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Cult Character Designer 3 (internal codename: Hero Forge)

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Re: WEB Hero Forge

Unread postby icycalm » 03 Jan 2022 02:44

I would like to do this archiving myself. Can you give me the steps? I will buy Wrath of the Righteous too. I have not the slightest interest in playing them. I’d rather put the hours in our campaigns so we can get to run the real Kingmaker and Wrath a few months quicker.

I don’t understand the color issue. You’re saying we can’t get all the colors in TaleSpire? Or that we can but it’s a complex process?

I am stoked you made progress so quickly.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge

Unread postby ysignal » 03 Jan 2022 04:20

To back up the game files, right-click the game in your library and go to Properties > Local Files > Browse. The folder Kingmaker_Data has all of the game data we're interested in, so you just need to save that somewhere (it's about 37 GB). It will have some stuff we don't care about, but it'd be time-consuming to separate it all out while being sure not to miss anything. If 37 GB is too big I can find some things that are safe to cut. I don't own Wrath of the Righteous, but it's probably much the same.

The color issue is just that Kingmaker renders characters in a relatively simple way, and so the game data itself lacks textures for metallicity, lustre, bumps etc that are used in TaleSpire. But TaleSpire doesn't strictly need all these extra textures, so the models will still work and will have a basic surface color as shown in the screenshot I posted earlier. It's the opposite problem to Hero Forge, which uses more textures than TaleSpire can handle.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge

Unread postby icycalm » 03 Jan 2022 04:49

The Kingmaker models look great in the game itself, so they should look great in TaleSpire too, as long as you don't zoom further into them than the Kingmaker game allows. As for Hero Forge having more detail than TaleSpire can accept—let alone Kingmaker—that is very surprising, and I sort of realized it recently when scrolling through the Hero Forge Twitter. Take a look: https://twitter.com/HeroForgeMinis

The models we've made so far are nice, but some of the stuff people build on Hero Forge from scratch (as opposed to adapting them from illustrations, like we do) is stunning:

https://twitter.com/HeroForgeMinis/stat ... 2919158793

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https://twitter.com/HeroForgeMinis/stat ... 4536717323

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https://twitter.com/HeroForgeMinis/stat ... 1003894793

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When people see whole armies of these vastly different units clashing in enormous battlefields in my West Marches campaign, they'll lose their shit. It will make AoE4 with its 5 copy-pasted units fighting over "castles" that you can't even enter and are barely above head-height look like a Game Boy game.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge

Unread postby ysignal » 03 Jan 2022 11:00

I tried getting the animations and skeletons out, but they're coming out garbled. I think Hanged Man mentioned a similar issue on Discord. In any case, someone else recently filed a similar bug on github and I added my report to that, so they might end up fixing this in Asset Studio.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge

Unread postby ysignal » 03 Jan 2022 11:38

Those minis you posted look great! While I was looking into that I found this page which lists new features and items:

https://www.heroforge.com/treasure/

On Christmas Day they added the ability to layer clothing on the upper body, which we couldn't do when people were making the minis we've done so far.

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Re: WEB Hero Forge

Unread postby icycalm » 03 Jan 2022 12:49

It makes sense that the company whose only job is making minis will have better-looking ones than a company that makes videogames and a company that makes VTTs.

It’s the same with all the composers making the epic music I use in the game. No videogame has such good music like Two Steps From Hell or Audiomachine produce.

In theory one could license all that stuff and put it in a game, but no one does that. Larian didn’t even bother to license adventures, settings and rule systems before Baldur’s Gate III, and even with that they are still making their own bullshit adventure.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry

Unread postby icycalm » 12 Jan 2022 05:00

Insane new features coming to HF this year.

Coming In 2022 Preview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PCuC27RyJw

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Hero Forge wrote:2022 is shaping up to Hero Forge's most adventurous year yet! New features are on the way, and we couldn't be more excited to see what you create with them. Craft extraordinary minis with two-hero models, custom familiars, Face Customizer, new mounts, patterned clothing, Community Library, Decal Kitbashing (Pro), and Kitbashing (Pro). Enjoy this sneak peak at all the groundbreaking new content on its way to you this year!


Even if I don't manage to get my game restarted, I will collect this stuff as if I were a boy again.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry

Unread postby leccosta » 15 Jan 2022 22:19

Here's the mini I made for my West Marches cleric, Roland. The headband is a Headband of Wisdom, which he will probably wear in the future, if he survives that long.

https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D501044108/
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry

Unread postby icycalm » 15 Jan 2022 22:30

Looks good. Take a pic and post it in the thread, it makes it nicer to peruse the thread.

