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!
one thing I found was when you click the arrows to scroll through, if you go past the iteams it’ll be blank and won’t let you go back to the items
Is there a way to type in the rotation rather than having to try and work it out, cause the dial is kinda sensitive
wish the turtle vest was in
trying to see if i’ll get used to that clear button or not
those wings are cool and so are the shin guards next to the boot from the post which is also cool
http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f374/Deemanboy24/?action=view¤t=warrior1.jpg
My first creation with this wonderful app. So far I haven’t found really any thing buggy about it. I would like to be able to enter numbers on the rotation dial so that it automatically rotates to that angle.
sometimes when you try to mask a weapon it fits in the hand, but it disappears in other places too
That clear button is kind of counter-intuitive. It worked fine with Hero Machine, why not stick with that system?
But I liked how the color names came up.
TheNate- The clear button like in HM would be very hard to use on here due to there being the option of multiple items per a category.
Jeff this is just a prototype right? i would like to see some capes and half of tops and leggings like you have in hm 2.5 and bb was right the scrolling is buggie
I think This application needs some background nothing fancy just the basic one found in the standard HM 2.X background or the ones found in Shakti Warriors. Secondly Giving the size of most of the weapons I think you need make the character creation window Wider so the weapons actually completely show in the picture.
forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54942&d=1226292527
here is my first creation with this mini
The Briefs/trunks in the legware do not work
opps i just noticed you have one cape 😉 i love the parts you have so far 🙂 i wish you could keep the skeliton jaw and steel half mask from 2.5 i love you work ever sience the first verson of Hm 🙂
Here’s a quick example of using a insigna item to create other things then insigna’s .. introducing Fission: http://s285.photobucket.com/albums/ll49/Kaldath/?action=view¤t=Fission.png
Great work on the insignia stuff there Kaldath, very cool.
TheNate, DJ nailed it, I can’t just have “clear” because you can have more than one item in each slot; I wouldn’t know which one you wanted to delete.
On the clear thing, I could probably do something where holding down the SHIFT key or whatnot would delete an item instead of selecting it. I’ll look into that.
I think this will be a good think you can personalise the textures with the line color. There will a great improvement.
I have constated a bug. It is impossible to put an insignia on a headgear.
Another reflexion : with features like duplication and flipside i think it”s not important to distingate right and left items.
@Fabien: I’m not sure what you’re seeing with the insignia and the headgear, I was able to do so with no problem. By default the insignia layer is below the headgear layer, so I had to Layer Up the Insignia until it was on top, but otherwise it worked fine.
I thought about doing away with the left and right division and it’s something I’ll have to consider more carefully with HM3. It’s more work for the user to have to manually flip and position each element to make it fit, as opposed to me doing it for them ahead of time.
I also noticed that sometimes if you have duped items when you do the layer it moves both items up/down. Maybe change it so you have a cursor selection like with the clear function.
While Kaldath was finding ways to use the Insignias in other ways I was seeing how I could use other items to create insignias.
http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f374/Deemanboy24/?action=view¤t=warrior2.jpg
His insignia is made up of belts.
Another option I think would be good is something like a “sticky” option where you can attach clothes,hands,weapons and stuff to a body and adjust them all at the same time instead of trying to scale each one.
@DJ: The Layer Up and Layer Down function works on all the items within a slot first, and then moves the entire slot and everything in it up or down.
So let’s say you have three different items in the Insignia slot, and you want to move the one on the bottom to the top. Hitting Layer Up will move it from 3 to 2, and hitting it again moves it from 2 to 1. Once it’s at the top of the stack in the Insignia slot, hitting Layer Up again will move all three items, still in the same order you ended with, above all the items in whatever slot was above it.
With HM3, I could probably work it to where items aren’t loaded directly into slots, they’re all just slapped onto the same main layer. But I don’t know yet if that’d be a good or a bad thing.
Since you can’t do the old clear button, could you add an undo button that would delete the last item placed? This would allow for quicker testing if an item looks right when dupe is on.
I am somewhat irked that one cannot have leggings tucked into boots covered partially by leg armour, but other than that, this is nice. Face making, for one, has improved immensely, though obviously adding individual facial features would be nice (if only to have a nose to tape onto the mask, or a special set of glowing eyes above all ect)
And since its the Holiday season(or so the stores tell me)
http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f374/Deemanboy24/?action=view¤t=SANTACLAWS.jpg
His hat is from the glove section.
Nice stuff, DJ.
i think another good feature that could be added to this or HM3 when it comes out if to have the upper body separated from the legs, so that you can add extrs legs and so on
@Luke: Yep, that’s the plan for HM3 — separate head, torso, upper arms, lower arms, hips, upper legs, lower legs, and feet. Ideally you’ll be able to work with all of those just like you can with the separate head, body, and hands of this Warrior Mini.
It makes trying to design cohesive Tops and Legwear problematical, but I think it’ll be workable.
