place rings around a creature's limb or body.
This is how you should start: add a Snokelicious part and place a Ring part carefully on top of the Snokelicious. You can only place one part on top of another if you have installed Galactic Adventures or one of the latest patches. In earlier versions of the game the outfit parts can't be stacked.
Hold the "Tab" key while selecting a part to access more handlers and position the parts as shown below:
Now here comes the tricky part: select the snokelicious, NOT the ring, and hold "Tab" for the advanced handlers. As shown below:
You can then rotate the snokelicious - NOT the ring - 180°, so it now points to the inside of the creature's limb or body. You may have to resize and move both parts to get the proper placement.
This technique can be used with any parts, though you will find out that not every part stacks on everything. Parts such as hats can be only placed on top of certain types of parts, such as shoulderpads or chest parts. With training you'll learn how to get the best combinations of parts.
Another combo that looks pretty good is the Bolt/Tinker Ticker. I use that a lot, and it helps create some very cool spacesuits. You should start with the placement of parts shown below, and follow the same steps as shown above.
This is a very good tutorial, and I felt I had to share it here.
But you may find that this technique does not work on hats. It is still possible to make it work with them. You must use one of the wings from the "shoulders" page.
Also, if you move the part with the ring on it to the center, then it snaps into place and so does the ring. When you rotate the ring, it then is lined up nicely. After that you may move the screw/tube/wing and the ring will stay perfectly centered on both sides. If you use asymmetry this won't work, and if something weird happens when you put your cursor over a handler, just press the undo button!
Here's some examples of outfitted creatures by me:
As you can see on the third one, this technique is great for making mechs too.
Another great part for outfitting can be seen on the middle one, and that is what I used for a vest. I forget what it is called, though...
Anyway, this is great for making realistic armor, and a great attribute it has is that while other parts change colors with the creature, this always stays silver. Therefore, it is very helpful when you want a creature to have shining metal armor. This piece also works great as shoulder and hip pads.
12-Making Mechs
Making mechs can be challenging, and I must admit, I'm not very good at it. But I do have a few tips from a buddy of mine that you will find useful...
If you don't have GA, I won't have any tips for you...
Here are a few things I have learned:
raymanic13 wrote:Keep the basic creature simple, VERY simple. As otherwise complexity becomes a problem.
BlueFireComet wrote:1. Use inverted (backwards) Power Generators (the second Energy Accessory).
2. Put Missile Flingers on limbs to provide sleek armor sheath.
Those were really helpful, and helped me make this:
But some tips he didn't give me, that I found out on my own are these:
1. Use Parkaboy's outfitting technique to make cool tube-like body parts.
2. Use the captain part on the second row, first part (The one before the Power Generator) to make cool body designs.
3. Use the Jump Jet piece and place it around limbs to make cool designs, although this can animate awkwardly. Flames might burst out of your guy's skin when it jumps...
4. Use the hat outfitting technique (Using wings) and double it to fit around spherical parts on the creature to make round shells.
Example:
This is by BlueFireComet. (Clicky)
13-Use of Knurldowns
A famous, yet not commonly practiced style of creating uses Knurldowns to make designs on creatures. This is a Knurldown:
A popular clan, the KDC (Knurldown Clan) uses this method all the time. Mainly because that's why the clan was made.
Here are some KDC creations I have seen before:
Here are some other creations that use Knurldowns:
It may seem hard to use this style, but after you try, you realize that it is quite easy.
There really isn't much to it. You just take a Knurldown, and put it down somewhere on the creature. Usually you want to put it in places to make the creature seem to have abs. You'll also want to make a face, shoulder and hip designs, a few limb designs, back designs and something covering up their... parts . If you haven't already figured it out, almost everybody puts Knurldowns in those places when they use this technique.
You also will want to use other parts, especially ones that blend will with the Knurldowns, like heycorns and horns. There are some C&C details that work well too.
Another design that makes a different effect with the same pieces is turning the Knurldown upside-down using the "tab" button. This gives a cool color effect, and also lets you make the cool designs you already were going to. But beware that this does not always look good.
Takua01 wrote:Knurldowns can be used to make some epic looking rock creatures!
14-Use of Heycorns
UltimateZob wrote:Heycorns. They can be very easily used to create a "glowing" effect by having the detail color a lighter version of the coat color. The base color often looks best in a contrasting shade... although this does mean that you're probably going to have to hide the base of the haycorns (knurls and jellybuttons work great for this!)
Some examples of creations made using this technique are:
Heycorns also work very well with Knurldowns. As you can see on Zob's fourth example, he made a Knurldown shell and then put in a line of bright Heycorns to make a great design.
13-Realistic Creatures and Dinosaurs
Alright, so I called in Antarcticas and Dragonvoid to help me make this section on creating realistic creatures, which I just started making myself (They are really fun to make). So here are the tips they gave me, along with some tips other people just posted here because those people felt like it was helpful.
Antarcticas wrote:First of all I have to tell you that it's much more easier to create with a picture (or multiple pictures) of a realistic animal in front of you (from Google etc.). Just switch the size of your spore window so that it isn't full screen (command + return) and open Google. Find a sample of an animal and voilà you can start creating!
Try to create just the body and head without the tail first (you can add a limb as a tail, and make it assymetric so you have more complexity left).
I've made a video to show you how to create a realistic animal, but first some tips:
- Try not to use the standard mouth, but if you use it, hide it behind details, so that you can't see it's a standard mouth because everybody uses them and they're boring.
- Make small feet and hands, looks more realistic, if you look to realistic animals, they don't have big ones.
- Use noses to make ears or eyebrows. It looks more realistic.
- Use the original animal colors, but try to make them more shiny and not too dark.
- Use spore feathers and this round fluffy thing as fur. You can also use the outfitter for fur details.
- Do not use the wing parts to create wings, try to make them out of limbs and place every feather seperately (hide the real wings, so it can fly if you want it to).
- If you want the animals to animate well then you have to use at least four limb segments on their limbs. Put them as correctly as possible (use a skeleton picture of the animal so you can see where to place them)- but more limbs cost more complexity!
- Try not to use detail parts which cost a lot of complexity.
- If you want more feather variety, use the feathers from the outfitter and the ones from the creature creator.
- Place one eye in a second eye to create a new stylish eye.
- If you have enough complexity left, try to hide the white parts of the feet and hands with knurldowns.
- Finally add some interesting facts in the description!
Now, here is a video:
How to create a realistic Spore Dromedary:
And here are some things that other creators posted:
Hamilton302 wrote:
Tips on the Creature Creator:
-There is the thing when,you dont always need to use the mouth parts to make a mouth. To make an open mouth use various detail parts and limbs. The best part is experimenting.
