GamerXA - Organism Editor

Underwater populations WILL be able to make a civilization, it will just take them HELL A LOT OF TIME to discover fire. Until then, the civ will be stuck at stone age technology, but culture will still be able to develop.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

maker.of.light wrote:

Aha! I just had a idea. there could be like some sort of under water cove in every ocean slash starting point for the underwater civ that they could swim to and since it wouldnt be underwater they could make a fire of sorts. but they'd have to have legs... maybe said race could be like dolphins, mammals that need to surface every so and so so they could surface in the underwater cove and make a sort of tribe there. but said animal would have to have legs or something that would allow them to surface and move with ease, good idea? And can i make creatures that can fire their lazers at any time? [Yes I am watching Lazer Collection 2]

Umm... Please try to remember that one of the highest priorities of this game is to keep it realistic. Lasers on heads are not so much. Of course with the correct research, you could bionically attach them as weapons.

Light- yes, it's possible to have an underwater cave filled at the top with air. However, if you put a fire in it, it would extinguish itself because it wouls use up all of the oxygen in the chamber, and if there was a channel that more air could get in from, the water would push all of the air out of the cave and you're back to square one.

Alaska- Actually, a laser on an organism isn't so farfetched. all they would need is some sort of tissue containing a crstal that has the right properties to focus bioluminescence into a simgle beam. It is very unlikely though.

~sciocont wrote:

Alaska- Actually, a laser on an organism isn't so farfetched. all they would need is some sort of tissue containing a crstal that has the right properties to focus bioluminescence into a single beam. It is very unlikely though.

That laser would be very weak however, barely visible, and not able to inflict more than a few second blindness. Still, it would use quite a lot of energy. It would be more practical with cybernetics, but that's another topic.

~sciocont wrote:

Light- yes, it's possible to have an underwater cave filled at the top with air. However, if you put a fire in it, it would extinguish itself because it wouls use up all of the oxygen in the chamber, and if there was a channel that more air could get in from, the water would push all of the air out of the cave and you're back to square one.

Alaska- Actually, a laser on an organism isn't so farfetched. all they would need is some sort of tissue containing a crstal that has the right properties to focus bioluminescence into a simgle beam. It is very unlikely though.

Is tissue containing a crystal possible, though?

US_of_Alaska wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Light- yes, it's possible to have an underwater cave filled at the top with air. However, if you put a fire in it, it would extinguish itself because it wouls use up all of the oxygen in the chamber, and if there was a channel that more air could get in from, the water would push all of the air out of the cave and you're back to square one.

Alaska- Actually, a laser on an organism isn't so farfetched. all they would need is some sort of tissue containing a crstal that has the right properties to focus bioluminescence into a simgle beam. It is very unlikely though.

Is tissue containing a crystal possible, though?

Yes, solid waste of a certain type of mineral could be secreted from a gland where it takes a crystalline form.

Weird conversation. I think we're gonna rule out organism fueled head-setted death rays.

YourBreakfast wrote:

Weird conversation. I think we're gonna rule out organism fueled head-setted death rays.

Thankyou. I think it would be best to leave this to post-game mods and the like.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

YourBreakfast wrote:

Weird conversation. I think we're gonna rule out organism fueled head-setted death rays.

Thankyou. I think it would be best to leave this to post-game mods and the like.

Oh yeah, definitely.

~sciocont wrote:

maker.of.light wrote:

DragonEye4 wrote:

maker.of.light wrote:

I hope theres a water stage in this

EDIT: or atleast the ability to make a whole race underwater.. that'd be cool. but then again it would be kind of buggy since most other races would be above ground and to conquer them you'd have to go above ground too but your aquatic so... would there be like tanks filled with water/etc

Welcome to the project!

Yes, more than likely you will start in the water. A water civilization's main difficulty would be overcoming the fire barrier.

thanks. and i dont get why aquatic creatures/races would need fire. an aquatic animal's needs are very diffrent to a land creature, for instance land creatures would need fire for warmth but aquatic creatures wouldnt need fire very much, since they would be able to adapt to live in warm/cold water environments. but well i guess fire is also able to keep wild creatures away like being a herbivore fishy [is that even possible? ] gets attacked by sharks or w/e without some sort of way to drive off the attackers they'd get pwnt... and its not that simple to start a fire but on alien worlds who knows... there could be a form of fire that could exist underwater or even a diffrent substance.

EDIT: I heard something about being able to be a plant...

Yes, The OE allows for any sort of organism to be made. The thing with fire is you need it for the discovery of metallurgy, without which you cannot create much high technology. You'll be stuck in the stone age, basically.