Ok Jeff, thats good, couldnt it be like Matching sets like the gloves in HM2 where you tick a box and the parts that natch that top appear?
Yes, that’s possible Luke. Not sure we have time to get it into this Warrior Mini, but it’d be nice to have in HM3.
Have you planned a female template and components for the warrior mini ?
I would like a half circle insigna. So I could do this: http://www.stuffwelike.com/stuffwelike/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/reboot.jpg
Apart from that, sometimes the scale circle would get out of his place and into the character screen without me touching it ou without changing the scale. Why?
it looks great but i think you need some more thingsd from hm 2.5
No female template is planned for this, for reasons which will become obvious once the associated contest is announced.
Collex, you can get that effect by choosing first a circle insignia, then dupe in a square one. Click on the square one, click the Mask, and click the circle. The square should now get masked out by the circle and you can position them both so that it looks like two half circles.
Jeff- I was looking at the name function and it doesn’t seem to work. It may just be me being stupid and not figuring it out though.
That really should have been feature instead if function. Sorry about that.
DJ, you’re right, it’s just a placeholder for now.
Alright. That’s what I figured but just making sure.
Been Playing around with the Application and here is an example pic to show that with a little creativity you can get a Tiny bit of pose-ability out of the applet.
http://s285.photobucket.com/albums/ll49/Kaldath/?action=view¤t=Eron.png
Neat, how’d you do that Kaldath? I can’t figure out how you got the regular arms blanked out.
simple I just deleted the entire body and rebuilt it using a sleeveless top and tights
Kaldath-You are a MASTER with heromachine.
On a different note-Can you please hold another patriot contest? With this I can create some really awesome ones 😀
I discovered you can make some really crazy monsters with these features, like this one:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=10r639w&s=4
doh jeff for somereson i thought this was hm3 but its just a place holder till you get it done 🙂 silly fanboy that i am
Pretty neat. http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/rr310/LeVaJe/Balance.jpg
Bug: The briefs don’t seem to work.
Actually, since all the items can be moved around and you can have more than one item per heading, the “select item” clear option is better; otherwise, you may end up clearing all the items in the category.
Other than the problem with the items page turning blank after scrolling more than two pages, this is a good start. Hope to see more soon!
I still can’t figure out how to pose the arms and legs. Any help here guys?
I can’t get the item scroll bug to appear, it always loops back around to the first screen again. Is everyone seeing it happpen? Which categories of item does it happen with?
http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f374/Deemanboy24/?action=view¤t=Camobackground.jpg
I’m showing the possibility of making backgrounds without having it as an actual option. If you can guess how I did it you get a cookie. 😀
I’ve had the scroll bug hit on all the options
For anyone who sees the scroll bug, can you post what browser and what Flash Player version you’re using?
Thanks!!
Also I’d like the report a bug in the hand patterns. When you try to put a pattern on a hand it creates a huge square block instead. (which I used to make the above background)
Shoot, I hadn’t thought about the hands, DJ. It’s a consequence of the way hands are different from other items in that their mask covers everything but the interior part of the hand instead of the whole hand itself. Not sure how to get around that … hmmm ….
Is there any way you could make the pattern more like a regular color?
There’s always a way to do most anything, but not given the way I did the rest of the program, no.
Few examples of characters :
http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mascaradnn7.jpg
http://img83.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fistfullpj8.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lostsoulxc9.jpg
I get the scroll bug in FireFox 3 and IE 7 both with Flash 9.
It only does it on sets that do not have a full second page, for example it happens in Insignia but not Headgear.
Thanks Level, I appreciate that. I am using FF3 on MacOSX and don’t see that happening at all. When I right-click on the movie and select “About Flash Player 9” I get version 9,0,124,0 from the Adobe site. Which version does it show you as having?
I am also wondering (if you’re willing) if upgrading to the Flash Player 10 fixes it? And are you on a PC or a Mac?
I have Adobe 10 and I haven’t got the bug.
I am a PC user and my browser is FF3.
I tested with XP and Vista. The exact Flash version was 9,0,124,0, after updating to 10.0.12.36 I no longer get the bug, and I found out there is a third page in Headgear.
Cool, thanks fellahs. I’ll have to see if I can figure out what changed between those releases to make it happen, or try a different way of paginating.
I think I’ve solved the “Clear” problem. Click on “Clear”, then when the dialog box appears, don’t click on “Close”, just click on the item with the red “x” cursor and it will be cleared.
This program is awesome :
http://img75.imageshack.us/my.php?image=recallmr3.jpg
Hey Jeff, I was wondering if you could add a button that would allow you to duplicate EXACTLY the item clicked. So if you wanted an exact copy of say the circle insignia at the same exact scale and rotation instead of having to manually resize a second circle you simply activate the button and click on the circle you want and poof another one appears ready to be placed where you want it.