-A good thing to remember is that you can use Knurldowns to make a nice head. You just press tab and then turn around the Knurldown.
-That is also a good way to make a Dinosaur head.
-Remember to NOT make the head to complex,you wont have more complexity to make the body good.
*More to be added*
15-Here are other examples of creatures made by me:
Examine them to learn a few techniques.
This message was edited 35 times. Last update was at 08/27/2011 21:49:41
1- Basic controls for the editor: "tab" gives more handlers. "option/alt" copies a piece. "A" key makes parts asymmetric. "I" key provides information on certain parts. "shift" Moves the whole vehicle.
2- Basic controls for the painter: "control" paints each part of the same piece a color. "option", or "alt" chooses the color on that part, and shows you it, allowing you to paint more parts like that if you loose the color. "shift" paints the whole part one color.
3- Again, don't add parts randomly. If you want stats, make a random block and put stat objects on it. Make the stat objects tiny, and then make the block tiny, and then put the block inside the vehicle's body. That way it is invisible, yet your vehicle still has stats.
4- Not all parts have to operate as what they are made for. Bodies can be cockpits, wheels can be engines, and details can be... well, details can only be details. But using these parts for special purposes can make your vehicle cool.
5- Paint your vehicle accordingly. If it is for war, paint it camouflage. Your set of vehicles for your game species should look alike, with the same basic design and the same paint.
6-In all vehicle editors, you can use alt and tab keys to make blossoms and armor with the Comet Wasp part.
7-
Needles_10 wrote:Mai Tips on Spaceship Building:
1: Always have a basic layout for the ship in the beginning. I prefer to use long, thin Tubed bodies to give the layout of my ship. It's like a frame.
2: Be sure to give your ships a certain feel to it. Cargo ships should have multiple large cargo bays, military ships are sleeker and more impulsive, and waste transportation ships are clunky and big.
3: Give the ship a paint style reflecting their species. If your creature is a green, make their ships green. If they are warriors, be sure to make the ship look like it has damage. If the species transports garbage to a black hole, make sure their ship looks like it hasn't had a thorough polishing in a millenium.
4: Remember my First Point? Always remove the Tubed parts when you're done, or else the complexity meter runs out. Take out the frame, or mold, and let the ship get painted.
8-Examples by me of cool vehicle designs:
This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 08/24/2011 22:32:24
First off, I must say that All About Buildings is the best building editor site in existence. So check it out!
1- Basic controls for the editor- "I" gives info about a certain part. "tab" adds more handlers. You may find that this does not work on bases, roofs, and doors. We will get to that later. "alt/option" copies a piece. "shift" moves a piece on a horizontal plane. "control" moves a part vertically. "delete" gets rid of a part.
2- Basic controls for the painter- "option", or "alt" selects the color of a part and puts it on your card, allowing you to paint parts that color. "control" paints that part of every one of that piece the color. "shift" paints the whole part that color.
3- Do not place parts randomly. It looks absurd and doesn't make anybody want to look at your page.
4- Parts don't have to be what they are for. You can use windows as doors and roofs as walls.
5- I mentioned this on number one. This is how to make a base, roof, or door part turn.
•Step 1: Place a connector on any block.
•Step 2: Put a base, roof, or door part on the connector.
•Step 3: Using the "tab" button, rotate the connector the way you want.
•Step 4: Drag the part away from the connector, delete the connector, and move the part to where you want.
6- You do not even need parts for stats. So when you are making an entertainment building, factory, house, or city hall, the special parts are not needed.
7- Window designs are important! Many popular creators use this simple design for their buildings. You use a simple block, but paint it a shiny color. The shiniest colors are on the bottom row of the eighth page, preferably the second and last. I enjoy using the last one, but because that looks bad in adventures, most people avoid it.
8- Examples of cool buildings by me:
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 08/24/2011 22:41:58
This will probably be the longest post of my tips.
1- Basic controls for the editor: "control" moves things up and down. "option/alt" copies a creation. "shift" moves a creation on a horizontal plane (Side to side). "tab" shows more handlers. "delete" deletes a creation. "C" takes a picture.
2- Basic information you MUST know:
•You can take pictures by clicking the camera button on the bottom of the screen or pressing "C".
•You must have four good preview pics, and the best one must be your cover pic, or you will not get any plays!
•You can place creations by going into the editor (NOT terraformer), and clicking on one of the boxes. You then choose which creation you want. There are seven categories for these boxes. There is "creatures", which lets you chose from any creature in your Sporepedia. There is also the "buildings" page, which lets you choose any building in your Sporepedia. The "vehicle" category allows you to choose a vehicle from your Sporepedia (Still vehicles I will get to later). Then there is "objects", which gives you rocks, flora that you may resize and move at your wish, holdable objects, and static ornaments. There is also the "music" page, which allows you to choose from single sounds to entire songs (Without words). "effects" gives your adventure special effects to make it better. Lastly, there is the category containing "gameplay objects". The "gameplay objects" category has explosive barrels, boxes, gates and keys (If a key of one color hits the same color gate, the gate opens), teleporters, and jump pads.
3-
Parkaboy wrote: A preview image is like the cover of a book. You know the saying "don't judge a book by its cover?" Well, a lot of people do judge the adventures from the preview pics. You have to understand that for most people it takes a couple of minutes to download the assets and load a mission, and they don't want to waste that time unless they have a reason to believe the adventure is going to be cool.
So you need at least four preview pictures to capture the player's interest. The first pic is the most important of all, since that's going to be the thumbnail of your adventure. A good thumbnail is the difference between getting on the Most Popular New shortlist and barely getting any plays. To take a screenshot you only need to click the "C" button once on your keyboard, and then sort out the four preview images you want for your adventure on the central panel where you also choose the name, genre, description and tags for your adventures.
4-How to Disguise Gates •Step 1: Make a gate.
•Step 2: Go to the options of the gate by double clicking it or clicking the little yin-yang picture on the top right corner of the card.
•Step 3: There should be a little bar that says "normal" right underneath the picture of the creation. Click on that, and choose the option "disguised".
•Step 4: This will open up the Sporepedia. Choose a creation to make the gate disguised! If you choose a vehicle, you can put the vehicle on the ground and scroll it with the mouse wheel so that it is a reasonable size, looks like a vehicle, and you can drag it anywhere, even next to other creations, which you can't do with a normal vehicle.
