INTELLIGENT DESIGNER: CHRIS HECKER’S LINER NOTES FOR SPORE
Every bit as mile a minute and ponderously technical as talking or listening to the man himself, Chris Hecker — one of the chief technologists and animation team lead behind Maxis/EA’s Spore — has begun documenting the five year process that lead to the final release, and, despite the technicality, it’s a fascinating and revealing read.
Hecker covers everything from his very first efforts in late 2003 nailing down how skin would hang over an infinite variety of creations (at left, a 3D print of Hecker’s first created creature) to the process of dynamically texturing that skin, to early prototypes of the animation system (along with test videos), and how “Bugs + Player Creativity = Features”.
As a companion piece, Hecker also notes that art director Ocean Quigley has been keeping his own records on the process behind the game’s visual design at his blog both technical and more philosophical.
For further reading, there’s also my feature-length snapshot in time of the larger team’s mindset and goals in 2006 reprinted over at RockPaperShotgun.
My Liner Notes For Spore [Chris Hecker, Ocean Quigley’s blog]
- Data-mashers at the ready: Maxis opens the Spore API – Offworld
- Skeletons alive: Aaron Meyers’ Spore creatures now in augmented reality – Offworld
- Fragile things: Aaron Meyers' API-driven Spore skeletons – Offworld
- Nobody's poisson: Maxis's Spore rogue-like – Offworld
- EA details Spore's 2009 PC, Wii, DS expansions – Offworld
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