Did you even read about alien flame?

maker.of.light wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

maker.of.light wrote:

Scuba is Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, for Aquatic creatures to use it it would be something like Self Contained Land Breathing Apparatus or Air breathing apparatus, ect, or the race could be like some sort of dolphin creature [Needs to surface for air but lives in water] Either way works. Basically there should be a tech Specifically to aquatic lifeforms called SCLBA Suit which allows them to walk on land and do stuff.

Obviously the research wouldn't involve any metallurgy researches, or else it's use would be void. I think maybe the tech that would allow them to create suits filled with water, and thus spend limited time out of the water, would be a high-level clothing research. Creating airtight stitches would be a major step to getting up onto land.

The lack of opposable thumbs for aquatic life would kinda hurt the ability to do that... but who knows, evolution can make anything, exept evil space ninja monkeys with guns... i hope it cant atleast

Aquatic octopi have opposable thumbs.

~sciocont wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

maker.of.light wrote:

Aha! I just had a idea. there could be like some sort of under water cove in every ocean slash starting point for the underwater civ that they could swim to and since it wouldnt be underwater they could make a fire of sorts. but they'd have to have legs... maybe said race could be like dolphins, mammals that need to surface every so and so so they could surface in the underwater cove and make a sort of tribe there. but said animal would have to have legs or something that would allow them to surface and move with ease, good idea? And can i make creatures that can fire their lazers at any time? [Yes I am watching Lazer Collection 2]

Umm... Please try to remember that one of the highest priorities of this game is to keep it realistic. Lasers on heads are not so much. Of course with the correct research, you could bionically attach them as weapons.

Light- yes, it's possible to have an underwater cave filled at the top with air. However, if you put a fire in it, it would extinguish itself because it wouls use up all of the oxygen in the chamber, and if there was a channel that more air could get in from, the water would push all of the air out of the cave and you're back to square one.

Alaska- Actually, a laser on an organism isn't so farfetched. all they would need is some sort of tissue containing a crstal that has the right properties to focus bioluminescence into a simgle beam. It is very unlikely though.

The hole is at the top.

I think that the editor should also have a Sculpt tool that lets the player smooth out the individual muscles or bones.

About the Parts section...
We could do someting simillar to a WINDOW or TIER system to avoid confusion in finding parts
And a question...

Will there be Preset parts for all the planets or will the parts be specific to tiped planets:
For Example:

Pressure larger than 1500 mlb (millibars ) would have to have some kind of special orgains or will they have the same orgains as the creatures on a planet with Earth Like Pressures (like special lungs)
Or Will the preset orgains evolve in the special conditions?

I think these are some good questions...

This my first post, and I want to share my personal vision of the creature editor:

Bones: you start building the skeleton first.
What you start with, is a spine. Then you can append bones like limbs or a ribcage to contain and protect internal organs.
Each bone and vertebra can be modified in its shape, placement and size.

Organs:
When you pass to this phase, you have two choices:

Auto generation: muscles and the other organs will be generated through an algorytm on the skeleton. It's not always perfect, and you probably need to use the second feature.
Through a list of setting you can set overall strengh and other stuff.

Custom placement: it can be complex starting from scratch, but surely it's satisfing. This is extremely important for your creature behaviour, movement and physical strenght, so if you can't do it right don't get mad if your creature turns out into a deformed mollusk.
You can customize individual organs, like, hearth/s (performance), brain/s (intelligence and efficiency) or muscles (strenght and efficiency).

Skin: skin is important because it's what you will really see ingame, bones and muscles are mostly used as a base that you cover of skin. Like organs, you have two choices:

Auto generation: skin will be created perfectly covering muscles and bones, you can set the thickness.

Custom placement: through a sculpt system, you will able to create the skin from yourself. It can be hard and not reccommended since auto generation will be the best option most of the times.

Pattern and color: you can set the skin type, add hair or feathers, and then paint, using various brushes, like stripes or spots.
Now your creature is finished and you can save it.

I know probably this is really too complex. I tried to make it simple!

For the full current concept on the organism editor, read here.

NickTheNick wrote:

For the full current concept on the organism editor, read here.

Funnily enough, he pretty much nailed it.

I know, it's quite an accomplishment.

However, on the topic of procedural organ and muscle generation, how would that work? I remember from past threads programmers were saying that that would be very difficult.

Anything procedural is quite hard. In order to do something like that what we need is a very precise explanation on how it works. For example, in order to procedurally animate a creature to walk, you can simplify its feets as wheels. Each feet will be attached to an invisible wheel. When the creature advances, the invisible wheels where the feets are attached will rotate, so the feet will move with them. The other side of the leg, attached to the trunk, will not move relative to the creature. From there, the third point, the knee is quite easy to calculate assuming it always stays in the same plane and that the two other segments are straight lines unable to bend or shorten.