•Step 5: If you want to disguise a gate as a creature, then when you get to the Sporepedia, edit any creation. As soon as you get in the editor, choose the sporepedia on the bottom left corner of your screen. It will show you only buildings or vehicles, depending on what you edited. But on the bar at the top, you can get to the whole sporepedia. There will be a little card up there, and if you click on it it will give you the creatures, vehicles, and buildings in your Sporepedia. Edit the creature you want to, and then when you get to the editor press the "check" button on the bottom right corner of your screen. This should give you a creature that stands perfectly still.
5- Many creators try to make natural stone walls as part of the scenery of their adventure. They choose a rock from the sporepedia, and repeatedly copy it, making them all look the exact same. This does not look good. A better way to make a stone wall would include using three different rocks that look alike (Take the granite rocks for example), and turning, moving, and resizing them so that a wall is still formed but you get a more realistic and natural formation.
onacondafarr wrote:This is basic stuff when I make adventures: a living environment.
Use rocks, sounds, terraforming tools, creatures, sounds and effects!
That's very useful when you want to make XENOPLANETS
6- TERRAFORM! One of the biggest things newbie creators tend to skip is the terraforming. There are three buttons on the top of the screen, the "editor", "test drive", and the "terraformer" The terraformer lets you change the way that your adventure looks. There is the "flora" page, the "atmosphere" page, the "painting" page and the "terraformer" page. There is also the "theme" page, which gives you a painted planet, an atmosphere, and flora. Don't use it.
The flora page allows you to use flora. They get scattered around the globe like they are forests... Kind of. GA forests aren't very realistic. Anyway, on the bottom of the page, you get to choose what type of grass you want, or if you want rocks instead. If you choose a grass, you can also add flowers.
The painting page lets you paint your planet according to the elevation. In other words, if the top of the bar has a white arrow, the highest land will be white. If the middle is green, then medium elevated places will be green. You do this by dragging around the little arrows and changing their color on bar on the side. You also get to paint the atmosphere, water, cliffs, and beaches. You can find that on the side. What I normally do is paint the cliffs light, so they look better with the planet. I also make the beach the same color as the cliffs.
The atmosphere page allows you to change the water level, temperature of the planet, and atmosphere density. If you put the temperature on high, the water turns to lava. If you put it on its lowest setting, the water turns to ice. Both of these make the world hazardous, with comets and air jets from the ground. You can shut this effect off with a little check box at the bottom of the page. Atmosphere density has hazards too, so you might want to look out for that.
The terraformer works by choosing something you want to make on the planet and adding it on by dragging it onto the planet. Remember that when you are making buildings, you want a flat surface underneath, so the building doesn't stick out off the land or into a cliff. You can use the "level platform" or one of the other "level" brushes that can be found under basic tools. The last section under terraforming is "roads". It has many useful plazas, roads, and other things that can help people find their way around your adventure. There are five pages under this. Explore it!
7- Typing is very important. Try to type everything with good grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. When you have a cutscene and the guy you are talking to is saying things like, "well i gues thats it. thnks for help captain!", they just sound, well, retarded. So make sure you use your typing skills when you make an adventure! Also, never type in faces. People can't say things with a face in them, why would aliens?
8- The intro and finish text can be found on either side of the act bar at the bottom of the screen. The intro text has this symbol on it like this:
<<
Click on that and type in the box for your introduction text! This appears when the captain beams down to the adventure.
The win/lose text looks like this:
>>
Click on that to type in the losing and winning text. Winning text appears when the captain beats the adventure, and losing text appears when they fail or die.
9- When you make creatures, put them on a team and give them traits! If there are creatures who you don't want players to kill the whole time, then make them on the allied team. You can change this by double- clicking the creature, or clicking the blue yin/yang symbol on the top right corner of the creature card. After the card comes up, there will be four boxes on the bottom. The last one will be how they move around, so if you want them to stay put, choose stationary. The first one of the row is teams. There are five teams- Allied Team (Green), Enemy Team 1 (Red), Enemy Team 2 (Yellow) Enemy Team 3 (Blue) and No Team. If you want players to not attack certain people, like, say, the people who called the captain, or in a war, the team you are fighting for, then choose the Allied Team. Players are restricted from attacking their allies.
10-Advanced AI
Darkhole54321's guide to advanced AI:
Darkhole54321 wrote:
Advanced AI Basics:
All Advanced AI is is a checklist: it does what is at the top. If it can't do what's on the top, it goes to the next command. It goes down the commands until it finds something to do, or does nothing.
This gives you the opportunity to do nearly anything. For example, you want Creature A to attack Creature B in a small space. Creature A is team Red (Enemy) while Creature B is Green (Ally). Your captain will also be in the space, so you need to make the Creature A's Advanced AI so it dosen't attack you. Set creature A to aggresive, then press down the Control button, and the Advanced AI will pop up. Get rid of the commands saying attack all, and attack if attacked. Then change their command of attack Green Team always to attack Creature B always.
Now, when you test it out, Creature A will no longer acknowledge your existence, even if you attack them. This will allow you to create an adventure where you have to walk across a battlefield unnoticed.
You can also create a command to say, "Move to 'Alarm' if 'Player' is in 'Line of sight.' Line of sight is another popular advanced command, similar to awareness, but depending on where the creature is looking, a good template for making a sneak adventure.
The 'Shoot' command is popular if you hate when soldiers go into a biting rampage. Put "Shoot", and "Always" and your soldiers will always shoot, as long as another command isn't in the way.
More Complex Advanced AI:
Advanced AI has been used to solve many mysteries, including building awareness, building walking, water awareness, water swimming, water walking, bridge awareness, bridge walking, why only six creatures can attack something at once and how to fix it, AI command lists getting stuck, and other things.
Some commands are completely corrupt, like the timer command, which does literally nothing. If you command a creature's AI to do something it can do by itself it, like walking or making emotes, it can stay like that, though that is not a glitch.
If you command a group of Creature A to attack a Creature B, only six will attack at once. Once one is killed, another will take over... Sometimes. The other half of the creatures may just stand there, as their AI list is stuck at the default Idle command, on the bottom of the list. This can be fixed by having an infinite command on the bottom, like the 'Emote' command.
In order to get to Advanced AI, you must go to the top of the creature card, where the four personalities are:
Peaceful
Mindless
Territorial
Aggressive
You press the "control" button and left-click any one of those traits to bring up the Advanced AI menu. Each personality you click brings up different traits in the guide. You may change them however you wish, but some may bring up something closer to what you want than others will.
