ATTENTION ALL ANIMATORS!

This is fantastic!

The video game "Spore" has been in development for years, I've seen behind the scenes clips and all that on YouTube along with gameplay teasers, and just to let you know I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means. I dust off my PS2 maybe once per month for a quick game and that's it.

But the downloadable SPORE CREATURE CREATOR is fantastic!!!

As can see this as an amazing reference tool for if you're working on a web cartoon, TV series or film that has many different creature designs, you can literally re-create them in 3D according to the models and hit 'test drive' and you can see it in motion! It's the ultimate reference guide.

You can create almost ANY type of creature, with 1, 2, 3, 4 or 8 legs, multiple heads, several eyes, many different types of appendages, tails, ANYTHING, it's so much fun. and AMAZING REFERENCE for any animator. If only actual 3D modeling and animation could be so simple.

If you're working on any sort of series with animal animation, you can literally build your own animal, hit play and the game makes it jump, and walk for you.

It all starts with a torso and spine and you have total control over the shape, length, color, texture, and form of the creature.

Depending on how wild and unrealistic the anatomy you create is, the quality of animation and weight-distribution varies, but it 'rigs' and builds the skeletal structure as you add on and morph the creatures build to whatever you need. Pictured below is a creature (and it's offspring) that I made in virtually 7 minutes. I'd show you how he walks, jumps, swings and screams but you need to register with Spore first to do that. The actual full blown game is out in September apparently, where you begin as a single-cell organism and evolve into advance life forms by growing, multiplying, exploring, and colonizing.

Get it here, for Mac or PC.