Category Archives: News & Updates

Several folks have reached out since the relaunch observing that there were some oddities with colors on a number of items. THANK YOU to those people!! After getting some more details and digging into it, I realized that the original import process from Flash to SVG files completely mistreated the “details” layer. Sometimes an item needed a static colored area that can’t be changed, like the whites of the eyes, white teeth in Mouth sets, or wheels on cars. Other times I they’d have a semi-transparent overlay to create highlighted or shadowed areas.

The import ignored all that and made them all solid, which had … less than desirable results.

I’ve pushed a bunch of fixes, though, so hopefully things should look more like you’d expect. Here’s one before image of a fantasy armor top:

You can see black areas between the middle part, on the outer edges under the armpits, and the stripes along the stomach outer edges. You might think that looks fine, and it probably does, but it’s not how it looked in the original Flash version. After the fix, here’s that same item:

Here you can see the same areas are semi-transparent overlays instead of solid blacks, allowing the undercolor to show through. It’s a much more dynamic and nuanced effect and what I intended with the original.

For the detail-oriented among you (which I, clearly, am not or I’d have noticed this before), here’s the complete updated set list:

All Right-side handheld items, gloves, feet, and shoulders were also mirrored
to their Left-side counterparts, bringing the effective total to 372 items
fixed.

Thanks again to the HeroMachiners kind enough to take the time to point out the issues, much appreciated. I am far from perfect and absolutely would have missed all of this if not for your attention and care.

Mirror Mode for Left/Right Slots

The biggest addition today is Mirror mode, available in all Left/Right slot pairs — Feet, Gloves, Hands, Items, and Shoulders. When the Mirror checkbox is enabled, equipping an item on one side automatically equips the matching item on the opposite side with the same colors and pattern. Transforms are mirrored too — horizontal position and rotation are flipped so both sides stay visually symmetric as you adjust. This should save a lot of time when building symmetrical characters.

Guest Artist Items: Robotic Noses

We have our first guest artist contribution! Seven robotic nose designs have been added to both the Male and Female Standard nose sets. These mechanical and cybernetic nose options are great for sci-fi and robot characters.

Bug Fix: Halftone Patterns Restored

The PatternsHalftones set was discovered to have corrupted data (it was showing circuitry patterns instead of halftones). This has been rebuilt from the original source files and is working correctly again.

A quick but important update today: HeroMachine 3 now includes backup reminders to help you keep your characters safe.

Why This Matters

When you click “Save” in HeroMachine 3, your character is stored in your browser’s local storage. This is convenient — your characters are right there the next time you visit — but it’s also fragile. Clearing your browsing data, using private/incognito mode, or even just not visiting the site for a while can cause your browser to silently wipe that data. Safari is particularly aggressive about this, automatically purging site data after as few as seven days of inactivity.

If this sounds familiar, it should, because the old Flash version worked the same way. Flash used “Shared Objects” (basically Flash cookies) that lived in your browser and could vanish just as easily. Many of you learned that lesson the hard way back then, and unfortunately the web version has the same fundamental limitation. Your browser’s storage is temporary by nature, no matter what technology is behind it.

What’s New

To help prevent heartbreak, the Save Data tab now includes three things:

• A permanent warning reminding you that browser saves can be lost, displayed right above the Export/Import buttons.
• A highlighted Export All button in amber, so it’s easy to spot.
• A periodic reminder banner that appears if you haven’t exported a backup in five or more days. You can dismiss it and it’ll come back in another five days, or turn it off entirely in Preferences under “Backup Reminders.”

The Short Version

Please, please use Export All regularly. It downloads a single JSON file containing every character you’ve saved. If anything ever happens to your browser data, you can restore them all with Import All. Keep that file somewhere safe — your desktop, a cloud drive, wherever — and you’ll never lose your work.

I know it’s an extra step, but a few seconds of backup beats hours of recreating a lost character. Trust me, I’ve gotten enough emails over the years to know how much that hurts.

You can also save individual characters to disk using the “download” button in the Save panel.

Happy creating, and back up your stuff!