Southstreet wrote:If you have aggresive NPCs in an adventure that have the charge stat, people will find it annoying if they are getting charged at and stunned every ten seconds (this is a real pain if you have them fight a whole mob of such creatures). If you want to get rid of this, but can't because of restrictions (for aesthetic reasons or you're using a creature that is already outfitted), you can bring them into the captain editor and give them the mind meld ability. NPCs will never use mind meld, and they won't use their charge ability since mind meld replaces this stat.
11-Adventure Music
Tufty100 wrote:I'm no pro at making adventures, but here's some tips on using adventure music:
1) The ring handler. Turn it to change the pitch and speed of the music.
2) The upwards arrow handler. Pull and push it to change the volume of the music.
3) The sideways arrow handler. Pull and push it to change the range in which the music can be heard.
4) Remember! Act music can be heard everywhere, but cannot be adjusted in any of the above ways.
5) If you can't with a single track, use different combinations of music to get the effect you want.
12- Adventures by me:
This message was edited 19 times. Last update was at 09/29/2011 14:09:08
-When in an adventure, don't take a prop, put it in an adventure, then just copy it and place it randomly. It's boring to look at; it's all facing the same direction, AND they're all the same size; you don't see that in real life, do you? Take time to reorient them, resize them, and maybe bury a couple in the ground. That way, it looks more natural.
-The vehicle editor has properties that the building editor doesn't have (ex. lights, parts that are easier to work with). So you can use the "disguised gate" trick to make them into "still" props, however, remember that you can only attatch a "move to" goal onto it, and that it's still a gate, so coming close to it with a matching key will ruin it.
-I hear this alot, but it's worth repeating. Test an adventure with different captains. Not everyone is going to have the jump jet or a missle launcher that the captain you used has. And if you can't change the adventure so it can be completed by other creators, you can put in the description "Jump needed" or "Weapons required".
-The "Pond" effect can make great glass, and if you enlarge it as much as you can, you can get rid of the ripples, and make sure you have an invisible gate behind it so the player doesn't walk through and ruin the effect.
-The "Tornado" effect turned upside-down can make a vortex of dust on the ground.
-I find it's a good to give a player different ways to complete goals and finish an adventure.
Examples -Give the player an oppertunity to befriend allies before going into a fight.
-Allow different ways for a player to enter an area.
-If you have gate that the player has to get past, hide multiple keys behind different kinds of obsticles.
To open up the cheats menu, press Control+Shift+C. Type 'help' and it will list all cheats. Some of these cheats are usable in the editors, like 'addDNA', 'freedom', etc. so check those out.
When in the adventure editor, an excellent way for getting a great picture is to enter the cheat 'freecam' during test drive then move the camera to just the position you want to take a picture without the captain in the way. Although it is hard to get pictures under cover it is possible, if you rotate the camera through the wall.
In test drive, when testing with different captains, always pick a captain that is as big as possible and has no jump to test with. If you don't have such a creature, make one. Make it extra tall and extra wide, using arms to help. This works as a worst-case scenario. If the adventure works with this captain, it will most likely work with any.
Asymmetry is very useful in reducing complexity. If a creature or vehicle is getting too close to the top of the complexity metre then use asymmetry on all the parts in the very centre line of the creature. Just hold A and click on the parts. This will bring down your complexity right down as it will only have to deal with one potential part instead of two.
1. First, and probably most importantly, you must come up with the biological rules for your flora/fungal life. By that, I mean you must create for yourself a set of guidelines in order to make a convincing set that all look like they're from the same planet. For example, here on Earth plants tend to have green photosynthetic "pads" (leaves/needles/scales) which extend from long branches and/or stalks. Now, for an alien planet, you'd expect to see something similar. However, the details will be a little different. For example:
(Clicky)
(Order- Kouriss, Aiosian, Drestan)
Aiosian flora is held up by numerous trunk-like roots (with the giant berry trees and tiger traps being the only exceptions, one being too large to be held up and the other being from a soft, muddy swamp), and with each thick branch ending in wide photo-disks. Alternatively, Kouriss plants have stalks and orange "pads", and openings somewhere on their stalks that release spores.
2. Second, and also vital, is to use organic-shaped detail parts and colors. My personal favorite piece for organic -looking stuff is the Berry Roof part, and the Hitch connector part. as for details, I use the puffer, pedoep, lozenge, mushroom stalk, fringe grabber and epee parts. As for colors, almost anything on list 11/12 or 12/12 will do. You'll just have to follow your gut.
3. The third rule may just be a personal preference, but I find it best to just keep it simple. I feel that the best creations out there aren't the ones that people put so many details and colors on that you can't even tell what the initial body shape was, but instead the ones that use a conservative number of parts for a sleek, graceful appearance. Any necessary appearance of complexity can most likely be solved in the color section, so please, just take it easy.
4. Fourth, and lastly, is for adventure creators, or those of you that just like making planets to show off to buddies. The final rule is to try to find inspiration in maxis-made plants, because if you want to use the plants in an adventure, it'll be SPORE near impossible to populate you entire planet's forests, swamps, and jungles with your custom flora. unless you're planet is a vast, sparse desert, you'll need backup from the maxis plants to make a convincing ecosystem.
Lately I've been making a fair amount of creature statuettes in the building editor.
Such as:
For this tutorial I'll cover the basics on how to make simple creature statues and I'll even cover how to outfit them The main trick in this is to Build upwards.
The best technique is to block out your creature first, then add outfitting details, and then add bio-detail (Creature details)
We'll use this statue I made of pwurman's Lord Larte creature mainly because he asked me to make it and because I happened to be planning on making this tutorial.
Creature Shape
We will begin by making a basic, simple block structure of the creature. You will have to do alot of 'rounding off' (Smoothing out edges, uless you are making a bot statue or some kind of geometrical creature)
Legs
-Start off with you base/pedestal. Find a piece suitable for the legs (I used 'Lozenge') and place one smack in the middle.
-Copy it to each side so they snap in line with the center piece. If your creature has more than 2 legs, you will have to manually adjust them.
-Remove the middle leg piece.
-Begin building upwards in the shape of the creatures legs by copying one piece and using CTRL click to raise it then SHIFT click to horizontally adjust it.
-If neccesarry, resize or morph it so it suits the leg shape better Copy this piece and use SHIFT click to place it above the other lower leg piece.
-Repeat until you have finished the creatures leg shape on each side. (Don't worry about feet for now)
Body:
-You want to use a body or roof piece for the body as you might need to attatch detail parts to it later.
-I used the Dollop Habitat piece for the rounded area on this creature.
-Place it between the two leg pieces and CTRL click it to raise it up.
