HM3: Let’s do Aural

With thanks to all the great suggestions in the last thread, I am happy to report that you can now use Backplane-Auras in the creation of your characters in HeroMachine 3. Here's a preview of some of the new bits:

auras

I tried for a mix of form-fitting ones with more general-area sorts of options. And even the form-fitting ones I tried to make blobby enough to work with most standard arms-down poses.

One warning, this is the largest set in terms of file-size in a while, clocking in at a hefty 1MB. I am not sure what kind of performance hit (if any) that will have on character creation, let me know if you see the app slow down markedly when auras are loaded.

Finally, I wanted to show you a quick sample of what can be done with layering, multiples, and alpha settings:

smoke

Let me know what I missed, what you like, what you want, and the secrets of the universe in comments. And thanks again for your suggestions, they really helped! Hopefully you'll find most of them made it into the program.

27 Responses to HM3: Let’s do Aural

  1. TheNate says:

    Why does the music note aura appear twice? Also, the electric aura is the old HM 2.5 shape, so it looks weird against a HM3 model.

  2. John says:

    Hmmm…I recognize that smoke-burst!

  3. Jeff Hebert says:

    @Nate: The first set of notes has lines behind it, the second does not. The lines are color2, so having it possible to color different notes was worth another slot, I thought. That particular electric aura (there are three or four electric auras total) is based on the old pose. I thought it might be nice to have at least one that wasn’t arms-down.

    @John: I thought you might! I only steal from the best ๐Ÿ™‚

  4. Solander says:

    Cool auras Jeff, excellent work as always!

    Oh… and can I suggest two handed firearms (rifles, large weapons and such) next?

  5. Jake says:

    Looking great Jeff. Looking forward to the musical instruments so that I can put the music aura to use.

  6. Rozenstal says:

    Cool!Here the first work:
    http://s45.radikal.ru/i109/1001/a2/a8dc588ad24c.png
    Poseydon

  7. Jeff Hebert says:

    That’s cool, Rozenstal!

  8. Rozenstal says:

    Thanks!

  9. Hammerknight says:

    Another door to the imagination has been open. Thanks Jeff.

  10. kyle says:

    how about a spider web.

  11. Hakoon1 says:

    Kyle there is a spider web in there.

    Great job Jeff!!!

  12. Jeff Hebert says:

    @Kyle: As Hak said a moment ago, the spider web is there. It’s in the preview in the post, actually.

    Glad you all like it so far! By all means, if you do something neat with the new stuff, feel free to post a link like Rozenstal did.

  13. kyle says:

    my bad.
    now i see it on there

  14. Tim says:

    Incredible job Jeff! Love those auras ๐Ÿ™‚

    Awesome pic Rozenstal!

  15. LargeFormat says:

    Gah, love the new Aural Backplane items!

    Especially that Smoke Burst-esque one you used in the example.

    I decided to take a crack at it myself, and used a little different posing, too.

    Here it is!
    http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=65593&d=1262742838

  16. Jeff Hebert says:

    Looks great LargeFormat! In fact it’s eerily close to the drawing my buddy John did years ago that I stole the smoke explosion from ๐Ÿ™‚

  17. Matt says:

    These are really cool Jeff.

    …and to prove how awesome I think they are, I made a landscape picure of a meteor hitting a dessert with just aura’s and backgrouds…

    http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/7214/hm3beta.jpg

  18. The Eric says:

    Seeing the smoke blast gave me an idea…
    http://www.majhost.com/gallery/kaka/Heromachine2/hm3volcano.png

  19. Jeff Hebert says:

    Cool stuff Matt and Eric!

  20. Matt says:

    I just got the pun in the title Jeff, there’s children on this site y’know.

  21. Jeff Hebert says:

    If it took you two days, and no one else got it yet, I think it’s fair to say that’s going to go right over their little heads ๐Ÿ™‚

  22. Hakoon1 says:

    I got it when I first saw it :D. English kids know more than they should.

  23. Matt says:

    @Jeff: I only went on the site today and was more intrested in the fact that auras were brought out than to notice the title, so really it didn’t take that long.

    @Hakoon1: That’s because we’re awesome!

  24. Matt says:

    Jeff,

    Great job on these. A thought for upcoming projects: maybe partial hands? It would make it easier when placing a weapon or item for those of us not so adept at masking, so that we could layer it.

  25. Matt says:

    That was..random.

  26. kyle says:

    sand,lighting,ice,water,bubbles,blood,bats,spiders,shadow,
    spikes