Nobody's Home

yes i’m an evil left-wing sheeple 

[fallout-lou-begas]

wordle in 1: joyless. it is statistically inevitable that your go-to starting word will be the solution one day, and this is no more of an accomplishment than running a random number generator once a day until it gives you "1"

wordle in 2: misleading. you may think that this is the highest achievement, but it suffers from the same disappointment of a lucky guess that wordle in 1 causes. your second guess is a strategic choice, but ending the game this early just isn't interesting

wordle in 3: the peak. your starting word gave you some information and then your second guess contextualized that information into a solvable position. your sharp intuition and restraint is what truly separates you as above average.

wordle in 4: statistically average, par for the course, the baseline against which all other wordles are compared.

wordle in 5: you're sweating. you made a mistake at some point, or your starting word was effectively useless, and it took an extra guess above average to close things out. wordle in 5 comes as a relief.

wordle in 6: crushing humiliation. you have technically succeeded but at what cost. your thirty square grid will stare back at you like barrels of a firing squad. a failure in all but name.

wordle failure: never your fault. what kind of stupid word even was that like come on

[nipuni]

Hardy and Miller are on the case! across different police divisions 🚓

[sheherlockholmes]

people will claim to be filled with whimsy and joy for life but then hate musicals……. the vile tongue of man will never cease lying

[sheherlockholmes]

[ofdarklands]

hello?

[rongzhi]

Wuling vans

English added by me :)

[plasticfangtastic]

my dream car

[feldfrog]

Imagine being one of the parents for the kids in the Magic School Bus class. Getting those field trip permission slips home every single night.

Like what, another one? Doesn’t she teach? This just says Inside a Dog

[asimovsideburns]

Ms Frizzle sending you one (1) permission slip at the beginning of the year to cover all the field trips and you’re like huh that’s a little unusual but I guess it’s efficient at least and then you open it and it’s written like This

[drtrinitysantos]

sdxfcgvzdxfcgvhzdxfcgvhbjnkmlcgvhbjnk science

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

#the reason that lab safety regulations are the way they are is because literally all chemists are like this #as in 100% of them #no exceptions (via @prokopetz)

[dogpuppy]

[pankendev]

the "Turn everyone into rodents now" act, as well as its proponents, have been ratified

[translatingpostsinfrench]

poêlefuckdev

la loi "Transformer tout le monde en rongeur maintenant", ainsi que ses partisans, ont été ratifiés

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

[feldfrog]

If a fantasy world has an ancient tree of wisdom, that means it must also have young trees that are dumb as shit. Just giving terrible advice like, "the evil wizard is kinda hot"'

[melodytoninn2004]

[sarazanmai]

[hamletthedane]

I have been banned from continuing to discuss the existence of the French Revolution in the Bridgerton universe at family dinners

[hamletthedane]

^ I stand by this.

( @frodo-of-the-nine-fingers I’m so sorry)

[beardedmrbean]

[unpeeled-human]

cosmo, wanda, i want you to spawn a piece of radioactive plutonium in that person's stomach

[unpeeled-human]

cosmo. wanda. enough with the semantics

[localxenospores]

If you're a longtime Spore enjoyer like myself, I'm sure you've seen these videos or others like them, where invisible limbs (either with vanilla glitches or from the Dark Injection mod) are utilized to make creatures that float above the ground, giving them the illusion that they're flying (or swimming).

But the most well-known, "tried and true" method has always felt a bit...

... janky.

This is achieved by attaching a single invisible limb to the front of the creature, which causes it to walk by hopping on that invisible leg. The single-legged walk cycle gives the appearance that the creature is flapping itself up and down, either flying with its wings or swimming by propelling its tail. The length and angle of the leg changes the stride, and in turn changes the speed of the "flight".

However, I'm not satisfied with my dragon being so floppy. It might work fine for some creatures, but the exaggerated animation is simply too exaggerated for my tastes.

So I've done some experimenting. The method I came up with a couple years ago isn't too different, but it has three feet instead of one.

This smoother motion is definitely an improvement, and it's what I use for most of my floaty creatures. Yet, I still wasn't satisfied with this dragon's flight. The tail still feels a bit too floppy, and it looks like it's leading with its chest rather than flying with its wings, as if it's being dragged along by something.

This design proved to be a winner! The wings look more like they're providing powered flight, and the floppiness level of the rear is more appropriate. The legs are a bit cumbersome, but since they're invisible limbs, they won't render when the creature is encountered in-game.

But as I was composing this post, I thought to myself...

can I make the wings truly flap?

The answer is yes, it can be done!

With another pair of invisible legs attached at the elbow joint of the wings, each with three feet, this dragon has truly taken flight! It certainly isn't perfect, but considering the capabilities and limits of Spore, I'd say it's pretty damn good.

The limb that creates the wing, the one which these new invisible legs are attached to, isn't just cosmetic--it's a fully functional wing limb from the Unshackled mod (check out my review of the mod here!). The wing limb provides the creature with the glide ability, complete with animation. Miraculously, even with these invisible legs attached, the wing limb animates exactly as it should. I really did not expect that.

So there you have it: a dragon in Spore that is fully capable of flight, both in animation and ability.

[titleknown]

...I will say, it's deeply fascinating that the Spore community has basically re-created the sort of techniques practical effects folks would use for puppetry with wire removal/green-screen due to the limitations of their medium.