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Creature Creator is a Featured Article
"Creature Creator" has been featured, meaning it was deemed an article of interest by the Community.
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“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.”
The Creature Creator (known as Creature Editor before it was changed in the final game) is a type of creature creator appeared in Spore series 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.
History[]
The Creature Creator 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.
Editing[]
Interface[]
The interface of the Creature Creator is organized into three portions:
Build Mode[]
Where the creature is sculpted and functional parts can be attached. This mode is where parts can be changed, and the spine can be altered. It shows the creature in its base colour, without patterns or part colours.
Paint Mode[]
The Paint Mode is an integral part of the Creature Creator 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 Base, Coat, and Detail.
Test Drive[]
The Testing Drive is a small arena in which the created creature is brought to life. Here the player can preview animations example of movement, action, etc. The player can also change background, add babies, screenshot, and record the creature.
Status Bars[]

The stats of a creature
In the current version of the creator, 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 skeletons, and killing or befriending alphas.
Name | Description | Icon |
---|---|---|
Mouths | Determines the creature's diet (herbivore, carnivore or omnivore) as well as its ability to sing and bite. Every creature must have a mouth; creatures without mouths cannot be saved. | ![]() |
Sensory Organs | Eyes, ears, noses, and other organs - only eyes provide sight, the rest are purely cosmetic. | ![]() |
Limbs | Contains a selection of differently-shaped arms and legs. | ![]() |
Hands | Contains a variety of graspers and manipulators that contribute to a creature's striking and posing ability, and give it the graspers ability. | ![]() |
Feet | Determines a creature's speed, dance and charge stats. | ![]() |
Weapon | Weapon parts, such as spikes and horns. They all provide offensive abilities, such as charging or spitting. | ![]() |
Details | Feathers, leaves, wings etc that do not fall into any of the other categories. | ![]() |
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 creating. 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 and the higher level ability it offers (in most cases).
Lastly, in the bottom right there are buttons for Undo, Redo and Exit, and the name of the creature in the top right, next to the ranking.
Keyboard Control[]
- Holding down ALT key, then pressing the part, and holding it will duplicate the selected part.
- Rolling over any part and hold down the I key will display part statistics (available in Patch 1.02 and higher).
- Holding down CTRL and dragging with a mouse lets to detach or attach a node in a limb. (NOTE: To detach/delete a section of limb, drag away the area between the joints -- not the joint ball itself).
- 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).
- Pressing B will open the Sporepedia.
Add-ons[]
Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack[]
Spore Creepy & Cute was the first and only parts pack released worldwide. It adds content to the Creature Creator including paints, parts and backgrounds. Contrary to the name, however, it has three themes: Cute, Goofy, and Creepy.
Spore Bot Parts Pack[]
Between January 5, 2010 and December 31, 2010, as part of a partnership with Dr. Pepper and Electronic Arts, players could enter a code from a bottle or cup to get 14 new robot parts for the Creature Creator. This promotion was only available in the USA, and as it has since ended, there is no official way of acquiring this parts pack.
Barrakuda mentioned that Will Wright would have liked to have robotic parts in the Creature Creator after advancing to the Space Stage, possibly as a result of research in the game.[1]
Trivia[]
- In the movie Shorts, the Spore Creature Editor Test Drive Mode is shown on a TV Screen while a boy and girl are having a long staring contest. Spore is shown being played on a Playstation 3, despite the fact it was never released on that platform.
- In Test Drive, double-clicking or double-tapping one of the arrow keys will make your creature go slightly faster. This will also happen if the mouse or arrow keys are held before the test drive loads.
Glitches[]
- A glitch that causes limbs to become invisible. The steps for doing this glitch are shown here.
- There is a tail glitch. The steps for the glitch are shown here.
Gallery[]
Creature editor's development[]
Example creatures[]
- category:creature images]]
Here are a few examples of creatures that have been made in the creator, showing the incredible range of styles that are available to the player.
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See also[]
External links[]
References[]
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