Advanced Creature Creation Tips

Some tips and tricks to help make better creatures!

Intro

Have you ever wanted to make a creature that looks like this


but ended up looking like this?
such a majestic being



Don't worry, as you've come to the right place.

Eye-spots

One of the simplest tricks there is. Have you ever wanted a creature that just has a flat, single-color circle for an eye? All you need to do is place the "Eyecosahedron"
and rotate it into the body to make a simple flat circle. Make sure to set the color of the eyes to a different color than the base body, otherwise you won't be able to see it.

Glowing Eyes

Another extremely simple trick. Have you ever wanted a creature to look like it has glowing eyes? All you need to do is place the "GlowBlister" part in the place you'd normally put its eyes.
Be sure to add actual, hidden eyes so that it's not considered blind. Unless that's what you're going for.

Floating Creatures

So you want to make a creature that can float, huh? Well, there is one simple trick that can help with that.

To start, you'll need a leg. Right-click the leg and drag it outwards. You should see it start to come off the body.


However, there is a limit to how far you can drag this part. But there is an extremely easy way to bypass this limit: simply save and reload the creature. You will be able to drag the part even further.
(No, I'm not sure why it says it only has 1 part when it clearly has 2.)


Repeat the process several times, moving it towards the ground. You can also drag the part off the body and press CTRL+S for a quicker result, although this sometimes acts weird.

Once you've gotten the legs into the ground, you will get a very convincing floating creature. Do note that when walking, floating creatures tend to tilt slightly to one side. Although, this is very subtle and has no effect.

Hidden Abilities

So, you want a creature to be able to fly but don't want it to have visible wings? How about you want your creature to be able to swim, but none of the parts that give that ability have the look you're going for? (Or you just want to make harmless-looking creatures that are actually projectile/fire spammers, possibly even going as far as to become an ABILITY SPAMMER.) You can do that!

All you need to do is add a part with the desired ability

and rotate it inside the creature.



This can also be used to alter the diet of creatures. Let's say you want to use the tube mouth

but don't want your creature to be a pure herbivore.

All you need to do is put an omnivore mouth (I prefer to use Woodeater, but if you want to use something else that's fine too) on your creature...
...make it small...

...and rotate it inside the body.

Holding Items in the Mouth

One big missed opportunity in the CC editor is that creatures can't hold items in their mouth.

Or can they?


Let's say you have a creature that you want to be able to hold items in its mouth.

What you do is, add an arm

and pull the arm into the body. Hide all joints to make it convincing.

Make sure the front (or "hand") joint is located in the front part of the mouth so it looks like they actually hold it in their mouth and not have it clip weirdly through their head.

Speed Boost

Let's say you've got a slow creature that you need to speed up.

All you need to do is take the Mohawk Fin...

and add it to your creature.

It only increases speed by 0.1 m/s, so you may need to use multiple. You can hide them inside the body if you don't want them visible.

Save-Load

Perhaps the most classic trick of all.

Let's say you have a creature that you want some part of it to be floating.

Simply right click the part
and drag it away from the creature's body. You should see it starts to come off and float.

But there's a fairly small limit to this. Rarely is just one right-click-drag enough to get the desired effect.

However, there's a way to bypass this limit: simply save (you can use ctrl-s to do it quickly)
and reload the creature. Undoing something and then redoing it works as well but save-load is a much better name than undo-redo.

Now you can drag the part even further!
Repeat until you get the desired distance, rotate and angle the part to look good... that's just about it.


End result:

You can make floating parts quickly by holding a part in the air and pressing ctrl-s, then reloading, but this often bugs out and sends the part in every direction EXCEPT the one you want it to go, or simply not saving at all, or even putting the part back where it was before upon reload.

Face parts (eyes, ears, noses) can float without save-load. All you need to do is take a mouth (I prefer Bug Sword or Suck-ulent but any other mouth will work as well)
angle and resize it to the way you want it
add the part you want to have floating
and remove the mouth.

Pattern Editing

After using the Save-Load trick on that creature I've noticed it's starting to give off a kind of futuristic vibe. So let's make it mechanical!

Did you know there's a special menu to edit patterns in the top right corner?
Normally I set the tiling to something like 1 or 2 or 4 or maybe 10. But you can do stuff like 1.2, 0.01 and even 0! (we'll get to the 0-tile patterns later)

Now we change the metallic and shine to make it look like it's made of metal!

BONUS: Create a Jetpack!

I don't know. Maybe you want to create a creature with a jetpack!

What you do is take the "Burner" mouth

and put it on your creature's back like so.
If it's too big and lumpy for your liking, you can use the morph-arrow to shrink it down.
Now all you need to do is make it actually let the creature fly!


Simply add a pair of "Wicked Wings"...
...shrink them down and rotate them into the body. Do note that for heavier creatures you may need to use multiple pairs.

Now, color them to make them look like they are noticeably artificial, not an organic part of the creature.

In order for the jetpack to work as intended, use the Fire Breath and fly at the same time.

Stripes

Have you ever thought "I just REALLY want my creature to have plain stripes!"? You can actually do that!

Give your creature any pattern
and set the tiling to 0.

(sorry for the shortness of this section i was in a rush)

Outro

Use these newly-learned (or not, whatever) skills as much as you want. Who knows, perhaps one day you may get on the creation skill level that make most say "WOW! HOW?"... or beyond!

Here, enjoy some creatures made using these tricks:

[Crystle]

i was trying to make hydra but i cant do each head on each

[Snake]

s

[Tabby Slime]

i knew all of these tricks except for one

[Tabby Slime]

eternal void

[backroomsfunni]

pretty cool