I am finally getting to the many back-logged contest prizes I owe people. The first to get approved is this Rocketeer-styled aviator jacket for Ian’s Caption Contest 67 victory:
When I get to converting all the various Male tops over to the Female template, this one will go along with them.
Thanks for the request Ian, I think it’s a great addition!
I’m very happy to announce the release of the latest set of items for the HeroMachine 3 Alpha — HandRight Female! They’re just like the male set only, you know, for the female template, properly positioned, rotated, and scaled for your ease of use. Many of them are redrawn to look more feminine, too, with more slender fingers, longer nails, and fewer interior lines.
Niall, if I don’t get at least one SQUEE out of you, I’ll be crushed.
Next up, Instruments! If you have requests for specific musical items you want to see, let me know in the comments. Also, holler if the Hands present a problem.
If you haven’t been over to UGO.com today, check it out — they’ve done a complete site redesign and it’s pretty nifty. Also, if you scroll down on the main page, down in the right-hand column, you’ll see a nice little HeroMachine plug that’ll change every week to feature one of the recent contest winners.
The UGO front page is prime digital real estate, and from now on if your character design wins the bi-weekly contest, your work will be shown to millions of visitors!
I’ve added the broken-up legs to the Body-MaleAlternate set of items in the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. I also fixed the problem with that one arm not working (thanks MartianBlue!).
No, this is not the final set of body parts. I want to consolidate at least all the legs into a separate set (maybe in Feet?), including at least one set of feline-like furry animal type legs. And I also need to put the new hands into the Hands slot.
So, yeah. Lots to do still, even with just the items from this set of twelve bodies. After that, we’ll see.
Good news and bad news — we got another paying client for a HeroMachine Mini version! Wahoo! That’s good news because a) it continues to make the program valuable to UGO in a monetary sense (sales is what drives them) and b) it gives us a new toy to play with when it’s done.
However, it’s also bad news because it means work on HM3 will grind to a halt for the next 3-4 weeks while I crank non-stop on this very short deadline. So Polearms are going to be on hold, as will much of anything else except this new thing until further notice.
I’ll still be updating the blog on the regular schedule so by all means keep checking in, making suggestions, generating hilarity, etc, but I wanted you to know the latest status, and to not be too surprised as new releases come to a halt for the next little bit.
The HeroMachine 3 Alpha now allows you to Save and Load your characters!
Other things to note about this feature:
Hope you enjoy it! Again, be sure to let me know if/when/how this breaks on you.
I’ve just posted the Shoulder-Standard set of items to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha, with 59 mostly-new (including some from the Lordi version) illustrations including the following sample:
I tired to include a good cross-section of high-tech, fantasy, and modern items for your creative pleasure, hopefully they’ll help make your characters closer to how you envision them in your mind.
Holler in the comments if you see that I’ve missed something egregious, or if there are any bugs that are getting in your way.
I believe — and please, correct me if I am wrong here — that this completes all the “Standard” items for the male figure. Which is pretty amazing when I sit back and think about it. It might not seem like it, but believe me, after two years of working through the Expansion for 2.5, and countless custom versions for Sales, and all the other stuff, once I got to sit down and actually work full-time on HeroMachine 3, it’s come together at a rapid pace.
I posted “HeroMachine 3.0 Begins” on January 19 of this year. In just three and a half months, you have a functioning (if somewhat buggy) version in your hands with a full set of basic items. And as you have seen in the various “Cool Characters” posts, people are doing some amazing things already.
I want to be sure you understand how important everyone who has taken the time to comment on the program during this development period has been. Many of the items and features you see are directly attributable to input from someone in the community here, which I think is just fantastic. So thank you, very sincerely, for helping this application come to life at all, much less to be as awesome as it’s turning out (he said humbly).
Not that we’re done — not by a long shot. I haven’t done an actual count but I would guess there are probably three times as many more items just to convert from 2.x, not to mention any new stuff that gets added. That’s a lot of drawing. Plus the female body template (which I’ve contracted out by the way) and the conversion of any gender-dependent items to fit on it. And all the feature enhancements and bug fixes.
In other words, we’re a long ways from done. But not as long as we were three months ago, when this was just an idea.
Thank you for following along thus far, and I hope you’ll be sticking around for the next few months as this thing eventually leaves alpha and goes to beta, and then to a full, formal “final release”. It should be fun!
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:
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.
