2.What is the name of the peice that makes a flamethrower?

I agree with you!…somebody should start to decipher the code of the creator and create an open souce program for that end.

I see such a tool as being useful for very small teams that want to punch out of their weight class. Maybe they want to spend their resources on amazing AI, or an incredible story, or some innovative multiplayer ideas. If you have a team of 2-3 people, you can’t afford to spend hours tweaking the ears of one creature.

To win, you have to pick your fights. Some game projects would have no use for such a tool, because they have the resources and talent to create beautiful and unique creatures. Other projects might not have those resources - they could give up before they even start, they could use stock models from model libraries, or they could use a tool like the one I’m describing to come up with some creatures that at least have a unified theme and a bit of uniqueness to them.

No, you can’t compare the output of such a tool with the output of a talented team of artists. But that’s not all there is to games. Even games made with RPGMaker can be innovative and enjoyable.

Good, that keeps the artistic mind working overtime, so some games end up actually interesting and inspirational. IF one would for example use a dragon as a table, and let a table spit fire then this should be no problem, the more time on a game spent, the more money it will cost, but also, the more importance a stable and working (read; fun, creative, etc) game will be released. Now if im correct, u are stating that u wish for some kind of intelligent wikipedia databank for 3d models, fitting behaviors and textures, ever thought of the fact that some games don’t use worldly creatures, and did u ever look at a game and go; wow I have never really seen anything like that before, thats probably because it all started on paper, not digital, now u go browsing for that one piece of ear uve drawn in a multizillion part database for ears.

(btw, did u ever use Zbrush? Spore Creature Creator really feels and acts the same as Zbrush, check it out if u want)

finally, look at Spore, u state that all creatures have a sort of uniqueness about them, I look at them and really see no original creatures because the used parts are from one and the same source, (all is from 1 source, but we are not talkin about “THE TRUTH”) Spore Creature Creator, they all have the same kind of feeling about them. I understand Spore is just the tip of the iceberg, still. At the moment these developers are trained to work with different design suits, there is no problem with that, because at the beginning of building a game (for example spore) they start with brainstorm sessions, drawing tables, plot ideas etc… I can imagine if I were a modeller i would not want my boss to redirect me to pre-fixed model parts, i want to build it from scratch, even if it is going to take me a while, less time is only important for the money, not for quality. (even if this is a multi milion dollar biz, a motivated person still works faster and more efficient then a slave) I can go on and on why in my opinion your idea just would not work on so many levels, even if it is a great idea, and sounds so good… I will leave it at this cause im really in a hurry, hope my post gives some inspirational points on your ideas, maybe I didnt quite catch your idea, and maybe im just horribly wrong, its just my two cents.

http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=14811

[...]Imagine if all game developers had access to a free set of tools like the Spore creature creator.[...]…