Spore Vehicles

[Gus Smedstad]

OK, just noticed we have a Spore forum now instead of one long Spore thread.

I've been getting the hang of doing some interesting things with the vehicle creator.  I often find I need to create interior "skeletons" using chassis parts so i can force parts to merge instead of sticking on the surface.





 - Gus

[Gus Smedstad]

Here's an exploded version of the P38, if it's not clear what I meant by skeletons:



The chassis parts are the oblong for the fuselage, the bar for mounting the machine guns, the central bar of the wings, and the bar of the tail structure.

 - Gus

[EsotericPolarBear]

That's far too much effort for something that you'll only see once in a blue moon.  That's why I stick to prefabs.

[Gus Smedstad]

I agree in connection with all the vehicles except the spaceship.  They're tiny, and they could be featureless blocks most of the time.  So the P38 is something of a wasted effort, but I wanted to see if I could do it.

Spaceships on the other hand, you spend more time watching than anything else, including your creature.  I've been playing with the Klingon D7 in my Space / Hard game, and it's been nice, if a trifle smaller than I really want.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

Heh, that Klingon ship looks more like the TNG vorcha crossed with the original series D7. Still very Klingonesque, though.

[jsalemi]

Could you share, pretty please (especially that Klingon one)?

[Gus Smedstad]

I just played through a game and I've changed my mind.  Plane shapes and colors, if not details, are quite visible in Civilization stage.  The P38 was actually very distinctive, and it was easy to tell my planes from the enemy.

Tanks and ships are tougher because they tend to be very similar in general outline.  Though one of the enemy civs had some weird ugly Maxis spherical tank that was noticable mostly because it was a sphere, not a block.

Textures for some of these ships are difficult.  There just isn't one conveys detailed machinery.  I built a Battlestar but I'm not happy with it because it's a pretty simple shape and the texture issue is more of a problem.  There's no way to duplicate the proper shape of a D7 main hull, but there's still enough geometry to convey a decent impression.

I've uploaded the PNG's for these vehicles at my Flickr page.

D7 is here.
P38 is here.

 - Gus

[lowbart]

How does one go about exporting things as PNG from the full game? I got the you-pay-money-for-three-installs version but didn't install the EA updater, so the normal online sharing stuff doesn't work.

[Faizah]

Go to My Documents, there should be a folder there called My Spore Creations. Within that folder are folders like Creatures and Vehicles, those automatically contain the .png files of the (non-Maxoid) things in your game. This is where you get them from if you want to share yours, and where you can put them if you download others. (You can also drag and drop the .pngs into your game, handy if you're not sure whether you're looking at a vehicle or a UFO/spaceship, as these go in different folders.)

[jsalemi]

Do you have to be on any particular screen in the game to drag-and-drop on?  the 'My Collections' maybe?

[Gus Smedstad]

The docs say something about being in a Creation tool, any Creation tool, when you do the drag and drop.  I think it works if you have any of the item lists open as well.  I generally use the Spore Server, so I don't often drag and drop.

 - Gus

[lowbart]

Go to My Documents, there should be a folder there called My Spore Creations. Within that folder are folders like Creatures and Vehicles, those automatically contain the .png files of the (non-Maxoid) things in your game. This is where you get them from if you want to share yours, and where you can put them if you download others. (You can also drag and drop the .pngs into your game, handy if you're not sure whether you're looking at a vehicle or a UFO/spaceship, as these go in different folders.)

Wow, I can't believe I couldn't figure that out for myself. Thank you. 

[Gus Smedstad]

It took me a long, long time to find those folders myself.  I thought you had to take a "test drive" photo to get the PNGs for the longest time, and there's no option to do that for vehicles.

I looked over the Star Control 2 ships, thinking I'd make a set, and decided they're all fairly uninteresting, visually.  Or too obviously a copy of something else, like the Ur Quan Dreadnought and the Galactica.

 - Gus

[jsalemi]

Just to be sure -- spaceships go in the \UFOs directory, not the \Vehicles directory, right?

[Gus Smedstad]

Correct, spaceships are UFOs.

 - Gus

[kuronue]

The docs say something about being in a Creation tool, any Creation tool, when you do the drag and drop.  I think it works if you have any of the item lists open as well.  I generally use the Spore Server, so I don't often drag and drop.

 - Gus

I just dropped stuff into the folder I got it from while outside the game. Worked just fine.

[Insanity Prelude]

It's not very complicated and could use a different coat of paint (I was eager to actually start playing Space and just used the default color schemes) but I like my ship.

[J. M. Pescado]

May or may not be familiar to anyone:

[Gus Smedstad]

OK, I went ahead and did it anyway.



J.M.'s Dreadnought is about as good as it gets.  I didn't make any attempt to scale them to each other, and there are some which have issues (i.e. you're not allowed to make asymmetric ships).

 - Gus

[Zazazu]

For some reason, a lot of yours remind me of children's toys or game controllers. I like 'em. I'm spaceship design challenged.

[Gus Smedstad]

Well, the original designs are by Toys for Bob.  Those are Star Control 2 ships.  Since they were originally very simple 2D models, it's not surprising that they end up being uncomplicated and thus toy-like.

At some point I may post some of my original designs, but I figure replicas have a broader appeal.

 - Gus

[Gus Smedstad]

Panzer V in desert cammo.  I ran into the parts limit with this one.  Getting the sloped armor correct was a pain.  There's a generic body available that's sort-of like this, but the geometry is all wrong.   The stats are a tad health-heavy, I ended up hiding an extra weapon inside the chassis to bring the attack strength up.  I'd put in another but I'd have to sacrifice too many parts to get under the limit.



 - Gus

[Gus Smedstad]

For the inveterate terraformer: the Valley Forge.


 - Gus

[Faizah]

Here's a prototype UFO that I've been working on, using nested spheres in order to get the effect on the landing gear:


And some random completed models:

[Tingeling]

Nice door ship you have there.

Oooh, Starbug! *runs off to watch some Red Dwarf episodes*