The Biggest Problem with Heroforge

[@Derfholm]

Do you agree? Disagree? Hit me

[@reaper2604]

Definitely agree, the base colors especially on cloth and hair need tweaking to look good, It should already BE good to begin with. I also think a few more rock options would be nice, as we only have volcanic, “normal” and polished.

[@Bolt_2A]

As someone who didn’t even know you could make custom colors for a bit; I do agree that there needs to be more default colors for people just getting into it. Not everyone is going to want to spend lots of time getting the colors right especially if they are new.

[@shaingustin3032]

I absolutely agree, with everything mentioned in this video and I share your desire for less cartoony models, better default colors for newer users (im on your discord server as it's an awesome environment for learning.) But i dont think Heroforge is going to do away with the big hands and bulky swords and such, as it makes the 3D prints sturdier. I do however hope they add a separate option for less bulky models for us digital folks that arent using the website to print physical minis.

[@ManiyaVinas]

Pretty late but I personally wish there were more middle eastern and south east asian inspired fantasy outfits/weapons etc As someone who has ocs inspired by these regions it's prerty hard to get distinct design as a casual hero forge user

[@Derfholm]

@@ManiyaVinas I agree. For me it's not that difficult to deal with because my niche leans more towards the medieval European niche, but I 100% agree there should be more diversity

[@CopyCaden00]

I would also suggest they add a random class-based model generator. Give a list of options to get people going, I know even as a returning user that I struggle getting inspiration for what a Druid might wear compared to a paladin or something like that. If they added meta tags to pieces of armor/clothing and the gear/spell effects you could hit a button and have it randomly spit out matched outfits and gear that at least *resemble* what you’re looking for. Changes would be needed but I think it would help spark inspiration for people who don’t know what options are available to them on first glance

[@goozerfella]

I definitely agree with the opening model issue and I'd say it's the one thing that (sue me) eldritch foundry beats heroforge in currently, having the site open on a model with heroic features and a heroic stance really does make a big difference.

[@Derfholm]

It sure does, yeah. When I saw them both side by side my first inclination was also to think Eldritch Foundry looked far superior - it's only once you delve into the deeper customization options that you realize how much better Heroforge is, but that takes a few steps

[@Deleted.970]

How do i move the arm

[@cloudchiodude6057]

@@Deleted.970 if you go into advanced posing, however derf here has made a video for people tobhelp them learn about posing, so I'd recommend checking that out

[@liamthecollector]

I would like to try eldritch foudry but credit card payment is not an option for me. and is it just me or is the eldritch foundry tool is way more buggy than heroforge?

[@zoggsoggy1025]

So true bestie. I remember fucking around with hero forge in high school but dropped it because it was simultaneously not robust enough at first glance but also too complex to use without a guide. The only reason I picked it up again is because my neighbor bought a 3d printer and one of your videos got recommended to me once randomly like 3 years ago and luckily I saved it to watch later.

[@gettar82]

I don't know if this could engage people more, but just as an artist, I absolutely agree about the default pose and proportions issues… They simply don't work. ESPECIALLY THE POSE. The first thing I do when starting a new model is literally changing the pose, even before I start to work on the actual pose. That trolling shrug (yeah, I believe the default mini is actually telling me “U MAD BRO?” 🙃) make it hard for me to focus on everything else, from clothing to character design… Because I think ANYTHING would look BAD in that pose 😝

[@Derfholm]

100%

[@rylanor1176]

great vid, and the og larper king is horrifying

[@thelaggiest]

I'd also love for the weight options to be better. I have a plus size character who looks great from a head on perspective, but the weight sliders don't affect the Y axis of the characters' thighs, so it looks ridiculous from a side view. Also pleeeease can we get some new default face options, or even let us choose individual facial features. The default faces all being unappealing has definitely put off people I've recommended it to.

[@Derfholm]

Fortunately, face customizer should be releasing within the next few months!

[@thelaggiest]

@@Derfholm Oh man, great to know! How exciting!