What you need to do now is purchase the mini and download the "3D Tabletop" files. Then send these files to:

1) ChevRage to include them in our mini archive, and,

2) ysignal to import the mini into TaleSpire (he will then tell me how to import it in my own version of the game)

You can either pay I think $8 it is for this one mini, or you can get a Pro subscription for $20 for one month that gives you five minis, which you might need first of all if your character dies, or if you want to make minis for specialist hirelings, like ranger scouts, labourers to build your fortifications, etc. I will also be buying some of these minis, but it would help if people helped out a little bit. The more minis we have the cooler the world will look.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby icycalm » 16 Jan 2022 07:14

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New mini-creator/shop called ANVL: https://anvl.co

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnvlMinis

I know about it because they followed me on Twitter. Insomnia is starting to get some clout in the RPG community. One guy recently referenced my "fallout" with Matt Colville lol.

Some premade minis: https://anvl.co/collection

They have cool level of detail. It's always nice to see more of these services so that we don't get hundreds of inbred minis from one vendor.

Unfortunately, as with Eldritch Foundry, there don't seem to be any color options, so you have to use Substance Painter I guess. Can't be that hard though.

The reason these services don't tend to offer color is because you're supposed to order them 3D printed and then color them yourself. They do offer VTT file downloads but that's not their primary market, at least not yet. So only Hero Forge seems to offer color so far.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby leccosta » 16 Jan 2022 19:22

I just made a Pro subscription on Hero Forge, so we have four extra minis for the hirelings/servants. I also will send the files to Chev and ysignal.

And here are the pictures of the cleric I created:

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Here's a good look of the shield in his back:

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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby ysignal » 18 Jan 2022 11:05

This is a good tutorial for painting Eldritch Foundry minis with Substance Painter for when we have some to paint:

https://youtu.be/oW1mAlkRdRI

There's some setup you have to do first, but after that you can just adjust the color and other properties on each part similarly to Hero Forge. With the right preparation in Blender it should work just as well for ANVL.

Also, here's another site for downloadable minis:

https://www.loot-studios.com

There are no painting options and, unlike the others, you can't customise the minis at all. Rather, it's a subscription service where they create some minis each month and release them to subscribers in bundles like these:

https://www.loot-studios.com/bundle-scifi
https://www.loot-studios.com/bundle-fantasy-1
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby ysignal » 18 Jan 2022 11:20

So far as I've noticed only Hero Forge exports the "3D Tabletop" format. The main reason to get them in that format is the coloring, so that's not an issue with the others.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby ysignal » 19 Jan 2022 14:25

Here's what leccosta's mini looks like in TaleSpire:

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I put it in a custom category called "Battlegrounds: PCs":

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We can easily change the category if necessary. I put this mini in a zip file which I've sent to icy.

I didn't include any of the others because I haven't put the portraits or category in yet. I'll get to them soon. To install the minis, you need to find your TaleSpire folder by right-clicking TaleSpire in your Steam library and going to Properties > Local Files > Browse. There should be a folder called TaleSpire_CustomData there (if it doesn't exist, create it). There will be a folder called Minis inside the zip file. You just need to copy that into TaleSpire_CustomData (let it overwrite any files if you're prompted).

To use the installed minis you need to install r2modman from here (choose "Manual Download"):

https://thunderstore.io/package/ebkr/r2modman/

You must launch TaleSpire from this program to use the minis. You also need to install the following mods:

  • ExtraAssetsRegistrationPlugin
  • RadialUIPlugin
If you've got your minis installed before starting up TaleSpire with these mods then you should see the minis in the Library. If you're loading an existing board with custom minis, you may need to reload the board to get them to load properly.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby ysignal » 20 Jan 2022 10:59

I emailed Loot Studios support and they sent me this sample:

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I took a look in Blender, and I think these will be harder to paint than the others as I don't know an easy way to split them into parts.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby icycalm » 21 Mar 2022 04:49

Desktop Hero
https://desktophero3d.com

Yet another character generator. Not sure if it has color.

It's good to catalogue all of them here, because they'll give people more character options. Hero Forge is great but their characters are obviously inbred, which will happen when you only use one artist; it's unavoidable because every artist has his style.

