#spore maxis creation analysis

[randomsporefacts]

every npc cell in the february 19 proto for some reason is color coded. all the herbivores are green (except for stabbella for some reason), and all the carnivores and omnivores are red/orange

that also leads to ridiculous situations where pinky literally isnt pink and goldy literally isnt gold

earlier concepts and screenshots had them be more varied with colors that mostly match final

2007 cell screenshots as an example

later in 2008 still seemed to have these changes in place but with more final-looking cells. theyve loosened up with the color restrictions a bit though, you can see megamouth was black

also its funny that ducky looks basically identical to both paa and junior. why did they do this it even looks completely different from these guys in that concept art

and theres potentially a FOURTH guy that looks identical to these in that first 2008 ign screenshot. you see that purple one? that wasnt in the proto at all!!! was. was that actually just ducky.

[randomsporefacts]

happy 3rd anniversary to this blog!!! heres early tribal screenshots from spore: the evolution

this is obviously the gdc 2005 tech demo, but it seems to be an early version of even that? all the creatures here look rather strange

compare to this screenshot. the environment seems to be the same as this though, and the rest of the graphics!

particularly, the hoppers match the models found in the feb 19 build (HerdSmall.rw4 from ArenasMisc.package, shown here) and retail (for the black cloud). so turns out this model directly was from 2005!

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theres this screenshot that seems to be from around the same point as the feb 19 build. i recognize these debug displays immediately, and the window title that says StopCurrentCinematic here

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theres also these screenshots from earlier builds. i dont even recognize the top right one here

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another page. must be a build from 2007

curiously it actually has fensters (which is the name given to evolved screebles in the comic book creator), so they still were in the game as of that point. theres also tex, and the tribe here consists of singtwees. plus theres a few more harder to identify creatures

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more early tribal screenshots. this epic here has weird missing legs

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more of that unknown build

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and more 2005 screenshots, with underwater tribes. and more evidence that aquatic was not a stage!!

(edit: here it is)

[randomsporefacts]

Leggy is an unusual cell from the february 19 build, found in PreBaked.package\cell_editorModel~. it has no .pollen_metadata file (and thus no asset id), its png has no name, and it obviously doesnt show in the sporepedia

note that this png, if you use it, wont show in the sporepedia in retail either because of not having a name

i think you can only really view it in the anim viewer normally, without possibly dragging and dropping it which would make it into a new creation

looking at the xml data in the png, its modeltype is indeed cell and it has usual cell paints, but its actual parts are rather strange

for example, it has 6 copies of ce_vertebra... which is a creature part! normally cells have cl_vertebra

it also has ce_cell_movement_flagella_03, ce_cell_mouth_jaw_04, ce_cell_sense_eye_04, ce_cell_movement_cilia_04, which are all actually early creature parts! as you can tell by the ce_ prefix

the reason its named leggy is for the limb parts of course, it has limb_uberlimb_forearmnew. it also has some copies of ce_grasper_null, which i assume are just automatically placed on limbs with no feet or graspers

so. as you can see. despite being a cell with cell paints, every single part that it has is actually a creature part. you can take the xml and edit it to have a creature model type, then drop it into retail with some property edits i covered before

the eyes are rotated as the model was between feb 19 and final, but otherwise it seems to function fine. manually rotating the eyes can fix them

the way the eyes were positioned to face directly vertically DOES suggest it was made in the cell editor, as opposed to it being an early creature??

anyway it saves as a perfectly valid creature. so its like. a creature built in the cell editor? somehow?

not only that but its even a perfectly valid early creature, even though i saved it in the normal creature editor!!!

so i also learnt that saving in the early creature editor isnt required as long as the creature fits other parameters that make it an early creature. neat!

also the feb 19 build's CellGame.package has cell_leggy.cell, where its name is defined also. sporemodder fx doesnt parse the cell file though. this was removed in final along with leggy itself

[randomsporefacts]

full list of maxis creatures that arent early creatures (so they dont appeaer in the sporepedia in the early creature editor out of the main menu), but have early creature parts

for reference these are the actual early creatures

(i found the full list of creatures with early creature parts through searching for hashes in AssembledContent)

first is doofnit, which has mostly early creature parts, but with swillson and palmwalker. this sort of thing is most likely a creature actually made during a playthrough in creature stage and then assembled

dragon is the same deal

eyegor is interesting because it definitely looks like an early creature at a first glance, but! its mouth is gobsterclaw, not jaw!

