Monthly Archives: May 2009

Poll Position: Villain cage match

Posted on May 19, 2009 by | Comments Off on Poll Position: Villain cage match

Why restrict ourselves to comics when the world of geekdom is so much larger? So I didn't -- here's your poll position question of the week:

{democracy:83}

Discussion, as always, after the jump.

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Posted in Versus

HM3: The day is saved!

Posted on May 18, 2009 by | Comments Off on HM3: The day is saved!

The HeroMachine 3 Alpha now allows you to Save and Load your characters!

saveload

Other things to note about this feature:

  • Currently characters are stored on your local hard drive only, although in the future you will have the option to "export" or "import" some sort of text string like in HeroMachine 2.x as well.
  • This is all-new stuff, something I haven't ever done before, so please let me know when and how it breaks on you.
  • The four radio buttons at the top of the box allow you to sort your saved characters in alpha order normal, alpha order reversed, date order from newest to oldest, and date order from oldest to newest.
  • When you get more than 12 characters, a scroll bar appears allowing you to scroll up and down. Currently there's no check in place preventing you from scrolling all the label boxes completely off the screen, but if you close and reopen the save/load dialog box, they'll be back in place.
  • I don't yet have warnings in place for when you delete a character, so be careful.
  • I also don't yet have a notification in place telling you the character was successfully saved, but it will show up if you re-open the save or load box.
  • You can't currently overwrite a character with an updated version. You can either name it "[Name] 2" or the same name, then sort it by creation date, and delete the older one. Eventually I'll have a "quick save" and/or an "overwrite" option that will let you quickly save over the top of what you're already doing, but that was going to take too long.
  • As an added bonus, "Clear All" should now work properly when trying to delete a character with multiple instances of the same item.

Hope you enjoy it! Again, be sure to let me know if/when/how this breaks on you.

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Posted in HeroMachine 3, News & Updates

Random Panel: "It's a bar of soap!"

Posted on May 18, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: "It's a bar of soap!"
exciting-comics-8-1941-behindyou

(From "Exciting Comics" number 8, 1941.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Random Panel: Words every woman dreads hearing from her husband …

Posted on May 17, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: Words every woman dreads hearing from her husband …
wonder-comics-17-1948-costumetrot

(From "Wonder Comics" number 17, 1948.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Reason #10: The outfits

Posted on May 15, 2009 by | Comments Off on Reason #10: The outfits

The Joel Schumacher Rule allows for no exceptions, and simply stated it commands that "Thou shalt have no nipples on the outside of thy costume", but apparently Rob Liefeld didn't get the memo when it came time to put together Stryfe's "look":

xf-33-nips

My theory is that when this guy got his nose smashed in, it forced his nipples to pop out of his armor. Or, it's really really cold. Or, he's into that kind of "play" and couldn't resist leaving little booby-portholes in his otherwise impregnable defense. Or Rob Liefeld couldn't design his way out of a paper bag.

My theory, and darkest nightmare, is some combination of the last two.

I suppose, however, that if your evil armorer was so lazy he just poked some eye holes in the nearest battle-axe for your "helmet", forgetting pesky details like a space for your nose or ears, you've got bigger problems than an inappropriate level of sexual discretion.

If so, you'd have company in Shatterstar, whose outfitter pawned off an old wrestling head protector as "state of the art meta-human cranial protection":

shatterstar
shatterstar2

He paid a bundle for it, too, which explains why he had to slum it with Cable's eye-makeup guy. "Glowing is so IN right now!" he gushed.

But let's be honest, it's not like Rob Liefeld has all that many arrows in his costume design quiver; had he put together HeroMachine, there would only be twelve items in it, and eight of them would be thigh pouches.

(All images and characters ©Rob Liefeld and Marvel Comics.)

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Posted in Bad Super Costumes, I Hate Rob Liefeld's Art

Random Panel: Rejected Craigslist personals

Posted on May 15, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: Rejected Craigslist personals
exciting-comics-8-1941-gorilla

(From "Exciting Comics" number 8, 1941.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

"Save" status update

Posted on May 14, 2009 by | Comments Off on "Save" status update

I am still working on the load/save functionality for HeroMachine 3. So far I have the program saving and loading one character, which is great -- that's the heart of the beast. I am currently working on a more complicated interface that will save more than one character (what a concept!), allowing you to pick the one you want to load or save from a list, or to type in a new save file name. That all takes a lot longer in Flash than in other languages because you have to build a lot of that from scratch, but it's more tedious and mind-numbing than difficult.

The long and short of it is, I ought to have this up for testing and use next week, if all goes well.

As a bonus, I can use essentially the same code as a "QuickSave" sort of thing to allow an "Undo" feature. It'll probably be just one level, although if I can stomach it I'll try to figure out how to do more. This stuff is important, but boring to work on, I am itchy to actually draw something.

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Posted in HeroMachine 3

Random Panel: Quick, to the armpit phone!

Posted on May 14, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: Quick, to the armpit phone!
exciting-comics-8-1941-armpit-communicator

(From "Exciting Comics" number 8, 1941.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Random Panel: Words to live by

Posted on May 13, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: Words to live by
black-panther-rocks

(Hat-tip to Chris Sims, from Jack Kirby's Black Panther collection.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Character contest 3: You, Robot

Posted on May 13, 2009 by | Comments Off on Character contest 3: You, Robot

Your character creation challenge for this week is to craft the best, coolest, most innovative robot the world has ever seen! You might opt for a rolling centauroid tank of mechanized death, or a chipper helper kitchenbot, or a deranged hippie cyborg, but whatever you choose has to somehow fit the concept of "robot". The winner will get to choose either any one item they wish or a caricature of their head, to be immortalized forever in HeroMachine 3.

The rules are simple:

  1. You must use HeroMachine 3 Alpha to create your entry. No other versions of the program, and no Photoshopping, just pure unadulterated HM3 output.
  2. All entries must be left in the comments of this post, as a link to the actual image file for your creation. You can use any image hosting location you like so long as it does not require an account to view.
  3. You can enter as many times as you like but each creation must not have been used as an entry for another contest before.
  4. No previous entries -- it has to be a new creation.

That's it! Good luck everyone; judging will be next Tuesday, May 19.

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Posted in Challenges