Creatures 3 and Docking Station Development Articles

This section is your resource for the development of Creatures, Objects and Add-ons to Creatures 3 and Docking Station.

Please note that because certain aspects of Docking Station agents are specific to Docking Station, some of the articles in this section relate to Docking Station only.

The menu on the left will allow you to search for articles by keyword or you can navigate via the general categories below.

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Tutorials Distributing COS files How to make COS files available for others to use in their worlds, without everything going hideously wrong. Making Eggs for Creatures 3 How to use PRAY to create an egg file suitable for use in Creatures 3 Making Agents for Creatures 3 How to make a .agent file that will work with Creatures 3 DSAG PRAY Template A commented example of a PRAY template needed to create a DSAG agent chunk - the type used in Docking Station How to create .agent files for Docking Station and Creatures 3 Considerations to be made when making an agent file for both Creatures 3 and Docking Station. Overview of what you need to make an agent Describes the three different types of file you need to make a new agent - images, sounds and scripts. Using the Map Editor - Part 1 Covering how to create an addon map document, rooms and boundaries. Making Eggs for Docking Station and Docked worlds. How to use PRAY to create an egg file suitable for use in DS and C3-docked. Balloon Maker tutorial A tutorial on object making in Docking Station - designed for the novice. Quite long, though! Using the Map Editor - Part 2 Metarooms and their place in a CAOS world: what you need to add to a room to make it usable. Making food objects for C3 Need some extra food for your Norns? Don't like the Shee issue food that came on the space ship? Well, create your own! Grab images from anywhere you like and bring them to life inside Creatures 3. Making a Vendor for C3 In this tutorial you can learn the basics of making a vendor - an agent that produces other agents. Making a Toy for C3 A simple toy can be made by *anyone* ... even if you're not an artist you can probably make something completely original that has never been seen before! Creating Agent Art Although created for Creatures 2, this tutorial could easily be adapted to Creatures 3 agent creation. C3 Genetics Tutorials PDF A series of 12 tutorials designed to give you an easy start into the world of genetic engineering in the Creatures 3 game. Getting Started with CAOS A lesson plan for learning to create agents in C3 and DS. PC Tools Brain in a Vat Tool An advanced tool for those of you who enjoy watching the brain in action. Biochemistry Set for Creatures 3 and Docking Station Want to find out what's going on 'inside' your Norns? The Biochemistry Set will help you! This utility allows you to monitor the chemicals inside your creatures. CAOS Debugger This CAOS code debugger lets you browse running agents, inspect their variables and step through code as they run it. Also monitor output from DBG: OUTV and DBG: OUTS and more! As used by Creature Labs developers. SpriteBuilder for Windows This tool allows you to view/edit c16 and s16 image files. Catalogue checker tool Dumps a list of tags within a set of catalogue files. Creatures 3 and Docking Station Genetics Kit The Creatures 3 Genetics Kit is the most advanced application available for Creatures 3 and Docking Station today. Creatures 3 CAOS Tool This tool is a professional quality tool that allows you to do all things CAOS related. Creatures 3 Map Editor The Map Editor is a highly graphical tool that allows you to create new metarooms or alter existing ones. Gendiff for C3 This command line program will compare two different C3/DS genomes and create a list of all the differences between them. Linux Tools CAOS syntax highlighting and injection in VIM We provide a syntax highlighting file for the text editor VIM. Under Linux you can also use this to inject CAOS commands. Linux console utilities A collection of external applications written in Bash script, to monitor, debug and control the Creatures Engine while it is running. PRAY Builder tool The PRAY Builder tool helps create PRAY files on Linux or Windows. easyPRAY - a graphical tool for making agent files Where to find Tina Hirsch's great tool for making .agent files. GIMP plugin sprite editor and Sprite file conversion libs Where to find a GIMP plugin which lets you edit Creatures sprite and background files, and to the source code for a sprite editing library. REVELATION - PRAY file decompressor and extractor Want to know what's inside an .agent or .creature file? Here's how to find out.

Genetics and Biochemistry GEN File Format What a Creature genome file consists of. GNO File Format What a genome description and comment file consists of. How Pigmentation works Information (and pseudocode) to show how pigmentation works on creatures and agents. Biochemistry Set for Creatures 3 and Docking Station Want to find out what's going on 'inside' your Norns? The Biochemistry Set will help you! This utility allows you to monitor the chemicals inside your creatures. Images and Attachments This article details the formula used when creating image files and attachments for brained-creatures. Pose gene information How the 15 character string for the Pose Genes are derived. Applicable to all versions of Creatures. Reproduction - The Genes This CDN article provides detail on the genes involved in reproduction, and how they work together to produce the desired phenomena. ChiChi Norn GNO file The caption file, for use with the Genetics Kit, that accompanies the norn.chichi06.ex47 genome. Creatures 3 and Docking Station Genetics Kit The Creatures 3 Genetics Kit is the most advanced application available for Creatures 3 and Docking Station today. Creatures 3 Chemical List This is a full list of all chemicals in C3, good, bad or indifferent. How creatures sense their environment Or, ... oops, I wonder what this tube does? This article covers what you need to know about how a creature senses its environment and acts upon it. C3 Genetics Tutorials PDF A series of 12 tutorials designed to give you an easy start into the world of genetic engineering in the Creatures 3 game. Gendiff for C3 This command line program will compare two different C3/DS genomes and create a list of all the differences between them. Agent Engineering C3 permanent variable usage How the OV variables were used (mostly) consistently within Creatures 3, and what they were used for. How Pigmentation works Information (and pseudocode) to show how pigmentation works on creatures and agents. Catalogue files Catalogue files are ways of storing text externally to your script file Perceivable Classification Explaining how classification works, and what CDN_Categories to use Attributes of agents Explanation of the attributes available to agents, and how physical properties work PRAY Mistakes Help with the common problems people have using PRAYBuilder and creating .agent files. Favourite Places in Docking Station A new system of creating the 'Favourite Places' icons along the top of the screen. No scripts needed! CAOS Language Guide How to get a full listing of the CAOS commands acceptable to your engine. Runtime error messages Describes error messages that you are likely to get while developing agents, and gives suggestions on how to solve common problems. Events - what they are and how they happen When something happens in the world, how does your agent know about it? This CDN_article tells you. The TARG object The concept of TARG is an important part of the CAOS language, read up about it here. This article applies equally to all Creatures titles Classification and clashing The very basics of the the Creatures Classification System. C3/DS Cheat sheet A selection of useful CAOS commands and debug shortcuts for Docking Station and Creatures 3. General System Info Inject CAOS script from external application under Linux Explains the protocol used for talking to the game engine while it is running. This lets you inject new code to change or monitor agents and the world. C16 File Format The techy lowdown on what a C16 image file consists of. GEN File Format What a Creature genome file consists of. GNO File Format What a genome description and comment file consists of. Catalogue files Catalogue files are ways of storing text externally to your script file Images and Attachments This article details the formula used when creating image files and attachments for brained-creatures. Pose gene information How the 15 character string for the Pose Genes are derived. Applicable to all versions of Creatures. Undocked map file for Docking Station The original 2er file used to create the Docking Station map. This is only useful for those of you with the Map Editor who overwrote it by mistake. C3/DS Cheat sheet A selection of useful CAOS commands and debug shortcuts for Docking Station and Creatures 3.