froggert has the eyes

knot the grawx also looks like an early creature but has gobsterclaw

(its worth noting it didnt even have a mouth in feb 19, so they had to add it later in development and so it couldnt have been an early creature either way. i dunno if it counted as an early creature in feb 19 though, its not in the sporepedia)

heres the first odd one. jayel also looks like an early creature, and it only has early creature parts, so what makes it not count?

looking at this post for parameters of early creatures, and at jayel's summary file in Spore_Content.package, it seems to merely just exceed the required cost for an early creature (which caps at 145; the cost here is "parameter float cost 160.0"). so thats probably it

konk also doesnt seem to have anything wrong with it, has jaw and everything. looking at the summary file, the cost is also 160.0, so its excluded from the same reason as jayel

leeroy kept the jaws and stalk eyes from a cell

lumptilor once again only has early creature parts. the culprit is 150.0 cost, literally 5 more dna than is allowed

mini-tri same thing, cost 150.0

monwerkdee is pretty clearly edited from werkin sondee so its kept the eyes and spikes. this is like the most blatant example of a creature made during a creature stage playthrough here

handwalker just has the cilia. curiously its one of the creatures internally prefixed with singer_, which i wouldnt have expected to be made during a playthrough like that?

sqibble has flagella

tailumberai has spikes and flagella

tym flee the giant eyeball

and finally zunghul, this rather complicated looking creature youd def expect to be made in the creature editor from the start, has some flagella

[randomsporefacts]

render from spore: the evolution featuring a creature through the stages of evolution

specifically it features dwibble, and doweeblie. this actually connects these creatures together!

the above two pngs are from retail, but they look pretty similar in feb 19 too. both were white/grey, and are now green in retail

its not present in that render, but its also very possible dweebeeble, who went through the same color changes and has a lot of the same parts, is related to these two as well

[randomsporefacts]

creatures found in spore: the evolution on page 8

these are the ones i could identify:

matches specifcally feb 19 Nekky, though with a different paint

matches Beeoh, both feb 19 and final

this one is not in retail, but is found in comic cook creator as quilltail, with modified morph handles. it was also found in 2006 creature renders, where it actually matches the cbc version more

this one seems to match Armox from feb 19, which in final has been changed and renamed to Bingfish (whose name in AssembledContent was Armox also)

matches Quaddy, once again from feb 19 more than retail

matches Thistles also from feb 19

this one matches koob from cbc, which also was in 2006 renders. they did modify it a good amount, seems to have replaced the eyes on the back for example

also absolutely 0 match with koob in feb 19 and retail lol

matches feb 19 Eggy

my best guess here is Proobix but its hard to tell. by the way absolutely incredible creature

matches feb 19 Squirt

matches feb 19 Puddemup

matches Grebappel

and i cant quite place these three

[randomsporefacts]

Eyeguy is a weird cell present in Spore_Content.package

where its just found in cell_editorModel~

its very weird all around: - it consists of a mere 4 vertebrae (shortest cell by far; normally cells have 6, and a lot of maxis cells have 5) - every part is floating detached around it in a circle, aside from the flagella part on the tip. all of the other parts seem to be attached to some kind of center point of the frontmost vertebra, and thus dont get affected by it animating and moving around its vertebrae - its very asymmetric, and its that kind of pre-patch asymmetry that breaks if you click on any part and makes a mirror part - most parts are modified with otherwise completely unused morph handles that most cell parts have - it also just has no mouth - im pretty sure the complexity meter is completely full, yet has no complexity maxed icon in the sporepedia - just one of the flagella parts is placed really low vertically for some reason

theres other remarkable things about it to note in Spore_Content.package

unlike the other (used) cells here, its missing a .summary file. which stores a bunch of parameters i dont understand. this is the summary file for Maa

the more interesting (and readable) info is stored in the pollen metadata file. its asset id is 320 (which sorts it accordingly alphabetically, between Maa (internal name Eggmom) and Fohlees)

you dont actually see this information because the cell is not in the sporepedia somehow (im not sure how the game hides all of the grox creations & eyeguy & the PaintSwatch cell from the sporepedia), but its author name locale is Maxis, name locale is Eyeguy, and description is empty (as it is for all other maxis creations besides i think just adventures)