-Rotate resize and morph if necessary.
-Round off the flat areas of your body area with detail pieces ie. At this stage I used the Pedop piece to give the flat end on the creature a pointy rear end.
-I used a connector piece for the neck, and placed another dollop habitat piece on as the head and resized it to fit.
-I used an Espheral piece to round off the flat areas on that piece, so I can still attatch detail parts to it but its a perfect sphere.
-Regardless of your creatures headshape, you should still try to make it a body roof or connector piece.
-Mouths are tricky. For this one I used the Parasol piece to imitate the beak.
-Try using detail pieces. Check out some of my other statues to see some other mouth designs.
-Espherals and Epees will help alot.
Arms
-You can use the same techniques as you did for the legs, but seeing as you may want to attatch parts to it later, you can use connector pieces.
-Round off flat ends with detail pieces.
We now have the basic body shape for your creature. We will add the additional body details later ie. Feathers, feet, hands, eyes, detail parts. We do this later because you can losecomplexity by covering up such parts during outfitting.
Outfitting
Colouring system: Blue=Creature body/Pedestal
White=Outfit
Red=Focused/Newly added part
Green =Distinguishing between two parts for better contrast
Right. Here I've began outfitting Lord Larte.
-I've used a couple Hive cover parts for the collar area. During outfitting, you will find that the Donut and Hive cover pieces are among the most useful.
-I've used a donut to give a ring around his neck.
-Another donut is used for the base of the "tierdrop" Hat piece that pwurman has used as a broach on Lord Larte. ---Two different sized Cylindras make up the tiered formation.
-The Donut Piece is really great for imitating the Parkaboy-Ring/Snoke AND Tinker ticker/Bolt outfitting tehcniques.
-Here I have copied a big donut piece and repeatadly rotated it to give the layered effect as seen on Lord Larte.
-Another Tierdrop-imitation piece around the waist area.
-Alot of people use the "Harmonious Song" GA piece as a belt/broach/dangly thing- No I really dont mean that (I really dont know what to call it).
-The Biovauc roof piece is really good for imitating this, and then just slap an Epee right through the middle of it.
-I would actually recommend using a color coding system for this bit. Try to cover up any blue areas showing on the main body, Here a large hive cover piece does the trick and then some additional donuts to cover up the thin area.
-For limb sleeves use any awning piece. Hive cover works well (I said it was useful) -You can also use 'stretced' donut pieces (Hey I said they were useful too ) partially sunk into the body. (You can see this kinda technique on my trophies up the top of the page ^)
Biodetails Now we begin to add the actual creature parts
Blue=Body
White=Outfit
Green=Creature detail
Hands/Feet:
-Right! Hands and Feet are realitively simple.
-The Hanging horn piece makes for good claws, upside down awning pieces make good shoes.
-Raw Demagogue will give you a nice hoof.
-Tuning time can give you a frog like foot.
-Epees are also really helpful.
Details:
Detail Parts that are VERY useful:
Epee - Eyes, claws, spikes, feathers, crests, twigs, nurples, tails etc
Donut - Jellybuttons, eyes, ears, mouths.
Epshpereal - Heycorns, bumps, eyes, mouths.
Hanging fang - Spikes, claws, eyes, beaks, tails, crests, hands, feet
Parasol - Beaks, spikes, heycorns
Hive cover - Allows for smaller Jellybuttons than the donut piece
Biovauc - Good plates ie Think Squid, Stegosaurus
Illumine - Perfect nurples but high complexity
Pedeop - Thin spikes when you sink it in
Eyes
Eyes. By far the hardest and nearly the most important part.
If you get the eyes wrong, the whole statue could end up looking very gimpy (And to be fair, the eyes on my Lord Larte statue aint perfect). You will have to make the eyes 2 (Or 3, or 4, or 5) times and make sure they are level (If they are on your creature).
I used a technique that I saw on Parkaboys bauder statue because it had the same eyes as Lord Larte.
-I used stretched out espheral piece and repeated it until it slightly overlaps the one before it giving it the brow detail.
-A flattened Esphereal gives the rest of the eye its shape, and another stretched esphereal will make a pupil.
The scary thing about eyes is that you have to repeat it for as many eyes as your creature has, and if its symmetrical they will have to be even on both sides.
For other eyes:
I find the following pieces useful as eyes:
-Vacuole (Flattened)
-Donut+Esphereal center
-Hanging Fang (Flattened)
-Esphereal (Flattened, Stretched)
Painting Your Statue
-Do not paint the whole statue a single stone/gold/material texture.
-Make sure there are different levels of lightness and darkness, otherwise there is not enough contrast to make it out.
You can try painting it just like the original:
Or Go for a rocky/stoney texture (Note the different toned greys)
-Try stay away from the rock/brick textures on page 2, they give a bad messy look to the statue.
-Instead, I used the sandy texture on page 1, in the first row.
And as far as things go, thats just about it! Of course you can now add more details, such as items into you creatures hands. ie. Guns, swords, books, staves.
You could also try posing you creautre. But that will involve moving every detail piece so I would recommend building it posed first.
Uses for you statue:
Adventures mainly. They could also make a neat entertainment building/City hall
Well in GA there is the trick to use a creature disguised as a gate - Giving you a creature statue.
But this method makes it feel much more real and you can give it a realistic stone texture. Plus you can go crazy. You have much more room for complexity with creatures in the building editor. And you have alot of new 'parts'. You can express further details that you can't in the creature editor.
Lord Lartes:
I hope this helps people, this is my first tutorial.
Well here is a tutorial about how to turn base parts in the building editor
First get your connecter.
Now get a base part and put it on the connecter
Now turn the CONNECTER, NOT the base part (it wont work)
Last, you copy (or shift/ctrl drag) the base part off the connector! (warning you can NOT rotate this after taking it off, as there is no way to put it back on)
...
And there you have it!
This is also useful for Rotating roofs, doors, and windows.
I'm gonna share some important guidelines to building sets
If you want to make a cool set, the best way to do it is to play around with body and roof parts.
It is important to find a Main set piece. This is the block that you want to be present throughout the whole set.
Grab the main set piece, move it, morph it, size it. Find an appealing shape. Then duplicate it. Rotate it to be symmetrical to the other, or size it so it creates a layer. Get creative! When you have found a non complex design that you like, begin adding details to the building. Windows, doors, different block shapes, structural support, spires etc. Remeber the detail parts you used. These are your Set detail pieces.