You can see a very nice video about procedural animation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAtwQa8t_3g

NickTheNick wrote:

I know, it's quite an accomplishment.

However, on the topic of procedural organ and muscle generation, how would that work? I remember from past threads programmers were saying that that would be very difficult.

Organs don't even really need to be there, since they won't be visible, but basically they get stuck where it makes sense in all of the starter orgs (that we make ourselves) and then shouldn't move very far, since their position won't heavily affect fitness, their size and shape will really be the only things that change.
Back when bashinerox was onboard, he advocated using "metasausage bundles" for muscles, which is less ridiculous than it sounds. Basically, a metasausage is like a metaball, except it's elongate and sort of lemon shaped. We use one or more metasausages to make up the space of the muscle, and their combined volume (which we can actually calculate fairly well because they are all stretched versions of the same shape) determines the strength of the muscle (more volume=>more mass=>more power)
How to attach and sort the muscles is a bit difficult, but it's something I've been studying a lot and I know we can tackle when it becomes pertinent. The rules are fairly simple for skeletal limbs and vertebra, the only real challenge will be putting muscle on more complex shapes like skulls.
Procedurals will always work, you just need to make sure they have all the right instructions to get the end result you desire, because they'll only do what they're told, and exactly that.

Procedurally generating things can be very difficult depending on what you are making. Nick
However, it is a necessary difficulty if we want to get anywhere and save processing power later on.

One can write a dungeon generator in a night, but it takes weeks to months to get it the way you want it. Planet generators, anything procedurally generated really.

We will definetly end up prcoedurally generating muscle, alot of players wont want to micromanage things like that.

In a couple WELL-MADE mockumentaries and books, they gave a pretty believable idea of how dragons breath fire. I have made a list of potential breath weapons and how they could work.

1. Fire. In the mockumentaries and books, it was said that dragons ate a lot of food and their digestive systems produced flammable explosive gases. They held this gas until they needed to use it, then they ground their teeth against a crystalline growth in the back of their throat to ignite it. Thus, fire breath! :DThe crystal was aided in growth by eating vast amounts of metal, like gold! It all makes sense now! 

2. Venom. Spitting cobras today have forward facing venom glands that allow them to kill with a bite OR a jet of venom.

3. Acid. Moviemakers, authors and video game designers, beginning with Jurassic Park, tend to think of shooting acid when they examine the mysterious glands in the throat of the Dilophosaurus. Another way to look at the ability would be excess stomach acid.

4. Water. A creature could drink water and save some of each drink in a special sac, and when it was full, they could shoot it at prey or predators!

5. Ice/Frost. Same as the water one except it cools the water either biologically or by living in a polar environment, and unleashes a blast of ice cold, blinding, razor sharp ice crystals!

I hope you like my breath weapon suggestions! I tried to make them as biologically feasible as possible!

Glad you are trying to be productive, but I think there are some things you missed.

1. The fire breath thing has been discussed, and since there has been no feasible way so far to keep the creature's mouth safe from the flames, the way to go has been the bombardier beetle, mix two substances outside the body, keeps the creature safe from harm and you can still shoot fire.

2. Spitting cobras actually have ducts in their fangs that have a 90 degree bend in them that lets them spray the venom. This is in addition to muscles that squeeze their venom glands. In thrive, a similar effect could be made using the Bladder organ, I think.

3. Acid, hmm, it might be possible with the OE's tube-and-node system, someone else will need to field that.

4. Water, probably the same as Acid.

5. Ice shards like that will probably cut the creature on their way out, and cooling something to that cold, inside the body might just make the creature freeze up too.

Still good for a newcomer. He at least made a way to jump the hurdle of how a animal will breathe fire in the first place. Also, how is water going to defend a animal?

1. The fire breath thing has been discussed, and since there has been no feasible way so far to keep the creature's mouth safe from the flames, the way to go has been the bombardier beetle, mix two substances outside the body, keeps the creature safe from harm and you can still shoot fire.

What about a "soft" palate in crocodiles it keeps water from getting in to the lungs, I'm sure if given the right circumstances, that the creature in question could adapt the palate of a croc into something that can withstand fire. Say the creature's stomach produced a flammable gas, had the palate above, and something to light it with; say fangs that had something like the bombardier beetle or something else to ignite it, i think it could work, in short bursts.

Side note, this is my first time posting, so i'm a bit new to posting, i have read a few things though

@PortalFan1000

I am in complete agreement, good for a newcomer. Also, look at the archer fish, it can shoot water to knock down insects, so maybe not so much defense, but more a way to hunt.

@hihoraptor

That might work, most likely in short bursts like you said. In addition to SacredSpirit's idea.

Well, in the mockumentary, they chewed platinum to spark it. If that would roast its throat, then I may need to rethink things.