Archive for the ‘News & Updates’ Category

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Warrior gallery

gallery.png

UGO has put up a gallery featuring some of the contest entries they’ve received so far. I don’t know how they choose which ones go up, nor do I have access to the library of all entries, so I don’t have any particular insight to offer on why yours isn’t up there. I just thought they were neat and that you might like to get a look at some of the competition.

This is in reference to the Modern Warrior Contest being put on by UGO where the best character design gets to star in a new online video game, in case you missed it.

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Horror update

With many thanks for your suggestions, I’ve added a “Face” slot to the Horror Mini. I also added a “Randomize All” button because, come on, random zombies = fun.

I cheated and just copied/pasted the Warrior faces into the app since I’m so short on time. I could probably do the same with the FacialHair one, but that’ll complicate things a bit for the female version. Do-able though. The Warrior Hair items don’t seem to fit all that well, but if you want it I can see what I can do. Ditto for the Backplane.

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Horror Edition Beta

I’ve just put up the HeroMachine “Horror Edition” beta up, which you can find here. Let me know what you think of it, features you’d like to see, things that aren’t working, etc. Here’s a sample character I made up while checking things out, sort of a “Zombie out on the town” sort of thing.

zombie.png

I took a lot of the recommendations people made in the last post about things like big chunks of missing skin (which you can see in the sample above), eye sockets missing eyeballs, separate skull pieces in the Head slot, and much more. It’s already over the 1MB mark, so I don’t know how much more I can comfortably add to it, but by all means holler if there’s something you really wanted but don’t see.

Thursday, December 4th, 2008

Create the next great video game star

The previously beta-tested Warrior Mini has now been officially released, and is available for use right now on UGO.com. But even better, the applet is the center of a new contest that is so cool I almost wish I weren’t working for UGO so I could enter:

If your design wins, your character will be featured in a UGO-built online video game!

How cool is that?! Read the contest rules for more information, but basically you have from now until the end of January to work on your creation. You can enter up to five different characters. From the rules, here’s how they’ll be judged:

Winner Selection: All entries will be judged by a panel of three (3) judges comprised of members of the UGO editorial staff who will select five finalists based on the following criteria: Visual Design Aesthetic Appeal (30%); Visual Design Originality (30%); Character History (20%); and Character Name (20%). Judging for the five finalists will take place on February 2, 2009.

And once again, the winning character will be featured in an online game built by and featured on UGO.com. Yes, that’s right, you could be the next great action hero. Or at least, someone you make up could be, which is darn close.

Anyone who wants to pose questions about design techniques or to get feedback on what you’ve built, feel free to post it here or hit up the UGO HeroMachine forums. The guys there have a ton of experience building cool characters using the HeroMachine tools and can probably give you some good pointers.

So get out there and start creating, and good luck to everyone!

Update: Just to be clear, you must create the character with the tool linked above (no other HM version) and it must be submitted via the “Submit to Contest” button in the applet. No other submission method will qualify.

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Horror mini update

I’ve got all 52 Head items in and the 12 hand-held items, so I took a moment to whip up a scary-looking guy in the upcoming Horror Mini.

devilguy2.png

That’s an assemblage of something like eight different “Head” elements, some (like the eyes, horns, and ears) duplicated and flipped. I like the effect of having one huge eyeball hidden behind the ball-less socket of an eye item, while the other giant eyeball has been moved in front of it to look like it’s bulging out. Good times.

Here he is from a distance:

devilguy1.png

He’s kinda nekkid on account of I don’t have the clothing items in yet, but you get the idea. I like the effect of the two different interior colors combined with the red line color, all outlined in black with the “outline” feature.

The deadline on this is extremely tight, so I don’t know if you’ll have a chance to play with it in beta before it launches, but I hope you will for at least a day or two.