This way everytime you make a new building in the set, select the Main set piece and form the design you have developed, BUT make it slightly unique. Maybe rotate the whole design 90 degrees or shape it slightly larger or smaller - Morph it in another direction or even multiply the design and have multiple buildings This way there is a common design throughout the set. Then grab your Set detail pieces and well... detail it This way there is a common sense of style and detail throughout the set without too much similarity.
Colouring: Make sure there is a colour similarity amongst the set. Seeing as colouring can vary greatly depending on the style, this is up to you.
This whole design thing may seem a little complex, so heres some examples by me (Of other peoples species' buildings) :
Dracknorin's Adrenti Set Main set piece:: Barn Roof - They are sized up, and duplicated many times, each time they are sized down a little to give the carved wood effect. They are stacked high above eachother in a Norse-like fashion.
Set Detail Pieces:
Thinkin' Logs - Used as a central structure piece, usually painted like stone.
Windows: Blue coloured blocks to replicate 'glass' areas. Glazier Box, Cobbled portal window pieces.
Party Favour - Curled to give a carved bone look to the roofs.
Wolfin298's Wolfin Species *COMPLETE*: Main set piece::
Pyramid. Stretched long and rotated vertically. Duplicated, Pieces stretched back to standard pyramid size, then duplicated furthermore, raised and lowered to create triangular windows. On lower levels they are flat on hte ground and duplicated and sized and painted accordingly.
Set Detail Pieces:
Not alot really... The same trees (Top cap) I guess this was one of my earlier sets - But I think the design and paint makes it one of my best, but there isnt alot of detail. You can see totem poles in most of them, and they use the same door.
Zaragorne's Womple Species *COMPLETE* Main set piece::
Barn Roof. ALOT of barn roof (Its very non complex)
Multiplied and rotated around an axis to give the curved roof. Roated and stretched vertically, then multiplied and sized down (and out) to give the layered window effect.
Set Detail Pieces:
Dome roof - Covering over where all the bases of the Barnroofs meet and form a circular area.
Buckyhome - Used as a rounded base
Tube cabin - Used as a corridoor to the entrance
RubbishyUsername's Greshian Species *COMPLETE* Main set piece::
Octaroost. Stretched vertically (Maybe on a slight angle too) and copied, and rotated to form a symetrical spire. Layerd to form vertical window rows.
Set Detail Pieces:
Tower roof - Used as spires (Strectched alot) and as a base on some of the buildings.
Mushroom stalk and Acicularis. Used as flora (Or fungi)
This style is present in nearly all my sets. I have a Main set piece and sometimes a secondary block piece, and many re-occuring detail pieces. I find that this... 'Format'... Makes set building very easy and much quicker (Once you've done the first building) while still retaining uniqure re-occuring forms and quality to the set
All advanced AI is is a checklist: it does what is at the top. If it can't do whats on the top, it goes to the next command. It goes down commands until it finds something to do, or does nothing.
This gives you the opportunity to do near anything.For example:You want Creature A to attack Creature B in a small space. Creature A is team Red(enemy) while Creature B is Green(allie). Your captain will also be in the space, so you need to make the Creature A's AI advanced so it dosen't attack you. Set creature A to aggresive, then press down ctrl, and the advanced AI will pop up. Get rid of the commands saying attack all, and attack if attacked. Then change their command of attack Green Team always to attack Creature B always.
Now when you play, Creature A will no longer acknowledge your existance, even if you attack them. This will allow you to create an adventure where you walk across a battlefield unnoticed.
Another example, you can create a command to say" Move to (alarm) if (player) is in line of sight. Line of sight is another popular advanced command, similar to awareness, but depending on where the creature is looking, a good template for making a "sneak" type adventure.
The Shoot command is popular if you hate when your soldiers go into a biting rampage. Put "Shoot", and "Always" and your soldiers will always shoot, as long as another command isn't in the way.
Advanced AI has been used to solve many mysteries, including building awareness, building walking, water awareness, water swimming/walking, bridge awareness/walking, why only six creatures can attack something at once and how to fix it, AI command lists getting stuck, ect, proved by advanced AI.
Some commands are completely corrupt, like the timer command, which does literaly nothing. If you command a creature's AI to do something it can do by itself it, like walking or making emotes, it can stay like that, though that is not a glitch.
If you command a group of Creature A to attack a Creature B, only six will attack at once. Once one is killed, another will take over...sometimes. The other half the creatures may just stand there, there AI list stuck at the default Idle command, on the bottom of the list. This can be fixed by having an infinite command on the bottom, like Idle with an emotion.
Anyone have any tips on making good robots with robo parts pack? I recently downloaded it and wanted to find out if anyone has got tips for bots, plus a Robo captain editor. Well, it turns out that I do!
Look at the picture. It has a ordinary robot in spore, covered in bot parts.
Now look at how easily the captain parts fit onto the creature. These are called perfect part combos.
I have listed 1 perfect part combo. The Clamps Mouth, and the Stealth Helmet fit perfectly. This was done in one attempt (If you have trouble seeing the combo, zoom in the screen.)
(Press these buttons on Macs: Command and the Plus/Equals one.)
So my recorded results are:
Clamps+Stealth helmet.
When I find out more combos,Ii will edit this message,
Some News Reporter wrote:So stay tuned!
That face is magic! It will transport you to the page where this was posted!
Economic vehicles need lots of speed and lots of economic power. Health dosen't matter. Military vehicles need lots of health and lots of military power. Speed dosen't matter. Religous vehicles need lots of health and lots of religious power. Speed dosen't matter.
Of course, you don't want to completely cover economic vehicles with pointless wheels and tokens, that will make your vehicle very ugly. What you do want to do is hide all those extra stat parts on a very small base part, and have all of the stat pieces be very small, and then stow it by simply dragging it to the inside of your vehicle.
-When making creatures, study real animals and try to emulate their posture. Posture is one of the hardest things to get right, and getting it right is one of the hallmarks of a good creature.
-You can use the tribal masks as parts of a creature's clothing.
-When making vehicles, combine bodies to make interesting body shapes. The Maxis vehicle Cammouflank is a good example.
-It is possible to use the arm parts in the creature creator as legs, and vice versa.
-Study Rptroll's creations, and ensure that all of their features are absent from your creations.
-Read all the other tips in this thread.
I dont really have a style I just throw objects at a frame and keep what fits... The rigid biped frames I use have quite slim joints and I sink parts into the arms, torso and legs to make the basic shape. Once I have the basic parts in the frame I then add detail parts, very often they start big then I add smaller ones when I feel I still have complexity to work with. After a while the overlapped parts make my "style" which I would say is unique to me..
