Author Archives: AFDStudios

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.

RP: Finally, a weapon that both blows and sucks

master-comics-52-1944-machineblowgun

(From “Master Comics” number 52, 1944.)

HM3: Aura input needed

I am finally going to work on the “Backplane-Aura” set of items for HeroMachine 3. I know some great ideas were suggested before, which I am going to try to incorporate, but by all means feel free to chime in here as well with anything you think I might miss, or that you want to make sure gets a hearing.

Poll Position: Costuming

Character design is more or less the “raison d’etre” of HeroMachine.com, so I thought we should take some time to figure out what, exactly, makes a costume “super”:

{democracy:115}

Discussion after the jump.

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RP: Because nothing good ever happened at a square dance

agc-8-1943-squaredance

(From “America’s Greatest Comics” number 8, 1943.)

Random Panel: Crop-dusting, super-style

master-comics-52-1944-gas

(From “Master Comics” number 52, 1944.)

Random Panel: Great moments in detecting

master-comics-51-1944-fake

(From “Master Comics” number 51, 1944.)

Hammerknight’s HM Creator’s Club Poster

Thanks to Hammerknight for putting together the first ever “HeroMachine Creator’s Club” poster! Click on it to see it in a much larger version in all its glory, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! And that the floating Jeff heads don’t freak you out.

Nice job Hammerknight and everyone who submitted a self-portrait!

tcc-2009-13-smaller

Once again, Happy New Year everyone!

HM3: Dragon Eye sword

The production of contest items continues in the New Year, with a “Dragon Eye Sword” for Abadon from Character Contest 7 (Spellslinger):

abaddon-dragonsword

You can find this nifty weapon in ItemRight-BladesTwo.

Random Panel: Starting the new year off right

master-comics-51-1944-beartrap

(From “Master Comics” number 51, 1944.)