Flora Editor



Note, the following information is out of date,

This did not make it into the release version of Spore nor has it been included in the creepy and cute expansion

The plant editor was shown, though not extensively, at E3. It has three buttons on the top: test, texture, and parts.

Test
Since plants do not move, the purpose of the test part is not clear. It may show the flora swaying in the wind, it may show different variatons of the flora that a scipt calculates, or even how herbivores react to it. The button may even be disabled for this particular editor. The plant editor remains coded in the final game and can be accessed by changing the target parameter for the game executable.

Parts
The parts subsection was the only one shown in E3. It has five menus: trunks, branches, leaves, fruit (and/or nuts), and flowers.

Fruit
Fruit is a prime foodsource for herbivore-type creatures. There have not been any demonstrations of fruit so far, but they have been shown in '06 GDC prototyping slides.

Texture
The texture editor may work similiarly to the editor for creatures; however, it may not have quite as many overlays.

History
The Plant Editor has most likely been in spore since 2005 but the variety of plants in Spore has been very limited. Leafy Trees were seen in the video with the Willosaur but after the only flora that was commonly seen was tree ferns until July 10th when new screenshots and a new video was shown. The Plant editor has been confirmed for possible release in an expansion pack.

Current Game
The Flora Editor can be started through "sporeApp.exe -state:FloraEditor". It has 4 part categories: trunks, leaves, details, and fruits. Various bugs exist in the editor though, such as texture dissapearing in Paint Mode, invisible parts, crashing for unknown reasons, and not being able to save the creation. Having at least(or only) the first fruit part on the plant usually solves the last bug. Also, one part in the "Trunks" secition (the only part in the Plant Editor that, like in other editors, rotates when it is moused over), will always crash the game when one attempts to drag it in. Creations that are saved are pollinated throughout Spore as normal. The "Share" button is availible when viewing it in the Sporepedia, but it always displays a uploading error message when clicked. Creations cannot be re-edited via the Sporepedia or in-editor Sporepedia, as the edit button is not available. However, they can still be edited by dragging the plant's PNG image from the "My Spore Creations/Plants" folder into any editor. An in-depth walkthrough on how to access the Flora Editor can be found at Sporedum: Flora Editor.