Everyone else seems to make thin or bionic mechs, while I make mechs the size of freight trains built to withstand direct hits from a tank!
Well... Most of the time.
Note: A "Platform Roof" is simply a platform that acts as a roof since it is above the player's head.
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Mouth Hands
By Thought (And Xenopoligist)
I don't think I've seen this before, but mouths can make great hands, at least for pictures. The insect mouths (Globsterclaw to pincernaut) and Dietrap work nicely for advanced creatures, although the cell part, Jaw, is my favorite. This is particularly true if you dislike how the butterbib hand part looks (I hate it).
The main drawback, however, is that how the creature looks around and moves is based on the mouth. For the above, that just means that the the "hands" will turn in a new direction before the rest of the body moves in that direction. However, placing mouth pieces on limbs has the potential for causing more serious flaws in animations, such as this one:
Cryptoclidus
Xenopologist wrote:One way to make the animation problems involved less grievous is to shrink an already small hand part (I like to use the default exoskeleton arm hand for this) to minimum size and hide it in the last joint of the arm with clever rotation, then place the mouth part on the limb. Having another mouth in a more traditional area helps too.
Everything looks normal in a static image, but take it for a test drive and the head totally messes up. This is because the mouth is on a limb, which causes the limb to readjusted in order for the mouth to properly point in the direction the creature is going.
Ok, so I thought I could share a bit of my techniques.
So, here's the first thing you should know when making creatures of any kind:
When you're making the base shape of your next creature (legs, arms, spine and head) and you made the spine aligned too much while facing it up like this:
It will animate pretty bad making weird animations with it's head, to fix that you can:
-Move the spine and make it curved
-You can experiment where it's mouth will be, and that means your creature will move differently with it's mouth being placed on a different place than provided.
Next thing you will want to do is add your desired hands and feet. Oh, and I highly recommend using "Gobsterclaw" mouth while making outfitted creatures because it is one of the less complex and if you are to make a mask, it will be less visible.
If you want to stay in the creature editor and put more details, you can use eye details and base ones, weapons make good shapes sometimes too, but I don't recommend overusing weapons because most are complex.
I noticed that ear details can be used as very good details if you rotate them so they face inward and use the arrow thingy to deform them.
Coloring creatures When you are coloring your creature there are two tabs to keep in mind. There are "Complete Styles" and "Partial Styles"
-Complete stiles are used to color your creature just by just picking the one you like and by clicking it to make your creature fully painted, with a chance of it being just the way you don't want it to look like.
-Partial styles are for more detailed precise and custom coloring. Use these to fully color with 3 layers to chose styles and color for each one. Using these your creature will have less chance of looking dull. There are Base, Coat and Detail styles to chose.
Base stile is how your creature will be painted on the first layer, whom you will cover with other two if necessary. The coat style is how the stomach or back of your creature will be painted depending on the style you have chosen.
And finally the details are to paint mostly legs and arms again depending on the style.
All of these will also help you paint some of certain parts of your creature's details precisely.
When you are done, you can chose to finish your work there or to move on and outfit what you started.
Outfitting
-How to kill complexity:
First and most important thing to do when you are outfitting your creature is to make sure our fellow complexity meter will not beat you in your quest of outfitting creatures, so to kill complexity (not really) there is just one thing to keep in mind. Make your creatures very simple.
Because when you enter an outfitter it will extend your complexity meter, but just a bit. So keep your complexity meter max. about middle if you want to create very complex outfits.
-Fixing parts:
I find this technique the most fun and almost important as making sure the complexity meter is where it should be.
So fixing parts is basically making them look as they were one and its pretty fun to do. You must keep one thing in mind and that's not spamming the same part over and over again. It will look lame and everybody will lose interest in most of the situations. So avoid using same parts if not necessary.
Here is an example:
1.)
I am finally making the boot tutorial, I apologize for all the delay as well.
So what will I be learning you in this tutorial is basically how to create boots in a few ways, and I will be giving you some tips and things that may help out.
First thing to say, there are two basic ways how to make custom boots. The key to both lies in the feet of your creature. And as I said in the previous tutorial of mine, you might wanna put the feet if you want the creature to animate, if not I strongly suggest you use the simplest template/creature you can make or use. Also I suggest using very simple feet without any fingers. Because it will be covered.
So here are the basic ways I use to create boots including some tips.
*never worry about the number of the parts used on the boots
*try to make it flat on the bottom side unless you make some custom ones like spiky for example
*try to make as different from the other shoes/boots you made or seen as you can, and sometimes it will pay off
*when making round feet make em as symmetrical as you can in more than one axis.
*try to put it to the right size, ps DON'T oversize, as for making them small it looks cool in some cases...
*When making boots, do the same as I told bellow, just add something round on the top, for example snokelicious or add parts on the both sides, shoulder and chest have most easy to use parts in this case
The two basic ways:
First: Make the feet as upright as you can. And then use a part as long as you can, to imitate the foot and then detail it and try to make all the parts look as one. Here is in depth explain how to at a custom example:
Second: Make feet already pointed forward to skip these steps, and then just add details on it. But I personally find the first way much better for animation. What I think is, when your creature walks it will reveal bare foot, and that is kinda disturbing.
So I really hope this helps, and YOU can make better boots now! :]
Okay here they are. They are creature creator oriented, and provide a good amount of knowledge to jumpstart a new creator's potential.
Okay, first lessson is on creative part usage. Other players really like it when you use parts in ways they were never intended for. For instance, Parkaboy would sometimes use nose parts to make segmented bodies for arthropod-like creatures. Also, never add weapon parts just for the sake of being strong and good at fighting. If you do decide to use weapon parts, then play around with them to make them look cool. Try all of the arrow combinations, and when you see something you like, then add it. But don't just slap it on. Experiment with different places and angles. To give you greater control over placement, use the tab button. This will give you advanced rotating power in all directions so you can get a part exactly the way you want it without struggling with the stupid ball. Here's a creation that has weapon parts used in a creative manner. The barbs on the end of it's trunk are actually that frilled slasher thing, just tweaked the right way.
It also has two pairs of eyes, which really give it an alien feel. The tube on it's legs are also a great pice to work with, since there is so much you can use them for. I used them as alien breathing devices.
To cut down on complexity, then you can press a and drag a part to turn on asymmetry, which reduces complexity if you take off one of the parts. Asymmetry can also give your creature a cool pose, or if your creature has a ertain claw just on one side, then you can give it one small hand, and one big clawwed hand.
