Category Archives: News & Updates

The latest happenings on all things HeroMachine.

Face Maker

With the HeroMachine 2.5 Expansion nearing completion, I am starting to think about the next big project I should work on. After a bit of back and forth, the one that has me most excited is the idea of a Face Maker, a HeroMachine-powered applet that would focus on the face and head. One site that does something similar is "Ultimate Flash Face", to give you an idea of what I am talking about here. I've got a rough draft wire frame model and some other thoughts after the jump.

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Pinup Edition is now live!

I am pleased to announce that HeroMachine:Pinup Edition is now live and available at UGO.com! The Pinup Edition is Pinup Stephaniedesigned to be a tribute to the pinup calendars of the fifties, and features two attractive female figures you can dress up in a variety of fun outfits. This is very much a PG-13 style applet, a bit racy for younger users but nothing more risque than you'd see on the cover of FHM or in your average late-night TV show.

I hope you enjoy this latest release, and by all means please let me know how you like it, any changes, additions, or deletions to the item set you'd like to see, and anything else about it that crosses your mind. I realize this is a bit more mature than anything else I've done, but I think it's tasteful enough not to be too much for the younger crowd while still being suitable for an older audience.

On a more technical note, this is also a chance to preview two items that may impact future HeroMachine offerings. First, it has an integrated ad unit, something you're likely to see in the near future on HeroMachine 2.5. Let me know what you think about how it's implemented.

Second, I got to try out having an entire component dedicated to the "Name". Before, the name was either completely separate from the image, or was only in the basic system font on a white background. Now you can change the font and color to get a neat graphical element into the text. It's something I've been thinking about incorporating into future mini-Editions and maybe 3.0, only even more so. I'd be curious to hear how you feel it's working out so far.

Multiple Components, trenchcoat and suit

I had a request in the last thread to show if it's possible with the new components to have a suit and trench coat combination, so here you go:

Low Lane, Ace Reporter

What next?

One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was so that all of you out there would have the chance to be involved in an ongoing development project by providing insight and input throughout. Over the last few months there hasn't been a lot of opportunity for that, as the Expansion was in the "grind the items out to the additional templates" mode.

But now that the 2.5 expansion is finally getting to the wrapping-up stage, it's time to start discussing what you would like to see next out of the HeroMachine team. I've been talking with the UGO team, and here are the ideas we've put forth as big projects. I'd like to know what you all think about them, or if there are other things you'd like to see us work on.

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Expansion bug updates

I have now fixed all of the bugs from the Big List that can be fixed. Or at least, that can be fixed by me; I'm sure a better Flash developer could repair the LeftHand load bug, for instance. I want to thank everyone who took the time to post errors, having everything all in one place made the whole process much, much easier. You guys rule! Note that the fixes won't be live until the final 2.5 update, hopefully next week.

I'll now be moving on to copying over some of the component genre sets into other components. Here's what I am thinking so far (edited to add new stuff per the comments section):

  1. Copy Coats-Standard into Overshirts.
  2. Copy Coats-CapeFronts into Overshirts.
  3. Copy Coats-CapeFronts into Undershirts.
  4. Copy Coats-FantasyArmor into Overshirts.
  5. Copy Coats-FantasyArmor into Undershirts.
  6. Copy Coats-FantasyCommon into Overshirts.
  7. Copy Coats-FantasyCommon into Undershirts.
  8. Copy Overshirts-Standard into Coats.
  9. Copy Leggings-Standard into Overleggings.
  10. Copy Leggings-Standard into Pants.
  11. Copy Overleggings-Standard into Leggings.
  12. Copy Overleggings-Standard into Pants.
  13. Copy Pants-Standard into Leggings.
  14. Copy Pants-Standard into Overleggings.
  15. Copy Back-Standard into Wings.
  16. Copy Back-Standard into Tails.
  17. Copy Wings-Standard into Back.
  18. Copy Wings-Standard into Tails.
  19. Copy Tail-Standard into Back.
  20. Copy Tail-Standard into Wings.
  21. Copy Companion-Standard into Back.
  22. Copy Companion-Standard into Wings.
  23. Copy Companion-Standard into Tail.
  24. Copy Background-Expansion1 into Back.
  25. Copy Background-Expansion1 into Wings.
  26. Copy Background-Expansion1 into Tail.
  27. Copy Neckwear-Shoulders into Coats.
  28. Copy Neckwear-Shoulders into Overshirt.
  29. Copy Neckwear-Shoulders into Undershirt.

