Category Archives: HeroMachine 3

I've just posted the various facial feature sets to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. These include Eyes, Eyebrows, Mouth, Nose, and Ears. I ported over all the FaceMaker items, all the items from the Minis that made sense, and drew a bunch of new stuff based on the 2.x options. Of particular note, I tried to include at least one "manga-inspired" item in each set.

Here's a quick look at the kind of head you can now put on your characters:

I used rotation on the eyebrows to make him look worried. And here's the closest I could get in 2.x:

A few things to note:

• The Eyes, Eyebrows, and Ears are all split into matched pairs. This is a pain in the butt at the moment since there is no "keep pairs matched" feature. Yet. There will be, but item creation comes first. Until then, I admit that creating a good face is going to be irritating, as you add pairs and then have to delete the old ones. On the plus side, you can create some really cool looking faces.
• I have the Eyes classified as Skin for the purposes of the "Color all skin" feature. This isn't ideal, as the iris color you choose is unlikely to be the same as the skin color on the rest of the body. Holler if you'd prefer the Eyes to not be so grouped.
• Ditto for the Eyebrows being classified as Hair for the purposes of "Color all hair".
• Because Eyebrows don't really lend themselves to two colors when each item is only one eyebrow, I instead basically used the secondary color to blob out a "brow ridge" area. In the limited playing around I did, I would bet you're probably going to set that to the lighter of the two skin shades you choose, if you choose different skin tones. It makes kind of a nice outline effect.
• I need to figure out where to put freckles in ... probably in Noses?

I'm very pleased with the way the various Facemaker bits have turned out when brought into the actual HeroMachine. I think breaking the eyes and eyebrows and ears out into separate left and right items is going to be helpful as well, allowing you to create a lot more emotion than you could in 2.x.

I'll be spending the next couple of days adding in facial items I left out, based on your comments, so if you see something missing, let me know. Or if you think of something new, or see something broken. You know, the usual.

I'll also probably be addressing the massive backlog of Caption Contest Prizes remaining to be completed. So yeah.

Hope you like the new stuff!

At the urging of the much-better-than-me-at-matching-things Mark Shute, I have added about a dozen variations to the items in the TopsMaleStandard set that consist of vests with the sleeves removed. I need to add a TopsMaleSleeves set to complement this, allowing you to swap various sleeve configurations in and out.

I just updated the Alpha with TopsMaleSpandex for your dressing pleasure.

A note about how these work. Inspired by something Mark Shute did in HM2.x, I have a set of base spandex tops with sleeves of varying lengths. Think of these as your "base" tops. You can then layer (using the "Multiples" setting) the other pieces over it to create shirts of different types. For instance, you could have a short-sleeve shirt with a deep V neck, or a scoop neck, by swapping out which neck piece you use. You could even color the neck piece the skin colors to make it look like it's part of the character's body.

I've only played around with it a bit, but it's a very subtly powerful way to create. By mixing and matching the pieces you can make some really varied effects; I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.

As usual, let me know any items you would like, but don't see, or any bugs you come across.

Eventually I'll flesh out the Tops slot with more expanded sets like in 2.x, with Coats and Overshirt type items, but for now these two ought to give you a lot to work with.

Tomorrow I'll be adding any spandex tops I've forgotten, and then will move on to facial slots (Nose, Eyes, etc.). So holler if there's anything in that regard you want to see.

I've just added the "TopsMaleStandard" set to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha so you can get your characters a bit more dressed.

This is not the sum total of all the Tops there will be in the final version!

Continue reading →

I've added the GloveLeftStandard set of items to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha, so you can now have matching items without having to manually flip them. I also added two dedicated "arm blasters" by request:

I'll be moving on to Tops today, so holler if you want anything NOT currently in HeroMachine 2.x or one of the minis.

I've just updated the HeroMachine 3 Alpha with the GloveRightStandard set of items. In retrospect I bet I'm going to have to change that to GloveRightMALEStandard, but oh well. Here's a quick taste of some of the new items:

Like with the shoes, let me know any gloves you'd like to see but don't, or any weirdnesses you encounter. I'm going to keep it just to the right glove for now, until the set is finalized, then I'll swap them all over to the left side. In the meantime, you can use Multiples and flipping to get matching items if you like.

I also wanted to note that if you're using one of the alternate arms, you can still get a good glove on it by picking one, rotating and scaling it to where it mostly fits, then Masking it with the arm piece to make it conform if it's one of the skintight ones.

Finally, the applet itself has one fairly major update to it. Mousing over an item now fades it to 50% transparent instead of giving the blue glow. I am testing to see if the glow is part of the reason trying to mouse around in the canvas area is so slow when you add enough items to the stage. I also think it might make it easier to position items if you can see what's underneath it. Let me know what you think of the change, it's easy enough to go back to the old way if people prefer it.

I just updated the HM3 Alpha with the "LeftFootMaleStandard" set, so now you can have a shoe on each foot if you like.

I've posted a new update to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. The big addition is the "FootRightMaleStandard" set, so you can start shoe-ing your creations. The FootLeft will be coming in the next day or two, but in the meantime you can use the "flip" button to get by. Just find the shoe you want, click the "multiples" button, add the same shoe again, click the "Flip" button, and put it where you want for a matching pair. Here's a taste of the new items:

Also in this update I've changed the sort order on the slot dropdowns. Before the slots were listed in stack order, starting from the bottom layer (which currently is "Backplane") and working its way up. Now it's just in alpha order. Let me know which you prefer, it's easy enough to change.

I also made the two dropdown boxes a bit larger, both for ease-of-reading and because before I had unknowingly shrunk them, which made it really hard to line everything up properly. It was really irritating. Now it's all scaled at 100% and my math is working.

Finally, I changed the wording on the "allow multiples" radio button. Before it would say "Allow multiple Body items? YES/NO", which I think is clearer, but it was all jammed up in there and looked crappy. I reduced it to read "Multiples/Singles", but I don't know if that's going to be obvious or not. It's a very important piece of functionality that I don't think is immediately intuitive, so any feedback you have on the best way to present it would be appreciated.

Let me know any other foot-type items you want. I decided to consolidate Footwear into just Foot, since there aren't that many plain old feet I could think of. Plus, with the Multiples thing, it works out a little better this way.

I will be adding a "LegwearKneepads" set as well for those sorts of items. I've got several from the Lordi and Warrior applet that are cool and deserve to be included, plus I want to include some medieval knight-type knee protectors.