[@luckyaussie2929]

I definitely agree, I remember when I first came to hero forge it took me WEEKS to find out how to use many of the features in it, mainly through your videos.

[@papa-rudd]

Agree 100%. First impressions are key. Ive had a bunch of buddies not like hero forge either or not give it a chance. Simple changes, like you state, could make a world of difference

[@devz3300]

a friend of mine is like why the F*ck are the hands so massive

[@papa-rudd]

@@devz3300 My daughter at (at 9yo) was mad because when she made herself, her hands were HUGE. Im hoping kitbashing fixes this

[@dannyman5751]

The skin tones are also SO saturated. As a brown person, using the mid tone skins are either too light and orange to be on a human that isn’t sunburned, and the darker ones, while work for some people, don’t work at all for light brown people. There needs to be a desaturated, light brown tone that can be used for south Asians and middle eastern people

[@Derfholm]

Agree 100%

[@666lupine666]

If heroforge would stop giving female models shovel-hands and chunky clothing I would buy prints from them directly

[@AutumnalCrocodile1216]

The first character I made used entirely cloth paints until I learned that there were other options

[@grahamputerbaugh4872]

I also think a lot of the color schemes for themes need reworking. Newer users are less likely to come up with their own color schemes, so they'd be more likely to use one of the premade themes. The themes, however, don't look that good in my opinion. There are a lot of weird color combinations (I'm looking at you, chromatic chaos) and a lot of the textures, especially for cloth and leather, look really off. I think this would really help new users who want to color their minis without custom-coloring it stay.

[@Greg_M1]

Have you ever spoken directly to the HF developers about these things? I agree with all your statements. An why oh why are the weapons so oversized? Makes it all a bit ridiculous. I can use Photoshop to put better weapons and clothing on them, but what a joke. In the end, HF is good for getting some poses and facial expressions, but be prepared to have to finish the work in a separate program.

[@Derfholm]

Somewhat, yes. However, the reasons the defaults are the way they are is because that is optimal for printing. That said, I know things print quite fine with different proportions etc as well so I still hold out hope they may be willing to update them one day

[@Jesse_Pinkman99]

I’m not even a dnd guy but I recently used it to create video game characters and I really like it. Definitely agree with you.

[@shadowspawn4338]

I could not agree more. I had no idea of all that could be accomplished before finding your videos and joining the discord community. Anyone without a lot of free time is likely to get frustrated and move on before discovering all that the site has to offer.

[@ccs5531]

My hope is that the Faces update will also change the default face, and ideally a lot of the default everything.

[@OveniaHimself]

yep, I definitely agree

[@sionanenrois1433]

I agree wholeheartedly and it's worse now since face customizer dropped because they have that default goofy face pose too - which hinders creating a custom face if you don't realize that you should turn the face pose off to begin with. Face customizer is intimidating enough without that.

[@MrJoeyWheeler]

My personal gripes with Heroforge are as follows: 1) Lack of facial expressions (Face Customizer will fix this) 2) There are not nearly enough female hairstyles 3) Conversely, there are *too many* female costume pieces, despite the aforementioned lack of female hairstyles 4) Because it is focused on printing models, hand options are too limited 5) Also because it is focused on printing models, poses are limited to the point that you can't choose the positions of legs unless you use pre-set poses.

[@wiselcore]