As for coloring the monochrome models, it can't be that hard. I am sure we can figure it out when it's needed.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby icycalm » 26 Apr 2022 20:14

18 Warcraft Characters as Hero Forge miniatures (probably done a dozen times but here's my attempt)
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k ... miniatures

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Since all Hero Forge characters people make get their own public web page, you can just google "hero forge pirate" or whatever and set it to image search, and get dozens of readymade designs, with zero effort, many of which look so good you'd have to spend ages to make them, or maybe couldn't make them at all because you lack the talent. Remember that the actual parts you use are only half the job, because picking the right colors for a great effect is at least as hard, if not harder.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby ChevRage » 27 Apr 2022 21:38

Hero Forge has a community library now apparently. I only found out because I resubscribed just now, it seems to be in beta at the moment and I think will become available to everybody once it releases proper.

You can save others' mini designs and modify them yourself. Some of them are simply poses or just armour sets that you can apply to any of your characters. You gotta save them first, then once you've loaded the figure you want to apply them to, you go to your saved mini screen and can select import from the bottom-left corner.

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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby icycalm » 09 May 2022 21:44

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https://steamcommunity.com/app/720620/d ... 1543202696

[MI]D793Super wrote:Support for TitanCraft

https://titancraft.com/

Titan craft allows you to create your own monsters, I would love for support for this to be added just like what was done for Heroforge, That would be fantastic!


gazza-911 wrote:They only support STL, which isn't suitable for TaleSpire.

STLs are uncoloured and are too high poly so it would degrade the performance.


They also make characters.

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Competition is insane in this sector; I've lost count of how many stores there are. This means someone will launch an animated service soon, and destroy everyone. This will have to be targeted to VTTs, since you can't have animation on your table (unless through Augmented Reality glasses, which are in the works too, from several companies). The top 3D VTT is TaleSpire, and it will have to drive innovation here. Performance will be impacted by animation, but if it's only your characters to start with, the hit will be negligible, but the improvement in immersion will be tremendous because most of the time you're staring at your characters.
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby icycalm » 19 May 2022 08:31

This seems important if you're buying HF minis: https://www.reddit.com/r/talespire/comm ... rientation

scarcepepper wrote:[PSA] Hero Forge character in TaleSpire orientation mistake

I made a Hero Forge character and imported into TaleSpire. I overlooked the fact that orientation matters and just wanted to create an informative post for anyone who plans on doing the same to not make the same mistake I did. I linked a video of a quick demonstration of my mistake along with a description to follow to avoid learning the hard way too.

Here's the PSA from the video's description:

"If you want your character to look forwards when they walk forwards, make sure they are facing you when you first load the page. (Edit: On the buy page, if you select '3D Digital', a little red arrow shows up in front of your mini to indicate which way is forwards.) You can also reset the original camera orientation by refreshing the page (but save your character first before doing such to avoid losing any changes). Then go to pose, advanced, and select the icon with the red arrows to change the position and direction the character is facing to your liking."

HeroForge character in TaleSpire orientation mistake (read description)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLoG7sb0Hnk
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Re: WEB Hero Forge/Eldritch Foundry/ANVL

Unread postby icycalm » 04 Jan 2023 22:27

https://twitter.com/HeroForgeMinis/stat ... 7322810368

Hero Forge @HeroForgeMinis wrote:Hero Forge®’s new Custom Mounts and Familiars system has come charging in! The developers and artists at Hero Forge® have gone above and beyond the original scope of more familiars and more mounts, expanding hugely to include customizable features!


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This is incredible news. Before there was only a single horse or wolf or whatever, and not very customizable either. And it's not just for mounts that we'll use them, but also just generally as animals populating the landscape. The world will be full of realistically-placed animals and herds of animals to interact with.

That said, don't go nuts buying minis. There are some issues we need to address. When you buy the mini, you have to buy it in a certain orientation, otherwise it comes into TaleSpire looking in the wrong direction. For this reason, plus the fact that I think I want all the minis in my account in case a player drops out, I might decide to not let players buy minis and instead buy them all myself. Not sure how this will work out with subscription, because it's monthly. I might have to just buy some minis at the undiscounted $8/mini rate for the first few sessions. We'll see how it works out. This is yet another headache I need to figure out before we can play the first session. They are piling up, and you don't even know half of them, that's why it's taking forever. BUT, I will persevere, and I will figure it all out, and we will play the first session, and then everything will be much easier because it's just the first session that has so many things to figure out before we can play it.

It's just the most complex game ever, so the setup is understandably daunting. But we'll get there. If anyone can get us there, it's me, and I am doing it.

On another note, expect a whole new layer of complexity to be added when Menyr [ > ] forces all the miniature makers to add animation...
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