Another vital step in making an awesome creature is limb use. Never, EVER, just place a limb on a creature with no manipulation. And ALWAYS change the feet. A unique foot is a perfect way to really tie the creature together and give it an overall theme. But more on that later. First off is limbs, which can be manipulated a million different ways. This next creature has fills on it's back that are actually limb with no hands and feet. It also employs creative weapon use with the horns as a sort of frill type thing. I also moved the leg spheres around to give it a unique theme. You can use limbs to make tails, external organs, or basically anything. If you want to make your creature have hands, don't just slap them on the limbs. Pick your hands carefully and place them with care. Another neat trick that can make your limbs look cool and long is the control button, or apple if you have a Mac. But first you have to use the alt button. Fist, place your cursor on one of those limb shperes I was talking about and press alt. This will copy it and all of the other shperes out from it. Then temporarily place that part on the body. Then, while holding control, drag the new limb onto any limb shpere on the original limb to make a branched effect, or to make a ton of joints to make a coiled snake. Finally, if you have creepy and cute, then you most likely have exo-limbs. Exo-limbs can make great bony heads that give a killer insect feel. From that you can add eyes, pinchers and some other creative parts and you have an epic insectiod head. Here's one that I made with a head like I described:
This hopefully covers most of the creature creator in's and out's. I haven't covered paint yet, but that'll be in the next lesson. If you have any questions what-so-ever, then please do not hesitate to ask. Also, if other creators have something to add, then I welcome it greatly. And on a final note, if you run out of DNA (not complexity) when your about to finish a great creation, press control,shift,c at the same time and then type in the word adddna, and that will give you some more DNA to work with.
Painting is an important way to make other creators look twice at your creations and draw them in. If you don't even bother painting, then I can assure you that nobody will look at that creation. Ever. So for paintiung creatures, first you want to come up with a theme. If your making a snowy creature, then you wouldn't paint it orange. You'd give it a white-ish grey coat. So you want the colors to fit the creature. And try not to use the preset paints by Maxis, because there are thousands of other creatures out there with that exact same paint because other creators are too lazy too come up with their own. So first off start with the base coat. This will give your creature a texture, and a color. To change the color to one you want, you can either click the preset color choices on the top or you can put your cursor on the color you want and click and hold to get advanced shades. These different shades can give your creature a killer alien color that will make other creators look twice. As for the texture, try to choose one that fits your creature's theme the best, while also looking good on the creature. Once you have a good base, you can move onto coats and details. Coats give your creature a cool pattern, but don't choose something that doesn't go along well with the base. As for details, a lot of the details offered are shading, which can be great if the color of them is similar to the base color. But try not to say, make a creature with a green base, get a totally unfitting orange shading. Try to make the colors flow together so it brings the creature to life. I'm not saying that all thhe colors have to be similar either. Some creations might have to have a relatively dull base, with a really vibrant coat. Just really try to make sure that you don't go with the original colors of the coat, base and details and come up with your own. Here's a creation that I made that has two colors that are almost complementary, but still go together well.
And I didn't even use the detail. I only used the base and the coat, which is perfectly okay, just make it look natural. And if there is something strange in the creature or its paint, give it a description explaining something about the creation. Like for the one above, I described it as a slow-moving swamp creature that wards off predators with its bright colors because its skin is highly toxic. And descriptions also apply with other creations, like buildings and vehicle. Describe it. Give it a back story that will interest creators and make them want to look at more of your stuff because they want to know more. And you also want to tag your creations. This will make them more likely to show up when another creator searches for something. So a few basic things that you should include in your tags are your name, the colors of the creation, what it's made out of it it's a building or vehicle, label if it is themed or tied to a certain creature or planet, and most of all, tag it with anything that you can think of that your creation really shows off. For instance, if your creation lives in trees, tag it with stuff like tree, nest, leaf, branch, etc.
So now that you know that ins and outs of the creature creator, I want you to put all of your new found knowledge and skill to make a whole new creature using some of the techniques I described in the past two lessons, share it, and post a picture of it here on this thread. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. If you don't know how to post a picture, then I will explain it to you if you ask me. Hope this helps.
Making creatures is pretty easy, but try to make that creature sit upon a mount!
The first thing you should do to make a "Rider" is to manipulate the spine. Make sure to curve the spine so that it gives off an "animal" look.
You should always make the mount first! Place legs, (Or arms) along the spine of the mount. Do not put any details on the mount untill the rider is finished! When making the face of the mount, try to put a "Globstarclaw" mouth under a limb.
On this example, a "Callypidgeon" Leg segment is placed over the mount's mouth. (Example Below)
After finishing the "base" of the mount, use the ctrl key to seperate a "Slackwrist" arm. Place the arm segment on top of the creature's back.
Make sure the arm is facing upward. This arm segment combines the rider and the mount. Next, use other arms to create the body of the rider. Use the ctrl key to combine and seperate the imbs that make up the rider. Make sure to keep the rider's body simple. The body of the rider is completely made up of limbs, so making these mounts usually fills up the complexity meter. The body of the rider should be made up of Slackwrist limb segments, that are shrunk up to make the rider look smaller than the mount, (Roll over a limb segment and use the arrow keys to size the limb). Add segments to the upward facing slackwrist to create the body of the rider. Then add the arms and legs, which should be made of the same material as the rider's body. Add a single limb segment to the top of the rider, to make the head. Add eyes to the rider.
To complete the rider and the mount, add details in the creature editor, before outfitting the creation.
knurldowns and other detail parts are great add-ons.
Here are some examples:
This message was edited 36 times. Last update was at 09/04/2011 12:39:06
what the why is my name REGAMER23 when it supposed to be RogueGamer23? can some one explain.
Well, if you have an undeleted alt, you have to sign in like this- [<email adress>:RogueGamer23], or else it might sign you in as your alt. (You don't type the "[ ]" or the "<>". And obviously the "email adress" means your email adress.) That might fix your problem.
Hi. I'm a teenaged South African / Swede-to-be. A few things about me: I have a science obsession. I write and worldbuild in the realm of speculative fiction. I am highly liberal. I am an Agnostic Panentheist. I am a bi-curious homosexual. (Any problem with the last three is your own, thank you very much.) I am probably still alive. Left this place a long time ago. I can now be found here and here. I am now known as "Valdin", "TemporalV01D" and "SPACE_LEMON" because "DudeMan95" is a turdly username. DudeMan95 also had bad spelling and an occasional douchy attitude. My apologies. That is all. Enjoy the rest of your existence.
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. If you haven't already figured it out, almost everybody puts Knurldowns in those places when they use this technique.
why is my name REGAMER23 when it supposed to be RogueGamer23? can some one explain.
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