Project Status

Desktop Creature is under active development.

The current implementation provides the foundation for defining, editing, animating, and previewing a Creature in Creature Lab.

Implemented areas include:

• Creature model

  • Skeleton-based part hierarchy.
  • Appearance data associated with individual parts.
  • Stable IDs for parts and animations.
  • Editor APIs that keep mutation paths explicit.

• Animation

  • Track- and keyframe-based animation.
  • Pose sampling and playback.
  • Transform animation for individual Creature parts.

• Creature Lab

  • Interactive part selection and transform editing.
  • Pivot, scale, rotation, and position editing.
  • Undo / Redo with continuous edits grouped into a single operation.
  • Dockable editor UI built with ImGui.

• Rendering

  • Native D3D11 sprite renderer.
  • Shared rendering path intended for both Creature Lab and the runtime.
  • Off-screen rendering for the Lab preview, with editor overlays handled separately by ImGui.

The project is currently moving from the editor and rendering foundation toward a usable desktop runtime and persistent Creature format.

APIs and file formats are still expected to evolve while these pieces are being connected.

Planned Work

The next major areas are:

• Creature Runtime

  • Run a saved Creature as a lightweight desktop pet.
  • Keep runtime state separate from the Creature definition.

• Creature File Format

  • Save and load complete Creature definitions as .creature files.
  • Add validation for cross-component consistency.

• Genome

  • Define physical and behavioral characteristics independently from individual animation data.
  • Allow Creature Lab to experiment with genome-driven variations.

• Animation

  • Improve authoring workflows and validation.
  • Create more natural idle and movement behavior.

• Desktop Interaction

  • Add system tray integration.
  • Add simple interactions such as feeding or playing with the Creature.

• Diagnostics

  • Add structured logging and log rotation.
  • Improve error reporting.

The long-term goal is for Creature Lab to produce complete .creature definitions that can be loaded and rendered by a lightweight desktop runtime.

Design Notes

Short records of design decisions and the reasoning behind them.

See docs/design-notes.