Spore’s Creature Hiding Trickery
Embedding non-image data inside an image isn’t a new trick, but some reddit commenters are finding that data for a Spore creature is uniquely embedded in the .PNG file that can be downloaded from the creature’s Sporepedia entry.
While some commenters originally discovered data embedded in the alpha channel of the image, they now believe the data is embedded in the RGB channels as well, possibly giving up to 8k of extra data storage in some estimates.
Again, storing data in an image is nothing new, but as Troy Gilbert points out, “it’s a very clever, modern, web way of handling it. It allows for trivial sharing by the user through whatever means they’re accustomed to because sharing an image is an almost universal feature of any collaborative software. So, user’s can attach the thumbs to their e-mail, or post them to their Flickr account, or put them on Facebook or their MySpace page, or send them in an IM.” Then when a friend opens the image inside the game, they’ll get the creature.
It’s definitely an inspiration for some work I’m doing, and you can bet I’ll be considering ways to incorporate this into some of my solutions. It also kind of gives a new meaning to file sharing.
Filed under: Games, Innovation, Software, Technology
