I've posted a new update to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. The big addition is the "FootRightMaleStandard" set, so you can start shoe-ing your creations. The FootLeft will be coming in the next day or two, but in the meantime you can use the "flip" button to get by. Just find the shoe you want, click the "multiples" button, add the same shoe again, click the "Flip" button, and put it where you want for a matching pair. Here's a taste of the new items:
Also in this update I've changed the sort order on the slot dropdowns. Before the slots were listed in stack order, starting from the bottom layer (which currently is "Backplane") and working its way up. Now it's just in alpha order. Let me know which you prefer, it's easy enough to change.
I also made the two dropdown boxes a bit larger, both for ease-of-reading and because before I had unknowingly shrunk them, which made it really hard to line everything up properly. It was really irritating. Now it's all scaled at 100% and my math is working.
Finally, I changed the wording on the "allow multiples" radio button. Before it would say "Allow multiple Body items? YES/NO", which I think is clearer, but it was all jammed up in there and looked crappy. I reduced it to read "Multiples/Singles", but I don't know if that's going to be obvious or not. It's a very important piece of functionality that I don't think is immediately intuitive, so any feedback you have on the best way to present it would be appreciated.
Let me know any other foot-type items you want. I decided to consolidate Footwear into just Foot, since there aren't that many plain old feet I could think of. Plus, with the Multiples thing, it works out a little better this way.
I will be adding a "LegwearKneepads" set as well for those sorts of items. I've got several from the Lordi and Warrior applet that are cool and deserve to be included, plus I want to include some medieval knight-type knee protectors.
I think the clearest and simplest button would be a switch, instead of a radio button, i.e. a button saying ENABLE MULTIPLES which when pressed would change to say DISABLE MULTIPLES. It’s simple and intuitive.
In fact in this way, as it doesn’t have a radio button, it gives you more room, so you can have the explicit wording you wanted as the whole button.
This doesn’t pertain to the foot items. but is there a way you can make the patterns on items use multiple colors…like say if I want to make red and white striped pants…right now it makes red and pink. Or can you offer stripped items along with solid items.
@Paul: I Think the idea of masking patterns on top of the item does what you want to do.
@Jeff: I personally prefer a third method of organization where you’d go from top to bottom of the character. Say first body, then all the head stuff (including all the options from the facemaker app PLEASE????) then body, arms and so forth.. ending with the backplane and the background. Thats just the way I work, but I thought I’d throw it out there anyways.
Jeff, you are evil… I just spent a half-hour trying to figure out how I could make my Legion character look like he was wearing shoes, and now you add shoes but I can’t refresh the page without deleting him… ah well, he wasn’t that hard to make…
I like Worf’s idea. I frequently find myself having to reread all the different slots individually because I forgot where they are in relation to each other. Would be alot easier if they were in a more discenable order…
This is the order that I usually make my characters:
body, head, facial hair, hair, leggings, foot right, foot left, belt, tops, shoulder right, shoulder left, hand right, hand left, backplane, insignia, item right, item right, patterns
YAY! Thanks Jeff!
I like the winged foot!
I tried it that way in the Warrior and Lordi minis, Amathakathi, and got some pushback from the clients. I don’t think it’s obvious what that means for some folks. However it said “Dupe” and “No Dupe”, so maybe that was the problem.
If you will make feet, don’t forget clawed or taloned ones.
@ Blue Blazer : The combo of the winglet and the sport shoe is particulary awesome.
I made ostrich feet and human feet with claws instead of toes. I thought ostrich feet were more menacing than regular bird feet.
No spurs?
I think the singles/multiples idea is fine as it is, and I don’t know about other people, but amathakathi’s suggestion sounds like things that have confused me before. I, of course, do figure them out in time, but right away it makes me wonder what I’m supposed to do. *shrug* Perhaps I’m just dull.
jeff i can’t wait till you have spandex tops and mouth pieces like a full skeliton mouth 🙂
I think I will probably do gloves next, since we don’t have ANY of those yet, then maybe the various facial features since that’s the biggest chunk of “ain’t got nothin'”, and then … I dunno, either Masks or one of the really new things like word balloons or character name fonts or somesuch. Depends on what whimsy strikes.
You, Jeff, are a scholar and a gentleman.
Worf’s organization suggestion sounds like a very good idea. I also find myself frantically looking for the specific set I’m looking for.
The footwear selections look great, could you also add some Geta sandles as well? These look great with samurai.
Do you plan on drawing more? Like for when you are ready to draw the female counterparts?
I like the new layout Jeff.
One minor item(I seem to have a lot of those) is the body types for horror, and tech aren’t the same size. Minor because I can morph them to fit, but throwing it out there that morphing them before hand would help for the laymen that wants to just quickly put something together.
btw, I second Kalkin. Spurs would be a nice item to have here.
Lastly, combining the boot set with the legwear set of armor (The matching two sets with the trim down the middle… Not sure how else to describe it)seems to leave a lot of room inbetween. I’m assuming that gets filled with the knee items you were refering to earlier?
Otherwise having a blast playing with this app and can’t wait till the next update.
Worf tell me how to do it then. I put the pattern on and it doesn’t allow me to change to a secondary color. It just take the first color and makes it lighter.
@Jason: I’ll be honest with you, I’m probably just going to delete the alternate body layout (the one based on tech, the Modern Warrior). It just doesn’t fit. It’s the wrong size and orientation. I had it in there just as testing, mostly.
Yes, the gap between those items will be filled with kneepads.
@Paul: The stripes aren’t yet in the “Patterns-Standard”set, which would allow you to color them, they’re currently only in the pre-made, semi-transparent “Patterns” tab, which doesn’t allow you to color them. I’ll put them in the “Patterns-Standard” set, though, so you can make them colored if you want.
in terms of organizing the slots, I think the body has to be the first slot. Then the head and face slots either to the side or below that. Not sure where you want to put the tops but they surely have to go above belt and legwear
And if it’s not to hard to do can we make it so the body, head, and hands show up by default? Cause it is a lot easier to clear all that then to build it.
I’m hoping for some tape wrapped feet like a muay thai fighter or MMA wrestler. There is a good taped shin guard, that you made, but having a seperate piece for the foot would be appreciated. I’ll try and find a pic. And I hope taped hands and forearms are going into the glove section
And webbed and reptile feet.
Cool clown shoes, I’m definitely gonna be using those
So far so good.
The problem with trying to put the slots in some sort of “work flow” order is that everyone works differently. I don’t know that there’s one optimum way to assemble it that will make sense to the majority of people.
The plan is to have an option where when you first load the app, you can select various pre-load options, one of which will be a sort of “Basic Male” or “Basic Female” which just loads the body, head, hands, and feet, and puts the first selection in each set onto the stage. I just need to get more done first.
The layers tool would greatly benefit from a ‘layer number’ in the transform toolpad. Otherwise simply repeatedly clicking layer-up/down works a user into a tedium – especially since things seem to automatically gravitate towards the lower layers and often refuse to move downwards if the ones below are all used up.
I would love to see some digitigrade legs, or something similar at least. Some canine or wolf legs/feet would add a lot of options for humanoid characters.
@ Jeff could you get some baker rifles? after you get some of the other stuff done
Good refreshed artwork!
Nice to know the usual gamut of time periods, and anthropomorphized forms, are being considered.