If there are other components you're dying to have, by all means please speak up, preferably in the comments to this post so everything's in one place. Each one of these duplications is easier than coming up with a whole new batch, but I do still have to manually position everything for three out of the six templates. I finally wised up halfway through developing this thing and started putting all components in the same spot so I could just cut and paste without repositioning, but it was too late for the first three.

Female brick expansion released!

I am happy to announce that the sixth and final body template for HeroMachine 2.5 has now been upgraded with the Expansion Pack! You can now use the Expansion items on any template, for that perfect character portrait.

I will be spending the remainder of the week squashing bugs, so if you have any reports not in the general Bug post, please let me know asap. Next week I hope to have the final, full 2.5 version ready and available for download, with all of the fixes in place.

Female Dwarf expansion released!

I am happy to announce that the Expansion Pack items have now been added to the Female Dwarf figure! You can access the new items at the usual place.

The last remaining body template to be updated is the female Brick. After that, I'll need to clean up all the bugs, and hopefully duplicate some of the components into other slots. For instance, I'd like to make the Standard Coats available on the Overshirt and Undershirt layers, and vice versa, across the board.

And after that, I'll probably be done with HeroMachine 2 for the foreseeable future. We're in the midst right now of figuring out what's next; my guess is that we'll probably focus for a while on putting out much smaller, one-off versions like the Rock Star Edition and Real Life Edition. Think of things like a smaller HeroMachine with just one pose featuring exclusively Powered Armor, or Old West items, or Modern Teenager clothes, that kind of thing.

On the plus side, such releases can come out much more frequently. There are also business advantages, since such mini-applets are entirely self-contained and can be easily shared on other web sites, unlike the full 2.5 which spans hundreds of files and six subdirectories. On the down side, you'll be limited to just the items in that applet, so you'll have a situation where there might be items you'd love to see in the full version that just aren't available, and vice versa. It's almost like going back to the original HeroMachine 1, where if you chose the Martial Artist pose you couldn't have guns.

But, if there are specific items that people in general are clamoring to have in the full release, we can probably schedule another Expansion to include them.

Anyway, enjoy the female dwarf Expansion, and as always, please comment in the Bugs post if you come across anything weird.

Guide for the color blind

A long time ago, I had a request to make a color guide for the standard color swatches in HeroMachine 2 for someone who was color blind. I just stumbled upon the file on my hard drive, and thought I should re-post it here so it would have a final home in case other color-blind users might find it useful. Click on the image below for the larger, more legible sized version.

HeroMachine Color Chart

Expansion now available for male Brick!

I am happy to announce that the hundreds of items in the 2.5 expansion are now available for the final male body, the Brick! You can now finally make your own heavy-world Space Marine, massively-thewed barbarian warrior, or muscle-bound face-smashing super-hero with the benefit of the new features.

Head on over to the main HeroMachine 2.5 application at UGO.com to play around with the new stuff. Enjoy!

HeroMachine and ads

Everyone's been able to enjoy HeroMachine 2 and the expansion for free for quite a while now, thanks entirely to UGO. Because they're both paying the hosting costs and providing my daily bread, I've been able to work on the program full time. And what makes that possible for UGO? Ads.

So as you can imagine, good ad placement is pretty much key to making this whole free thing work. As a result, we're trying to come up with a way to include an ad right in the Flash applet itself instead of just placed around it on the page. The proposed interface looks like this (click for a larger version):

HeroMachine ad mockup

Let me know in comments what you think about this change -- is it too much, or alright? I removed the icons for some of the basic functions like loading and saving and moved them to a menu across the top, how do you think that is working? What about the loss of the message window?

Update: After some discussion on the HeroMachine Yahoo Group, I have submitted this tweaked version for consideration (click for full size version):

HeroMachine ad tweak

I've included a small static text box explaining to the new user what they should do. I also moved the dropdown boxes for component and genre closer to the previews, as that's where most of the activity occurs.