Monthly Archives: July 2008

I have made a lot of big changes to the FaceMaker beta applet and am curious to get your reaction to it. The latest update looks like this:

You can find this new version here, and the previous one for comparison's sake here. Changes in this update include:

1. Moved the character canvas area with colors and buttons to the left side of the screen, and the ad over to the right. Since most people expect the most important part of the page to be at the upper left, I think this works a bit better.
2. Massive update of items -- every item slot now has what I think to be a reasonably solid, complete set of options from which to choose.
3. Changed the item slot selection boxes from being separated out and visible at all times to being in a collapsible selection box like in HeroMachine 2. I probably need to add a little arrow in that box to make it obvious what it's for. Basically though you just click on the item slot name and a pop-up appears with all the other options.
4. Made the action buttons icons instead of text-based.
5. Added "gender" buttons, which basically just skip the beard and mustache if you're randomizing the face.
6. Created space for preview boxes which I am reluctantly going to have to add by hand. Sigh. They'll go on the bottom right, below where the "Share" and "Save" buttons currently sit.
7. Fixed the bug where the scaling button would keep moving even after you moused out of the box.
8. The scaling button now moves to the appropriate spot on the grid to reflect how the currently selected item is set when changing slots.
9. You no longer get "blank" items for essential slots like Forehead, Jaw, Nose, etc. Before you'd get some really bizarre looking results with Random Face, with the background showing through and such. You can still make those slots blank manually if you like, of course.

I'm very curious as to how you think the new layout and collapsing the item selection boxes into a pop-out menu works versus the previous method of keeping them out at all times.

Feel free to leave your suggestions, observations, complaints, and/or compliments in the comments below. Or if you're shy, you can email them to me directly either via afdstudios@gmail.com or through this blog's "contact us" page.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you'd like to share regarding the program thus far!