Category Archives: News & Updates

The latest happenings on all things HeroMachine.

The lines go SWOOSH!

I’ve just released some additional items for the Backplane -> Auro set, more “speed lines” to make your character GO FAST! I hope you like them.

HM3 Sunday SMACKDOWN! New Wrestling items!

With many thanks to all the folks who’ve requested these kinds of items and who’ve waited patiently for literally years, and especially to AMS and Colby Primeaux for timely reference and guidance, I’m happy to launch two new wrestling-themed sets, Headgear -> Luchador and Belt -> Championship.

The belts are a little unusual, ones with nothing in the big center area have the itemMask set to that shape, so you can position Insignia or other items to fill it without the edges bleeding over.

On the masks, this is just a basic starter set. I don’t know the world of wrestling all that well, but I included a few blank masks with the eyes/nose/mouth holes cut out so you can mask other items onto it to get the custom look you want, hopefully.

Enjoy!

Headgear Military New Items

Dblade continues to impress, this time with two new helmets that are built with 3 individual items each. 6 Items total. Here’s a preview of the individual Items along with a preview of them placed together for the full effect.

These were based on some requests from Yuri Lucia, so shoutout to both him and Dblade!

Whip it REAL good

Cracking good artist Dblade has whipped up a great set of new Item Right/Left -> Energy for all your sci-fi Indiana Jones needs. Please thank him in the comments for his ongoing excellent work!

HM3 Alpha (Transparency) Fixes

Several folks have reached out since the relaunch observing that there were some oddities with colors on a number of items. THANK YOU to those people!! After getting some more details and digging into it, I realized that the original import process from Flash to SVG files completely mistreated the “details” layer. Sometimes an item needed a static colored area that can’t be changed, like the whites of the eyes, white teeth in Mouth sets, or wheels on cars. Other times I they’d have a semi-transparent overlay to create highlighted or shadowed areas.

The import ignored all that and made them all solid, which had … less than desirable results.

I’ve pushed a bunch of fixes, though, so hopefully things should look more like you’d expect. Here’s one before image of a fantasy armor top:

You can see black areas between the middle part, on the outer edges under the armpits, and the stripes along the stomach outer edges. You might think that looks fine, and it probably does, but it’s not how it looked in the original Flash version. After the fix, here’s that same item:

Here you can see the same areas are semi-transparent overlays instead of solid blacks, allowing the undercolor to show through. It’s a much more dynamic and nuanced effect and what I intended with the original.

For the detail-oriented among you (which I, clearly, am not or I’d have noticed this before), here’s the complete updated set list:

Item SetItems FixedDetail Paths Corrected
Background Floors28, 312
Background Furniture41
Background Landscapes16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 25 … (17 total)17
Background Sky151
Backplane Standard10, 192
Backplane Tech10, 122
Backplane Wings7, 8, 10, 22, 67, 72 … (14 total)97
Belt Military19, 28, 33, 3838
Belt Standard40, 74, 75, 7638
Belt Standard Female401
Body Mech39, 40, 41, 42, 48, 49191
Companion Standard761
Companion Vehicles23, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40 … (17 total)396
Eyes Female Standard99, 1002
Eyes Standard99, 1002
Foot Left Male Standard12, 14, 383
Foot Right Male Standard12, 14, 38, 97, 10010
Foot Right Male Tech397
Foot Right Monster23, 254
Glove Right Female9, 10, 11, 32, 385
Glove Right Standard10, 11, 32, 38, 62, 64 … (14 total)187
Hair Standard751
Head Aliens65, 66, 71, 72, 85, 866
Head Animals22, 41, 44, 476
Head Male Face7, 82
Head Mech10, 1520
Head Winners11
Head Zombie Face81
Headgear Fantasy3, 4, 6, 16, 42, 49 … (12 total)20
Headgear Glasses37, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 5825
Headgear Mask72, 7551
Headgear Mask Female65, 662
Headgear Military1, 5, 9, 33, 35, 4873
Headgear Modern7, 10, 13, 27, 28, 37 … (26 total)978
Headgear Standard3, 4, 6, 38, 40, 476
Item Right Blades Two100, 1017
Item Right Blunts821
Item Right Miscellaneous1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 47 … (12 total)14
Item Right Music29, 33, 34, 354
Item Right Polearms11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18 … (14 total)14
Item Right Shields5, 8, 11, 704
Item Right Tech24, 2538
Legwear Female Outerwear5, 82
Legwear Female Standard12, 202
Legwear Male Outerwear5, 82
Legwear Male Spandex29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 … (9 total)9
Legwear Male Standard12, 202
Mouth Female Standard691
Mouth Standard69, 80, 824
Neckwear Standard40, 47, 50, 51, 6519
Shoulder Left Tech101
Shoulder Right Capes61
Shoulder Right Tech10, 25, 269
Shoulders Tech101
Tops Female Bustiers30, 40, 55, 56, 575
Tops Female Coats68, 692
Tops Female Dresses261
Tops Female Fantasy Armor19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 … (16 total)16
Tops Female Fantasy Common671
Tops Male Coats68, 692
Tops Male Fantasy Armor9, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 … (18 total)18
Tops Male Fantasy Common671
Tops Male Standard371
Tops Male Tech11
Totals303 items (+ 69 mirrored Left counterparts)**2,382
paths**

All Right-side handheld items, gloves, feet, and shoulders were also mirrored
to their Left-side counterparts, bringing the effective total to 372 items
fixed.

Thanks again to the HeroMachiners kind enough to take the time to point out the issues, much appreciated. I am far from perfect and absolutely would have missed all of this if not for your attention and care.

I did the mash, I did the MONSTER mash! 61 times.

I’ve just released what I hope is a fun new set of items, Head->Monsters. It features a variety of different kinds of complete (eyes, noses, ears, mouths, etc.) heads in several different styles. I also am continuing to experiment with items that are not 100% front-facing, so you’ve got some profiles and such. I hope you like them!

More Monster Noses via Dblade

Dblade continues to do great work adding to the Nose set, I just pushed his updates to the live site:

These are available for your monster-creating convenience now in both male and female Nose sets. Enjoy and please thank Dblade!

Call me pushy, because here are some new bustiers

I’ve just released 9 new items in the Tops – Female – Bustiers set. Enjoy!

On the Nose

With thanks to All-Star HeroMachiner DBlade, who’s already responsible for a dizzying number of existing items, we have more new noses available. These seven “monster” noses should be there now after the previous DBlade set of alien items. Enjoy and please thank him!

New Feature: Left/Right Mirroring

Mirror Mode for Left/Right Slots

The biggest addition today is Mirror mode, available in all Left/Right slot pairs — Feet, Gloves, Hands, Items, and Shoulders. When the Mirror checkbox is enabled, equipping an item on one side automatically equips the matching item on the opposite side with the same colors and pattern. Transforms are mirrored too — horizontal position and rotation are flipped so both sides stay visually symmetric as you adjust. This should save a lot of time when building symmetrical characters.

Guest Artist Items: Robotic Noses

We have our first guest artist contribution! Seven robotic nose designs have been added to both the Male and Female Standard nose sets. These mechanical and cybernetic nose options are great for sci-fi and robot characters.

Bug Fix: Halftone Patterns Restored

The PatternsHalftones set was discovered to have corrupted data (it was showing circuitry patterns instead of halftones). This has been rebuilt from the original source files and is working correctly again.