Not a bad idea Kaldath. Maybe a “Clone” button, and I could use an Anakin Skywalker icon :-p
Jeff, many thanks to you sir. This “Warrior-Mini” applet is indeed sweet. I have, as well, encountered the bug on some of the item slots going blank when I try to return to the screen after scrolling back to them. Other than that, I can’t wait for the new items ready to be unleashed by fertile (…maybe a lil’ deranged) imaginations.
P.S.– Thanks to this applet, I present to you, Corporal Jeff Herbert of the 101st Airborne DIV, 502d PIR. Not entirely historically accurate, but enough so to march into Berlin and wrangle Hitler to a surrender!
http://img523.imageshack.us/my.php?image=101stcx7.jpg
Thanks Joshua, nice job on the pic! I like the way you duped and rotated the belts to make a nifty shoulder harness setup too, very cool.
Another good feature to add is the ability to latch one item on to another so that you can move multiple items together for like the hands and body attached so you can move/shrink/rotate them together.
@DJ: That’s definitely something I am planning on at least trying with HM3, a next-level grouping sort of thing. A sample hierarchy (with each level being movable along with everything under it) being Hand-Forearm&Upperarm-WholeArm-Torso.
Kind of like in the HM3 rotate test thingie, where you can choose to rotate the forearm and the hand goes with it, or the arm and the forearm and hand both go with it.
I developed a Green Goblin-like air rider from shoulder pieces.
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q202/UNTBat/Hero%20Machine/rider.png
I love the versatility of this application , not a huge fan of the actual pose however. Anyway here is another example of stuff you can do with this program … http://s285.photobucket.com/albums/ll49/Kaldath/?action=view¤t=ThePatriotIII.png … Used a combination of belts and insignia to make the red and white stripes.
Kaldath- Even though you won the contest don’t you wish this was around then?!?
It would have been nice, but I can’t make my winning character with this program ,, at least not yet. The Warriors Mini doesn’t have any hoods and I haven’t figured out how to make a hood from the other items yet
I love this,got busted using it at work by my teamleader, who promtly asked for the link,….
it would be cool for HM3 maybe to have tatoos for the whole body and not just the chest
A too permitting to associate two items would be useful.
For example, if you create two insignias, you cannot apply a mask to the two. You can duplicate the body or the top to apply but the result will be better if you can associate items in a same layer and apply the mask.
Il suppose this tool will be other uses.
Nice Green Goblin sled there, GreenBat!
Although I think the actual drawing of the figure is good, I’m not super thrilled with him just standing there either. But, with all the flipping and rotating and such, having him at a three quarters angle would not work at all. Hopefully once you can rotate and move body parts in HM3 it’ll be better.
Jeff,
Is there any application to group things together and then duplicate like what I did with the stars on the chest of the attached Americomando2.
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q202/UNTBat/Hero%20Machine/Americomando2.png
I don’t have that functionality built in, but it could be done. There are a lot of implications to this whole duping thing that are going to take some thinking about, I’m glad we’re having a chance to test-drive it on the Mini before going full-bore with 3.0.
Nice character, btw!
Jeff If you can add a single straight arm either to the tops of the backplane that would be awesome. It would allow you have have one arm straight and the other bent buy building the body from tops, backpane items and legware, that way you have a bit of a custom pose. as it is now you have to have both arms bent or both arms straight adding that single straight arm item would allow a pose similar to that in HM2.X
On the scaling tool, a button “keep proportion” would be useful.
@Kaldath, you mean straight kind of like in that DaVinci drawing of the figure with the arms and legs rotating out?
@Fabien, good idea!
You know, I still only have one item in the Body slot. I could add all the spare limbs and limbless torsos and such in there so you could literally build your own body out of pieces. Kind of macabre, but interesting.
well when I mean straight I mean like the arms are on the regular body template, but the more arms and leg poses you can come up with the better in my opinion
Just Curious if you are going to put out a second Beta with all the new ideas and bug corrections before you do the final release ?
Not sure yet, Kaldath. Probably another iteration of the beta version, but the timing is getting pretty tight, they want a full launch very early in December. It just depends on how fast everything goes.
Y’know, I do have an odd question, maybe a pseudo-request for you, Jeff: Is there any chance these applets will be released for download? In the event a person’s access goes down and he just wants to fire an applet on up and design away.
Doubtful, Joshua — they’re built for advertising clients who pay to have them produced and put online. Without the online traffic aspect the clients wouldn’t be interested in them, if that makes sense.
Now for HM3, I don’t know, we haven’t gone into that yet. It’s a different beast, since it’s not client-specific and is completely UGO’s to do with as they like.
I like Kaldaths idea of having the arms separate kind of like how you have the hands. Right now the separate hands doesn’t work to well because if you move them to much they don’t fit right on the arm.
It’s pretty cool I hope you will add seperate Face parts insted of only useing full faces it will be cool to see what you add