Category Archives: HeroMachine 3

HM3 Animation Recipe

(If you've ever wondered if you can use HeroMachine to create an animation, you can! Thanks to frequent commenter Nite Rider and an assist from a movie making program, that is. Take it away, Nite Rider!)

With HeroMachine 3, you can create animations of your favorite heroes and villains and post them on sites such as YouTube. But, I must caution you not to violate any copyrights in the process.

You will need programs like Windows Movie Maker and Sound Recorder, a little patience, and a huge imagination.

First, create and copy multiple images of your character in each position of your animation sequence from HM3 to your pic file. Note the sample pics below:

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Foot questions

So with the benefit now of however long it's been, and at the prompting of some of the comments in the last thread, I opened up the "FootRightStandard" set this morning just for a quick look-see. And I realized it's a bit of a mess.

Back in the day when I was first putting these sets together, I had a pretty hard-core attitude about it. I felt like I was going to just present pieces that you the user would then assemble into whatever item you wanted. So rather than having ten boots with the same foot part and just different designs along the top (Superman's boot top versus Batman's versus Captain America's floppy top, etc.), I thought I would just provide the foot part (which stayed the same) and then separate tops, so you could make your own.

But as time has gone on and we've gotten more sets and more feedback, I'm rethinking that position.

It seems to me now that the best way to do these sets is the way I did the most recent Legwear release, where you've got the complete item, then a breakdown into pieces of that item in whatever configuration. That way the people who want one click items can have it, while the more advanced users who want the pieces to mix and match can do that, too.

Given that, I wanted to solicit your feedback on whether I ought to redo the FootRight sets, or at least do a couple of sub-sets (like BootTops and Foot or something), with a more orderly breakdown of items.

HM3: Fantasy Headgear update

If you don't see it, clear your browser's cache, but I've just updated the Headgear-Fantasy set with the following ten items from the suggestions you made after the last update:

With this release we're at a turning point in the HeroMachine 3 development process -- I have the sense that we're pretty much done with adding new items, with the exception of female bustiers. Barring any huge item set that I've overlooked, and which I count on you to remind me of in the comments, I think the next steps are as follows:

  1. Swap all the items that are currently right-only to have left components as well (hands, shoulders, feet, items, etc.);
  2. Convert all the male-only items (tops and legwear mostly) to fit the female figure as well;
  3. Recode to solve bugs and hopefully address some of the performance issues, add new features, etc.;
  4. Make another pass through the items to catch any that we missed;
  5. Upgrade status to beta and go for a wider release;
  6. Address any major issues revealed by the beta test and release.

The key takeaway is that this will be the end of "new" item releases for quite a while as I concentrate on converting over the stuff that already exists. I know that's not super exciting for you (or for me, frankly), but it clearly needs doing.

So, let me know what you think of this proposed plan!

HM3: Fantasy Headgear

I am super pumped to announce the release of the "Headgear-Fantasy" set of items for the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. I've included most of your suggestions over the past few months for various other things (full suits of armor when I was working on chest pieces, etc.), and also gone frame by frame to import (and update, for the most part) the items from the same set in HeroMachine 2.

Here's a quick sample showing some of the all-new items, and then at the end a couple of conversions:

Hope you like them! I've got room for a few more at the end, although at 78 items it's getting close to the ceiling. But let me know if there's some key bit missing you were really hoping for and I'll see what I can do.

HM3: Fantasy common

I've just added the "Tops-Male-FantasyCommon" set to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. This set includes 70+ items, some ported over from existing set and many new ones as well. Each entry where appropriate is broken down into the complete item, just the middle portion, just the chest portion, and just the sleeve. To get the sleeve on the left side, make sure you've got Multiples selected, add a second sleeve, and use the "Flip" button. Then drag it over to the right.

As usual, if you don't see it on the list, clear your browser's cache and it ought to appear -- it's definitely on the server.

Here's a sample of some of the items. Note that I tried to include some loose sleeves that you can match up with the wide variety of vests to make customized tunics.

Hope you like them! I've got room for maybe one or two more items with their breakdowns, or up to eight individual items, if there's something missing you've just got to have.

Scales

Hammerknight has put together a nice set of recipe cards showing the settings you need to scale your HeroMachine 3 illustrations for various purposes. Thanks again, HK!

Click on an image to see it at a larger, more legible size.

HM3: Capes

With thanks to Imp and others for pointing out the lack, I've added in 15 new cape backs to the "Backplane-Standard" set, for the most part designed explicitly to go with the items in "ShoulderRight-Capes":

Hope you like 'em. If you see something out of whack, or have a cape back you were really hoping for but which I didn't draw, let me know.

HM3: Gargoyle front

I was working on something else when I noticed this possibly useful bit of scenery from a contest winner a few months back. It's now live in BackgroundFloors, hope someone finds it helpful.

HM3: Brief change

The "LegwearMaleBriefs" set will be going away soon, as I've incorporated all nine items it contains into the "LegwearMaleSpandex" set, which I just updated. I also took Kaldath's suggestion and turned the most recent set of Spandex into super-hero Underoo-style briefs as well, to supplement the existing longer-legged shorts already present.

HM3: Pants!

I've just uploaded the "Legwear-Male-Pants" set to HeroMachine 3. It's broken out like the Spandex I put up the other day, with the complete item, just the hips, the right thigh, and the right lower leg. Here's a sample:

Let me know what you think. I've got room for probably another 4-5 complete items (to be then broken down) if there's something egregious missing.