User Guide for that Bruce Timm/DC Animated-Style Hero-Maker Thing

[Chris-M]

I have written a user guide for that, well, you've read the title to the thread, so you know what I'm talking about. Hopefully this will help and encourage some new folks to create some characters with this awesomely fun and addictive tool.

(The Heromatic in question is located here for those who don't already know: http://fabricadeherois.blogspot.com/ -- scroll down and click on "Criar!")

Please post any questions, comments, corrections, and admonishments here in this thread. Also feel free to share any tricks or techniques you think users will find useful here as well.

BTW, to see a whole bunch of great costumes/characters already created with the Heromatic, check out this thread (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64971).

Speaking of which, please do not (DO NOT!!) post any characters you create to this thread. I'd like to keep this thread for tips, tricks, advice, questions, and corrections related to actually using the Heromatic. I definitely would love to see whatever super-cool characters you come up with, but please post them to the previously linked-to thread or start a new one. Thanks!!

I'm attaching the guide in Word Doc and HTML versions to this post. The Word Doc version is more readable, I think.

So please take a look at the guide, especially those of you who are already black belts with the Heromatic, and let me know what you think of the guide. Like I said, hopefully it will encourage and help some new folks to enter the character-creation fray! To paraphrase our own Steve Long: Make a Hero! :)

[Tim]

thanks!

[Pariah]

Wow, VERY impressive. Repped, for certain.

One small correction, if I may: Under the "How do you add a costume element?" section, you have the following:


Heavy Right Arrow Tip (“Random Option”): Click this button and Heromatic will randomly select and option for you.

Actually, rather than selecting an element at random, I've found that this option cycles relatively quickly through all the available costume elements in that category in order. This is useful for getting to one of the later elements in the larger lists. In the "M. Direita" category, for example, there are probably 50 or so weapons/items choices. clicking on the Heavy Right Arrow scrolls through these in order, so that if you want the light saber (15-20 items in), you don't have to hit the Right Arrow 15 or 20 times to get to it. Just click the Heavy Right Arrow, let it scroll, then click the Left Arrow once you pass it.

Hope that helps. Great work, as I said! :thumbup:

[Chris-M]

Actually, rather than selecting an element at random, I've found that this option cycles relatively quickly through all the available costume elements in that category in order. This is useful for getting to one of the later elements in the larger lists. In the "M. Direita" category, for example, there are probably 50 or so weapons/items choices. clicking on the Heavy Right Arrow scrolls through these in order, so that if you want the light saber (15-20 items in), you don't have to hit the Right Arrow 15 or 20 times to get to it. Just click the Heavy Right Arrow, let it scroll, then click the Left Arrow once you pass it.

[Looks...] Well, I'll be -- yeah, you're totally right. Cool! I'll add that correction this morning. Thanks!!

(And awesome sig quote, btw.) :)

[Chris-M]

Okay, I made Pariah's correction to the guide, fixed a few other typos and such, and the HTML zip file now includes the extra graphics files (just a couple things -- the guide isn't graphics-heavy).

I've replaced the original zip files with the updated versions, so you can grab them from the first post in this thread.

Thanks again for reading through the guide, Pariah, and spotting that error! As always, any other comments, corrections, and suggestions are welcome here.

[Chris-M]

Here's a new tip I'm adding to the guide that you guys may find useful.

I'm a little disappointed with the limited selection of chest symbol elements available in the Heromatic, and the first thought I had was drawing my own or using some royalty-free clip art pieces and dropping them in after copying a character screen capture into Photoshop (or your image-editing software of choice).

Of course, the problem is that the figures are standing in 3/4 view and any clip art or other emblem I might want to use would be a flat, front-facing view. After applying a little experimentation and good old fashioned perspective drawing technique, I've determined that you can get the right angle on a new element you want to add to the figure pretty easily.

Select the element you want to use. In Adobe Illustrator, use the "Shear" option under the Object-->Transform menu option. Set it to Horizontal Axis and set the angle to -15 degrees. In Adobe Photoshop, select the element, use CTRL+T to transform the selection. Then under Edit-->Transform select the Skew option and set the Horizontal angle to 15 degrees.

This will give you the skew you need to slap a new emblem onto your character's chest or forehead and have it look right.

[Theron]

For future edits: Poder means Power.

[Egyptoid]

User Guide equal teh ossum.

this thread deserves a bump, unlike some others

eh? (http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dzqpmkt_243dmmgtkf7&hl=en)

[Egyptoid]

New Users, take heed