OK, here’s a tutorial on how to create group shots on HM3.
First, you need to create all the members of your group as separate HeroMachine saves. At this stage, just leave them all in the default position so you can see them. We’ll move them later. As an example, I’m going to use 3 of the Template characters in a group shot: Female Fantasy Warrior, Male Fantasy Warrior and Princess 2.
I’ve decided I want Female Fantasy Warrior (FFW) in the center of the trio, so I just save her and leave her as she is. Male Fantasy Warrior (MFW) needs to be on the left, so I need to move every item in that character over to the left. Most people’s instinct would probably be to move “All Items”, but that doesn’t work. What you need to do instead is to move them in groups. Select a Body item, like the chestplate, and then select the “Body” option to group all the Body items. Now you can move them using the buttons and they should all move together.
Do the same for Head, FootRight, HandRight and any other categories, like Companions. Careful, though: some items overlap! For example, ItemRight is in Body and HandRight, so if you have any ItemRight objects, like MFW’s shield, you’ll need to select ItemRight and move it the same amount the other way, before moving HandRight. Neckwear is in Body and Head.
I’ve moved MFW over so you can only just see him at the side of the screen. Now I can save him like that and do the same with Princess 2.
I’ve moved Princess 2 the same amount the opposite way, using the same technique. I think a good distance is about 240 pixels, which you can get by selecting the 20 option and moving 12 times.
Now I have my characters saved in the correct position, I need to put them together. I’ve got Princess 2 loaded at the moment, because I just finished moving her. Now I’ll add MFW. On the “Load” screen, look at the bottom of the box, where it asks you if you want to keep the currently loaded items. This means “do you want to switch from the character you’ve got right now, to the one you’re loading, or do you want to have them both loaded?” Normally you probably want to switch, but for a group shot we need them together, so select the box and make sure it has a cross in it.
Now you should have both the characters on the screen. Load up your third character the same way, making sure the box is checked.
I chose to load up my middle character last, because she needs to be at the front. When you load two characters together, the new one loads on top of the current one. Make sure you start from the back and work forwards, or you’ll have a lot of work to do fixing it.
At the moment, I can only really see one of my characters, and I need to check that the other two are alright. At the bottom of the screen, underneath their feet, there is a toolbar that allows you to change the display mode. Selecting the widescreen option removes all the toolbars and centers your characters, so you can see all of them.
This is what it looks like. Now I can see all 3 of the characters side-by-side. I must have gone slightly wrong somewhere, though, because the outer two are missing a hand each! Oh well. You’ll probably do better. To leave widescreen and go back to the normal view, just click on anything.
Don’t forget to create a record of your awesome tutorial-following skills! You can either take a screenshot in widescreen view, or select one of the Widescreen options when you Export the image. Also, remember to save!
