Spore Creature Creator FAQ

Spore Creature Creator (Trial Version) Interface and Controls

When you first hit "create a character," you'll be greeted by a small green blob.
In tabs up at the top, you will have choices between: Mouths (8), Eyes and Sense (10), Arms and Legs (6), Graspers (7), Feet (8), Weapons (6), Details (10).
You can drag any customization onto your base form, and then specify any particular location you wish. Want a mouth on his back? Just do it.
Buttons on the right: Maiden Call (alerts mates, and enemies), Bite (standard attack button), Sing (sings out loud), Abilities (lvl 1), Attack, Socialize (lvl 2 - sing and dance to socialize), Speed (lvl 0 - add faster feet to increase speed), Health (lvl 40 - each brain level upgrade will add to your health, or you can buy armor), Diet (Add carnivore, herbivore and omnivore mouths to your creature).
At the top: The Complexity Meter. If the meter is full, you have too many parts/accessories.
At the bottom, left to right: Options, Sporepedia, Spore Guide, Spore Catalog, Settings, Exit to Main Menu, Exit Game. Money (each part costs money to buy), Rotate Camera Left, Rotate Camera Right, Zoom in, Zoom out, Name your Character (you can descriptions, and tags [so others can search for you?]), Undo, Redo, Save, New Creation, Cancel, Save and Exit.
Big buttons at the top: Build Mode, Test Drive, Paint Mode. You can take your character out for a test drive, when you're ready. Unfortunately, the trial version will not let you leave the small circular playpen area.

Death Giraffe by Mahalo

Mouth: Pincernaut - you can add two mouths, by scrollimg the mouse to the right, or left. We created two mouths this way.
Add Terropin mouth on the stomach.
Eyes: Larva Eyes in the mid-section.
Ears: Ehhwot on either side of the head.
Arms: Slackwrist Arms on either side
Legs: Thundercalf on either side of its bottom.
Graspers: Bonesticklers on each arm.
Feet: Clippity on each leg
Weapons: Gobstalker, right where its nose would be.
Weapon 2: Keratinhorn, right on top of his head (this, we felt, would be good for charging).
Details: Bone Knee Pads, Whipwhicks on his head,
Tail: Drag the arrow on its tail section, to make it long.
Make him tall: Grab his tail section, and drag up to make him tall.
Paint: Use the brown, pokadot pre-rendered style.

Buttons on the left: Picture viewer (view screenshots you take), take a picture, capture animated avatar, record movie.
Right hand tabs: Action, Background, babies.
Actions: You have 24 different actions to choose from, stuff like "laugh" spin and roar. Cycle through each action when you're trying out your character. Some of the animations are pretty great.
Movement: use the arrow keys to move character around, or use the mouse to control the camera. Hold the mouse button on the ground in any area to make the character walk there.
Jump: spacebar.
Click the "baby" button to create a small version of your creature. You can create up to three duplicates at one time. This was also pretty great. They will mimic every action you make and follow you around. Click the egg icons to destroy any or all them again.

Take a picture while in Test Drive Mode, then view your photo album, view a picture, and you will be able to send an individual picture to any friend. You'll be able to input their email address at the prompt.
The picture will stored on the Spore.com main site, and a link will be sent to your friend. You can add a message to the email if you wish.

At the top right you'll have: Complete Styles (pre-rendered selections for you to choose from) and a group of options in Partial Styles:
Base (6 options)
Coat (9 options)
Detail (10 options).
When editing in Partial Styles, you can specify what color it is from the color palette.

Open up the Sporepedia. You will see a bunch of different Maxis-created creatures. You can open up any of the pre-rendered creations and edit them yourself if you wish.

Hit the "record" button in Test Drive Mode in the lower left. When you're ready to stop, click "record" again, and a prompt will ask you if you want to upload the recording to YouTube. You'll need to login into your account right there on the prompt window, and then the process is automatic.
To add a description and tags to your YouTube video, you will need to go to YouTube, and edit the text on the video itself. You can't automatically add those items from the in-game prompt (at least not in the trial version).