MASSIVE SECURITY HAZARD in Spore!
BastDawn:
Wes_h, procedural generation doesn't work that way. The code to generate the creature is tiny, small enough to be held in a little 25kb png. When put into the game, the data then creates the polygons and textures from a formula. Check out this article:
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/12/procedural-synthesis-gamings-fountain-of-youth/
J. M. Pescado:
Quote from: BastDawn on 2008 June 20, 22:19:44
Wes_h, procedural generation doesn't work that way. The code to generate the creature is tiny, small enough to be held in a little 25kb png.
That's not what Wes_h is saying. Wes_h is saying that he cannot find any nonstandard data chunks which would represent the tiny creature data.
Quote from: wes_h on 2008 June 20, 18:52:35
The PNG format allows non-standard chunks to be inserted in a file, but I find only image data in them. Interestingly enough, when you load one into Paint Shop Pro and save it under a different name, the resulting file is actually larger than the one downloaded from Sporepedia. Clearly, there is no room for 3K of creature data in there, unless they have much beter compression than WinRar.
There are no data chunks which are not image data? Does a re-saved image function as a critter anymore, or is the critter data destroyed by this process? If you cannot find any custom data chunks inside the file, then it is likely that the creature data is steganographically encoded into the image data rather than using nonstandard PNG chunks.
Quote from: wes_h on 2008 June 20, 18:52:35
I still think a download of creature data happens after the image is dropped on the CC.
Impossible, because otherwise I would not have been able to get BastDawn's flower-creatures by downloading the image from a Botophucket. Downloading could not happen because the Creator is not permitted access to the Internets.
BastDawn:
Quote from: J. M. Pescado on 2008 June 21, 03:57:11
Quote from: BastDawn on 2008 June 20, 22:19:44
Wes_h, procedural generation doesn't work that way. The code to generate the creature is tiny, small enough to be held in a little 25kb png.
That's not what Wes_h is saying. Wes_h is saying that he cannot find any nonstandard data chunks which would represent the tiny creature data.
I acknowledge my misunderstanding. But still: here's what a spore creature png looks like after all the layers are merged and everything pure white (#FFFFFF) is colored hot pink. I enlarged the image by 300% for clarity, using "pixel resize" to prevent blurring the edges.
You can clearly see that the background is not solid white. The merged image is pixelated with the color #FEFEFE. It's binary.
Quote from: wes_h on 2008 June 20, 18:52:35
Interestingly enough, when you load one into Paint Shop Pro and save it under a different name, the resulting file is actually larger than the one downloaded from Sporepedia. Clearly, there is no room for 3K of creature data in there, unless they have much beter compression than WinRar.
You're doing it wrong. What settings are you using? I just tried it and saving the same file under a different name made the image 1kb smaller, not bigger. Then I did it again with a different creature, only I removed all the pixelation in the alpha channel and then saved it without changing the file name. It went from 26kb to 15kb, suggesting that it takes 11kb of data to generate my creature. However, doing that did NOT remove the creature from my game, so the change in the package file you're seeing must be the game storing the data generated from the png. I'm unpleasantly reminded of the errors with the first FreeTime patch -- if it's ever necessary to patch Spore, we'd better have kept all of our png files.
BastDawn:
Okay, now I've managed to changed my computer's login name. It's easy, too. Just go to Start --> Settings --> Control Panel and open up User Accounts. From there I clicked on the profile name and followed the prompts. I log on and off using the new name, and the old name only exists as a file folder in C:\Documents and Settings, which did not create a new folder for the changed name. Then I made a new creature, and it still uses the Ibis name. Pescado, am I doing it right now?
J. M. Pescado:
Quote from: BastDawn on 2008 June 21, 07:01:58
Then I made a new creature, and it still uses the Ibis name. Pescado, am I doing it right now?
Well, the username change procedure was performed correctly, but evidently Splotch does not recognize it. Did you try rebooting?
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