Agree with the default pose being a really bad intro to the program; it's just so... stiff. Like, I understand that you want people to be able to get a good look at each angle of a mini while designing, but the hero pose that you mention would do the same effect of being a good reference point without obscuring anything. As for the proportions thing, honestly I'm having the exact opposite issue; I have a bunch of super duper toony characters where the proportions don't get extreme enough, so it becomes an issue of 'not cartoony enough for the people who want to make anime boys and super toony furries by default, not realistic enough for people who love grimdark grizzled knights by default'. Hah, in general my overall approach to colors and everything else is pretty different from yours, but I think that just makes the fact we both agree on the fact heroforge really needs to make their first impression of their product/program better all the more salient; if the cartoony style with eyeburning colors aficionados (me) aren't satisfied, when a lot of the older chunkier outfits and pieces are marketed towards them, doesn't that just make it even more true that stuff needs to get fixed? Considering that is the two genres I like, I just can't win. Fox that chases two rabbits, etc etc. Another thing that I personally find a bit grating is the lack of ability to slim down the anthro legs, like I know there would probably be issues with snapping or w/e if you go too thin, but unless you really mess with stuff, there's a tendency where most of the older anthro legs either need a revamp or an update, because it's kinda difficult to make a delicate flouncy deer dude when the one hoofed leg option is very clearly designed for a beefy minotaur dude. Also I genuinely hope that if they revamp the presets, they make it so there's options designed with anthro characters in mind, because having the starter presets have the bears have the human eye default... *shudders* Let me say, did not endear me to the program. At least they fixed the skin cat preset issue...

[@Treasterischi]

Heroforge... easy to learn, hard to master! XD Everybody can try it for free... only few can explore all the options and sink undred hours of their free time creating awesome miniatures :P

[@BrandonGiordano]

Have you made a video showing the pose at 3:05?

[@ZhBorg]

I'm more let down in the physical quality of the model and how different it looks online vs when I get the mini.

[@INKSTARS1138]

I would even say to send them a message about this, they've added things because of users (the spinny is because of my husband, who would painstakingly make his own spinny gifs before it came out, and they said they were adding it on one of his reddit posts!) before, and if you tell them, they may actually implement these things. The changes all make sense, and I agree that they should change all of these things asap! And you know, maybe make a large hand and a small hand available... Or just let me scale 'em.

[@ChivalrousyWalrusy]

Yeah, nothing like telling someone to try it out and having to give them a basic list of changes to make before they do anything else to turn them away.

[@Derfholm]

Ain't that the truth

[@hanses5]

Atleast its 1000x easier than moddeling it yourself in Maya,Blender,3ds Max

[@flamingofyren7695]

The hands thing. What do you guys do when making small characters?

[@the-white-eye]

i personally really visually like the cartoony option heroforge provides for minis (mostly because im a rather stylized 2d artist and like that i can actually try to match my style as opposed to classic minis). also, many minis arent super easy to read from further away imo so being cartoony is pretty helpful (not to mention easier to paint). what bothers me is that theyre inconsistent about it. if you want the headsize to be more stylized why do my characters have to have pronounced realistic lips, why cant i toggle those (seriously, i hate making human characters in heroforge because the faces are really uncanny sometimes). why do the eyes need weird realistic tiny textures when the rest of the textures you can put on the model rarely have a 4th of the resolution. theres no other way to have minis in any other style than the classic semi realistic ones you see everywhere aside from straight up hiring a 3d artist, but they just cant really commit to either doing realistic or stylized or providing proper options for both so youre kinda just left with a mini that clashed with itself stylewise.

[@Derfholm]

Not a bad take tbh

[@joeysopinion4463]

I use Heroforge as a reference point for drawing my characters so I don’t really have a problem with it as it can give me a general idea of how I want my characters to look, I do understand your points tho and one major gripe for me is there’s no hand and feet sliders to make really hulking characters nor a something of a mass slider for when you want to make fat characters nor is there a way to make a cyclops or Triclops

[@squali1930]

Would be awesome if they had you set up this first impression for the new update.

[@fredreindljr1996]

I personally would like to see a cyclops race (for making a giant cyclops or the arimaspoi), lightsabers, big cat mounts, and of course a better default pose among many other things.

[@reginaldvonbartlesbee]

Hey Derf, could you please share the link to that preferred starting model?

[@Norbingel]

I don't quite understand why (afaik) they don't make this available as a tool for game developers.