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

META: Contact form working again

Apparently the Contact Form page has been broken since the site went down last month. Oops! Furthermore it turns out the old contact form is what broke the site in the first place, and when I tried to put it back just now, it broke the site again. How rude! So I slapped a handle on it and toted it off, just a like a cabbage (or a man, as if there’s a difference), replacing it with a different, less pretty but more functional, form. It appears to now be working.

My apologies for the aggravation.

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008

Warrior update

I’m not able to post it, but I have taken your suggestions to heart and made a change to the Warrior Mini code base (which will also work for the Horror Mini and HM3). The “Dupe” setting is now slot-specific instead of being global. In other words, you can have “Body” and “LeftHand” set to Dupe, “LeftItem” and “Belt” set to No Dupe, and those settings will stay as you switch around to the different slots.

I also updated the code for the Preview section, so the previous button actually goes back one screen instead of going to the Next screen. I’ve got a slider button in there too that changes size and position based on the number of screens in that slot’s Previews so you have a better idea of which set of items you’re considering:

previewsupdate.jpg

Not sure if those updates will make it to the launch version, though I certainly hope they do. I kind of missed the “final code deadline”, but if we’re lucky UGO will slip them in anyway.

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

The horror, the horror!

“So Jeff,” I hear you asking out there in Internetland, “just what the heck are you doing with your time, since clearly you are not bringing teh funnah on such a regular basis the last two weeks and the Warrior Mini is pretty much done?” To which I reply, “Why am I hearing voices in my head again, did I not take my lithium?”

Seriously, joking about mental illness is not funny, I regret that last sentence and refer you to my many other substantive, caring, mature posts dealing with such weighty matters as cabbages, thinly veiled penis jokes, and vaguely homoerotic spandex fetishes, not to mention the thousands of words I have penned regarding the pressing scatological issues of our time.

To answer your impertinent and personal questions, however, the fact is that I have been spending night and day for the last two weeks drawing skulls, bones, horns, pulsating skinless muscles, spike-clad leather pants, and much more, all in service to a new client-sponsored top secret HeroMachine Mini I like to call … “Mini Horror!”

Hmm, that doesn’t spawn the sort of bone-chilling dread I’d hoped. I instead have flashes of Mini-Me in latex cracking a whip at me, which results in giggles. Not at al the effect I was going for. I think instead I’ll settle on “HeroMachine Horror Edition” instead, at least it sounds somewhat professional.

I’ll post some sample images below the fold, and if you have any particularly gruesome or morbidly fantastic items you’ve always wanted to see in a HeroMachine version, speak now or forever hold your severed head. Or whatever.

(more…)

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Warrior Mini Beta 2

I’ve put up a second version of the beta, with a major layout changes and 11 new Body parts for a bit of pose-customization. Let me know your thoughts in the comments to this post; I’m headed out of town in a bit but will be back on Sunday.”> another iteration of the Warrior Mini. The two big changes are, first, a new layout to accomodate a 300×250 ad. I fought this, but it’s a client demand and there’s not much I can do about it. I tried to put the ad at the lower right, so the workflow wouldn’t be as disturbed, but was rebuffed. C’est la vie.

The second is the addition of eleven new Body items, including arms, legs, feet, chest muscles, etc. so you can hopefully repose the figure a bit. It’s kind of clunky, but it definitely expands the range of possibilities significantly. Let me know what you think. I hate dumping this on you and then leaving town for a day, but at least if you hate it you still have the old one to tinker with :-)

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

The warrior cometh …

I’m finally releasing the early Beta of the HeroMachine Warrior Mini for you all to play around with. You can find the page here; I hope you’ll let me know what you think of it, preferably in the comments to this post, but the site’s Contact Us form and my email are also fine.

It’s going to be buggy, so don’t be shy about letting me know what you find broken or what you’d like to see work better. Let me know if something is confusing, or doesn’t work how you’d expect it to, or if something strikes you as counter-intuitive, or pretty much anything else you think about it.

Hope you all like it!