Category Archives: HeroMachine 3

HM3: If the glove fits …

I’ve just updated the HeroMachine 3 Alpha with the GloveRightStandard set of items. In retrospect I bet I’m going to have to change that to GloveRightMALEStandard, but oh well. Here’s a quick taste of some of the new items:

gloves

Like with the shoes, let me know any gloves you’d like to see but don’t, or any weirdnesses you encounter. I’m going to keep it just to the right glove for now, until the set is finalized, then I’ll swap them all over to the left side. In the meantime, you can use Multiples and flipping to get matching items if you like.

I also wanted to note that if you’re using one of the alternate arms, you can still get a good glove on it by picking one, rotating and scaling it to where it mostly fits, then Masking it with the arm piece to make it conform if it’s one of the skintight ones.

Finally, the applet itself has one fairly major update to it. Mousing over an item now fades it to 50% transparent instead of giving the blue glow. I am testing to see if the glow is part of the reason trying to mouse around in the canvas area is so slow when you add enough items to the stage. I also think it might make it easier to position items if you can see what’s underneath it. Let me know what you think of the change, it’s easy enough to go back to the old way if people prefer it.

HM3: The other shoe drops

I just updated the HM3 Alpha with the “LeftFootMaleStandard” set, so now you can have a shoe on each foot if you like.

HM3: The game is afoot!

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:

footwear

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.

HM3: Yet more colors

All right, I admit it — Damien and Fabien (brothers, mayhap?!) were right and I was wrong. There actually were more colors in HM2.5 than were in the beta, which clearly is unacceptable. So I spent most of the day on Sunday redoing the color palette to match the one in 2.5 and have posted the updated version to the HM3 Alpha page.

The colors now are arranged in the classic cascading rainbow gradient like you’d see in most commercial image manipulation applications. I added on a few metallic colors at the end for good measure. Plus, you still have the 25 dedicated skin tone colors at the end separated out into their own rows for ease of use.

If there are colors you wanted to see but don’t, let me know.

HM3: Color layout tweak

With thanks to Damien for reminding me it needed work, I’ve reorganized the color swatch layout for the HM3 Alpha. They’re now in Roy G. Biv order, except for browns and skin tones after, and grayscale before.

You’ll note that the last four rows look awfully similar. I’m open to suggestions for replacement colors to take up at least one of those four rows (which are basically repeats of the skin tones). I do want probably a whole row of browns in addition to the skin tones, for leather and such. But that leaves a lot of others to fill.

A color challenge

Damien has pointed out that the arrangement of the color swatches in HM3 lacks something. Specifically, it lacks a coherent order. If someone wants to take the set of colors and arrange them in a way that makes more sense, I’d appreciate it. I suck at that kind of thing, but I’ll take a crack at it if no one else wants to. Complete list for ease of cutting-and-pasting after the jump.

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HM3: Houston, we have spandex

I’ve now added a set of “LegwearMaleSpandex” items to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. Enjoy! Holler if there are spandex variations you’d like to see. I’m thinking I should probably include at least the flying-type full-length leggings too.

HM3: We got pantsed

I’ve just updated the HeroMachine 3 Alpha with the “LegwearMaleStandard” set of items. All of the basic items from HeroMachine 2.0’s Pants set are there, plus a bunch. Some of the more esoteric suggestions from the last thread will have to wait for specialized sets, but I’ve got them written down. I wanted to get the basics in first. Holler if you see anything egregious missing.

I hope you like them! Just as a teaser, here’s a set of four items from the HeroMachine 2.0 Pants-Standard genre side-by-side with their new versions in the HeroMachine 3.0 LegwearMaleStandard set:

legwear-comparison

HM3: Calling all pants

I am currently drawing new Pants for HM3 (to be known as “Legwear”). Post any requests you have for pants-like items.

HM3: Webs

Thanks to subtle reminders, I’ve added a dark and a light web pattern to the HM3 Alpha. I also changed the interface so that when you delete an item in a slot, you stay in that slot.