Eyeguy has unused names in other languages too! here they are from a spreadsheet i have

in the png metadata, it was compiled on, i think, June 29, 2008 7:36:43 (same day as all the other maxis creature cells; latest post on png metadata research). you can already see in the first image that its still called Eyeguy in the png metadata, and the author is sporebuild

now theres some other weirdness that points to eyeguy potentially being used at some point. it has a cell file in Spore_Game.package\animations~\cell_eyeGuy.cell, as well as str_eyeGuy.structure in the same folder

the structure file is much shorter, and doesnt have much to note, but its about the smae as the file for something like Maa, aside from onDeath being defined instead of 0x00000000 (which is what animations~ actually is)

now im going to compare the cell file to Maa as well

- unlike maa, it has no defined name in the cell file, nor a locale name defined (for Maa its the same locale hash as the actual cell name) - cellType and density is set to none instead of solid - break has something defined instead of 0x00000000, unlike maa - loot is also defined! its just a hash, as opposed to loot_eggmom - friend group is 0, as opposed to maa's 51. the 0 friendgroup is used for grubby, minno, and pokey, as well as a million other .cell files (as the default i guess); 51 is used for maa, paa, junior, and junior eggs - wont attack player is set to false, but its false on maa too (which is literally a herbivore) so im not sure what thats about - size is 0.4, as opposed to maa's 0.3 - food value is 10, as opposed to maa's 6, though im not sure how much this is used - the ai type is straight instead of eater.?? theres a bunch of other values that are zeroed out, which suggests it would mostly have stood there without doing anything. its speed is set to 1 on both, and awareness radius is much higher than on maa - the ai_hard and ai_easy type is set to none instead of eater, and with all values zeroed out, so it looks like on all difficulties other than medium it just wouldnt have done anything

the loot is used for a few other unused cells

i dont know what it means

the "cell" it defines actually seems to be a bunch of ..,

unused plant food pellets, specifically. with an effect that i think is used for the plants at the start of cell stage

anyway heres a side view of the gmdl file from blender, with the weirdly vertically misplaced flagellum part

its also sorted into 3 separate objects totally arbitrarily? the vertically misplaced flagellum is part of the first object with most of the parts

in AssembledContent its also a bit weird, as its .cll file actually has a name value (where its named Eyeguy), unlike most other creations. the xml format verison is also 15, as opposed to 16 on used cells. however these traits are actually shared with a lot of other creations (including PaintSwatch), some totally normal and used in final, so this actually isnt THAT notable. i will cover this in more detail at some later point

[randomsporefacts]

you can use the "state celleditor" cheat in the feb 19 build to access the hidden cell parts. otherwise loading into the cell editor only has the normal cell parts, even when accessed from the ctrl+alt+w menu

crucially, unlike accessing it through a launch option in retail, the save button is there; if you then make a cell and then save without exiting (you can create new cells from that point as long as you dont exit the editor), you can also access the test drive with the hidden cell editor parts!

its a lot easier to access test drive in this build even, cuz the button hitbox isnt covered up by anything as it is in retail

it still doesnt change that the camera is really zoomed in though

so here are the other cell mouths from a front view angle. you love those cell lips dont you

of course these mouths are pretty good for making fish

also saved cells with the hidden cell parts just get auto locked

in retail theyre viewable as usual but just cant be edited

also a note about tht first screenshot. the cell editor doesnt have random bodies as it does in retail, and only loads in Oog (the editor startup model is set to cell_editorModel~!NeutralCell.cll)

theres no exact NeutralCell.cll file, but it seems to just load it from the png, which has a description of Spore Shipping Content

and it seems to randomize the paint, and reset the creature's name, but it doesnt reset the description. this seems to explain why some validation test data cells have it when its clearly not spore shipping content

in the feb 19 build only those cells have this description though, alongsie the actual playable neutral cells. all the other cell stage cells, validation test data cells and cell paint icons (which are actual creation pngs here as you might remember) dont have descriptions