Archive for the ‘News & Updates’ Category

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

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.

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

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
Friday, February 15th, 2008

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!

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

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.

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

Share your site here!

If you’ve used HeroMachine to help your web site, I want to spread the word about it! Either leave a comment here with your URL or send me an email containing a link and a quick description and I’ll post it. Whether you wrote a novel and used HeroMachine to help visualize the characters, or you’re a role playing gamer who brought villains to life for your players with the application, send it along and share it with the world.

I look forward to seeing what you all have done!



HeroMachine Poll
You have the power to bring one super hero to life in the real world for one 24 hour period. Who do you choose?
View Results
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