Creature Creator



The creature editor is a popular feature in Spore that allows players to create and modify creatures. Creatures consist of a malleable body with an underlying spine, which can be sculpted in a variety of ways. Any of 228 functional parts can then be added onto the body, and be reshaped themselves.

In an article on GameSpy, Will Wright has this to say about the creature Editor:

''"To build the creatures, you are starting out with parts. We have seven part categories -- feet, mouth, weapons… Each category has four columns of parts, and each column has eight or nine choices. As your brain level increases, you unlock more columns. All in all we have about 400 creature parts. Each of these parts also has morphs." ''

Interface
The interface of the Creature Editor is organized into three portions:
 * 1) Build Mode, where the creature is sculpted and functional parts can be attached
 * 2) Paint Mode, where the creature is colored and textured by the computer according to the player's choices
 * 3) Test Drive, where the creature's in-game animations can be previewed

Status Bars
In the current version of the editor, the various statistics of the creature are displayed as icons on the right side of the screen with numbers indicating the skill in that field.

Creature Parts
To the left of the Editing screen are the seven palettes (categories) containing 228 functional parts that can be attached to a creature. Each palette contains up to four columns with up to ten parts in each.

Creature Stage
In the Creature Stage, parts are unlocked by rummaging through bone piles, extincting species, or befriending them.

Other GUI Elements
The editing interface also includes, in the bottom left, an indicator of the amount of evolutionary credits (DNA points) currently available to the player for use in creature editing. All creature parts have an associated cost, which reflects their efficiency and effect on the creature's rating. The further to the right a creature part appears in the list that opens on clicking a category button, the more expensive it is to buy.

Lastly, in the bottom right we can see the buttons for Undo, Redo and Exit, and the name of the creature in the top right, next to the ranking.

Also, there is a button for having symmetric parts on or off. Where this button is located is currently unknown. However, such a feature has not appeared in the Creature Creator, so it was most likely scrapped, but there is an exploit and a mod to make asymmetrical creatures. Since Patch 5, however, asymetrical parts are possible by holding down "a".

Keyboard Control

 * Holding down ALT/Option while dragging a part will copy it.
 * Roll over any part and hold down the I key to display part statistics (Patch 1.02 and higher).
 * Holding down CTRL will let you delete, move, or attach a node in a limb.
 * Holding the TAB key while selecting a part will display more rotation rings to better position it.
 * Holding the A key will allow the placement of asymmetrical parts (Patch 1.05 and higher).
 * Holding CTRL and F and clicking will flip an asymmetrical part (e.g. right hand becomes left hand)

Texturing
The texturing tool is an integral part of the creature editor and operates on the simple premise of selecting a color and texture, which the computer will then procedurally apply to the creature. In addition to the basic texture, three levels of overlay are available for things such as body markings, stripes, and so on.

Testing
The Testing area is a small arena in which the edited creature is brought to life. Here the player can preview animations for Roar (which also demonstrates the sound the creature will make), Attack, Play and React. The new testing area contains cartoon-like trees and grasses.

The creature will move and react differently depending on how it was created.

Robots/Robotic Parts
This post mentions that Will Wright would like to have robotic parts in the creature editor after attaining the UFO, possibly as a result of 'research' in the game.

There is also a species of bionic creatures called the Grox, which have robotic parts. However, these parts are impossible to put on normally, and creatures using them cannot be saved, except with two hacking programs, T-search and SporeEditor Hack V2 By RamonZ. In the space clothing editor, metallic, robotic looking parts can be placed on the creature, although those parts are only clothing for decoration only.

Spore Mech Parts Pack
Recently,as part of a partnership with Dr. Pepper and Electronic Arts, players can enter a code from a bottle or cup to get 14 new robot parts for the creature creator. The promotion will end on December 31,2010. This promotion has caused heated "rioting" and demands from Spore players outside of the US (as Dr. Pepper is prominent in the US, and the rules of the promotion state you must be a US citizen to be eligible) requesting a patch that allows the "Sporebot" parts to be available for everyone.



Example creatures

 * ''See also category:creature images.

Here are a few examples of creatures that have been made in the editor, showing the incredible range of styles that are available to the player.

Part Packs
It has been confirmed that there will be new creature parts in post-release Add-ons. One has been released so far, named Creepy and Cute. Contrary to the name, however, it has three themes: Cute, goofy,and Creepy. There was speculation that the Galactic Adventures would have new parts, however, it is now known that the expansion has no new Creature Editor parts, but does have a new Captain Outfitter with all the Outfitter clothes and 32 new Captain Parts. However, the Creature Editor does have a new paint option for creatures that will be turned into Captains. This paint job is a parody of the Red Shirt from Star Trek.

History
The creature editor impressed fans so much that many petitions began to spring up, including this one from Petition Online. The concept of releasing a module from a game to serve as its demo, sometimes months ahead of its release, is not unknown. Peter Molyneux's   The Movies' Starmaker and Wright's own The Sims 2's Body Shop modules are both example of such a demo release.


 * A demo was announced in the interview with ign shortly after the start of E3 07.


 * On 17th of June 2008 the creature creator was released at around $10.99. A demo version is available from spore.com, but it only contains around 25% of the parts from the full version. The creatures made with the pre-release module can later be downloaded into the full game.

Trivia and Goofs

 * In the movie Shorts, the Spore Creature Editor Test Drive Mode was shown on a TV Screen while a boy and girl were having a long staring contest. This is inaccurate, however, as Spore is shown being played on a Playstation 3.