I'm pretty buried working on HM3, so I am taking a break and canceling this week's Caption Contest. Sorry folks, but I am way behind and am spending all my energy on drawing HM3 items. Some time today or tomorrow I should be done with all the facial items -- Ears, Eyes, Noses, Mouths, and Eyebrows -- and have them posted. Until then the posting's going to be fairly light.
I'll announce the winner of the previous Caption Contest some time tonight, after I get a chance to go through them all. Apologies again for the delays.
You will be forgiven once we see those facial features.
jeff is there a full skull mouth not just the lower jaw
Not yet RJ mcd but I can add one if you want.
i liked the one in 2.5 mixed with the steel half mask made great termantor type faces
I am surprised you can still do all that you are doing so no need to apologize Jeff. make sure to take time to breathe. Very important I am told.
OK, the lower-half skull Mouth is in. I ripped off the one from the Zombie maker, and combined it with the upper teeth of the other head from the same app. Looks pretty cool.
Thanks Rick! I’m also super stressed wondering if my contract with UGO is going to get renewed for another year. If not I’ll only have one more month to work on this thing so I need to get as much done as fast as I can.
I should hear something by Friday, so keep your fingers crossed.
*fingers crossed til the knuckles swell* Good Luck!
that gives rise to another thought – who actually owns the rights to Heromachine?
UGO owns the whole thing, lock stock and barrel now. They bought all intellectual property rights from me two years ago, and signed me to a two-year contract to keep working on it. But they own it outright.
So let’s say the worst (from my perspective) happens, and they DON’T renew me. I’ll have literally one month to work on HM3. What are your priorities?
The way I see it I can bang out at least a minimum set of Standard items for each of the basic sorts of slots. I think I can do enough to get a pretty decent set of stuff for the male figure, if not the huge scope of what’s in HM2.x. But, the “multiples” features, along with the other transformation stuff, makes up for a lot, you can create a really big set of possibilities that you couldn’t in the earlier version, so it’s probably about a wash, item-count-wise.
Or would you rather I do a smaller set, and be sure to get the female stuff in? I’d basically have to redo the Hair, Tops, and Legwear sets. The rest of it is pretty gender-neutral. Oh, and probably Hands. And maybe the Feet.
Anyway. What would you say should be the number one priority, if there were only one month left?
jeff thank you for answering my request i have been with you sience verson one i would be sad if you are forced out you and willy pete are my gods
i hope some body sue UGO if you don’t get a contract, becuase you, Jeff herbert are the creator of what should be the Best hero Generator in history!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Knock On Wood-or Varnish. (lol)
No no, UGO’s been great to me, I have nothing but warm feelings for them regardless. I just really love working on this, and with them, and don’t want it to stop. But bidness is bidness as we say in Texas, no hard feelings either way.
But I really really hope I get to finish this thing out properly!
jeff is there a way i can send you some of my work? i can;t show them in the forumes or we will be in poop with tm people
i am from MI and also KY so i know what you mean, i was just being a teenager
Well fiddlesticks! I had not realized it was ALL on the line here… Not sure I could say what too make priority, so I will just cross my fingers and hope you have more than a month left and a new contract in hand.
weaponz are a priority,
but as i see it heromachine is a big part of UGO, so i dont think they will not renew ur contract, u will get it, im sure u will.
pd. can we get a ciclops-like glasses.
thx for evrithing jeff.
@Jeff: Don’t worry. If you lose the contract before you are finished, UGO can always hire Rob Lefield to finish it for you.
@Jeff: Seriously, If I were you, I would pick quality over quantity. Finish all the male stuff before you go on to the female pose. If all you end up is HeroMachine Male, then make sure it is the best HM Male you could possibly do.
Jeff, is there somebody we can lobby via e-mail to keep you on? (I promise I’ll be nice). I still think HeroMachine is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, and I think UGO.com would be foolish to let go of the person who created it and brought so much pleasure to so many people. It’s a marvelous tool for enhancing one’s creativity, especially for dorks like me who couldn’t draw if their lives depended on it. Once I can see the characters I create, I start thinking, “Who are these people? How did they get like this? What happens next?” Then a story isn’t far behind.
Jeff, in the unfortunate event your contract isn’t renewed, I’d like to see the female figure you intend to use and whatever gender-specific items (hairstyles, etc) you plan to use with her. That way, if you have to leave or turn the project over to somebody else, you’ll know that you’ve included a more or less complete set of starter items.
i feel like a fool, but Yeah THEY Said
I think in true comic book tradition, the breasts of all women and pectorals of all men should be scaleable, starting at “My God they’re huge!” and working up to “Who let Liefeld in here!”
The catch, however, is that male characters have a fixed ratio contrast between pectorals and crotch – one scales up while the other scales down.
Women likewise have a fixed contrasting ratio of breast size to costume coverage.
As for serious HM3 priorities – I mentioned before that I’d like to see some anime/manga influenced items and armour coming through – perhaps a set of dedicated elementally themed aura/anima backgrounds? Giant weapons that should not be physically possible to wield?
The other thing I’d lvoe to see is some cyberpunk styled cyberwear – ranging from visible and clunky modules that replace half the head to sleek datajack ports on the skull, replacement robotic arms (no point doing naturlaistic arms, but something that fits the description of an old fashioned russian military surplus unit with visible gears and wires.
And should your contract get renewed, Jeff, I hereby state my request for component parts of full body animal suits, thus allowing me to create Chicken man, The Gobbler (no rude jokes here *snigger*), Admiral Orang Utan, The green Gorilla and so forth.
I, for one, believe UGO will renew your contract, Jeff. You’ve put so much effort into the evolution of HM for them not to renew.
In the unlikely event that they don’t renew your contract, I would like to see the female poses and items uploaded, but I would be happy with huge possibilities with male characters as well.
Regardless, my fingers are definitely crossed for the renewal 🙂
UGO would be foolish not to renew your contract at this point. Otherwise, what was the point of having you start work on HM3? If they don’t keep you on and hire someone else to finish HM3, that person would in essence have to redraw a lot of stuff (maybe most?) from the ground up, since the two styles wouldn’t necessarily match.
I say don’t sweat it. Really, Heromachine is the only reason I frequent the UGO sites at all, and I think that’s true for a lot of folks here. With no Jeff Hebert, you don’t have a REAL Heromachine, in my opinion.
And so I’m not going to make any comment on what you should or should not rush to finish in the next month, because I have every confidence you’ll have the next three or six months or however long it takes to make HM3 the ultimate web toy.
I agree. Without you I probably wouldn’t visit UGO and I wouldn’t use HM ever again. Heromachine isn’t just an application it is a community and you are the leader of that.
Out of curiosity, in the event that you don’t get renewed what would happen to HM? Like, would it just be left in whatever state of completion it’s in at the end of the month, or would the project just be given to somebody else? The latter would suck slightly less than the former but that isn’t saying a whole lot.