[@Derfholm]

That is also a very interesting point yeah. Another big core issue of Heroforge (to many) is that there's no incentive beyond your own creativity to really create models. Their partnership with Talespire and letting you import Heroforge models into that was a good starting point, but it could go a lot further - Say some more tabletop games were created specifically with Heroforge models in mind, it would certainly bring a whole new audience in

[@Norbingel]

@@Derfholm As an aspiring game developer, the first time I saw HF, I really thought it was a gamedev tool.

[@Deleted.970]

@@Derfholm how did you make it posing

[@eternal7912]

The one thing I disagree with about this is that the first thing I do when making a hero forge model is remove the close and mess with the proportions and skin color. Then I move to clothes and gear.

[@DannyChubird]

Just doing my due diligence and commenting for the algorithm

[@kelly_seastar]

At least they changed the default outfit. It used to be a ripped one-shoulder tank top and loin cloth thing.

[@Jenna_Talia]

What bothers me now is that we can adjust tail and ear size to be smaller than the default. That's great, but the same hasn't been done for horns. It's a little infuriating to find curly ram horns I love and then they're just... Utterly gigantic. Also wish that inverting the pose wouldn't also swap the tools your character is holding. I do it so I can have a left handed mini stand a certain way and have to rearrange the things they're holding *every* time. Being able to invert poses but also forcing tools to be swapped makes no sense. You also can't really adjust the arms much without having the shoulders twist and warp into looking completely dislocated.

[@vampireslayera]

Is there a link to that better default pose you showed? I would love to make that my default starter moving foward

[@Derfholm]

Not sure if there's any direct link to it under any of my videos, BUT I do plan on making a posing video where I will be including that one and a lot more

[@chronicgryphon4377]

i agree especially the default pose part. can you provide a link for the pose at 3:05?

[@Derfholm]

I'm sorry to say I did not save the pose :(

[@Mark-ki7ic]

Good video, totally agree

[@seandylenray8100]

like five minutes ago a i discovered and opend hero forge for the first time done to models that i already think of as actuall people and now trying to do the same thing in blender because hero forge doesnt have a humenoid monkey and a bo staff

[@thegoldenbro78]

I kinda want to see more animistic takes on stuff like Rat folk. I tried to make a model for a returning character, but I ended up with something terrible, and something that looked way to cuddly, witch while accurate, he's made to look more like a skaven, not as sewer bound tho if that makes sense

[@Dustbiter2003]

I tried to get some of my friends into hero forge when they asked me for a good website for what hero forge does, and everyone of them told me that the default poses uncanny and that it's overall confusing.

[@Derfholm]

It's the truth :(

[@clymdodds1020]

Super-bubba baby head grinds my gears.

[@Derfholm]

hahah

[@elPedroL.Galera]

A personal idea I have for Hero Forge is that the facial expressions could be inproved a little: what about features for sadness or control of parts of the face aside from the eyes (lips and eyebrows)? Just my idea.

[@Derfholm]

They're working on a more advanced facial customizer!

[@elPedroL.Galera]

@@Derfholm Halleloo! I'll be waiting that feature.

[@wolf1066]

I wasn't impressed first time I saw HeroForge but I stuck at it because it was the only thing available to me to create images of my RPG characters, which pushed me to persist and explore the options. I can understand why someone less nerdy than me would give up.

[@FiveTen007]

Question, are you able to access your own color library after the pro subscription ends, or is it inaccessible afterwards?

[@Derfholm]

Unsure, I never unsubbed, but I assume it becomes unavailable

[@JaneXemylixa]

@@Derfholm You can access it, but can't add anything new to it

[@Derfholm]

@@JaneXemylixa Interedasting Also hello, been a long time since I saw you comment

[@JaneXemylixa]

@@Derfholm Hi. I've dipped back out of the community for a while I guess

[@UMC-Jello]

If you can respond to this, How would I delete my hero forge account.

[@Derfholm]

Hahah, sorry friend, I have no clue

[@ysgramornorris2452]

I know that the "first impressions matter most" works for large numbers of people, but I myself didn't stop at my first impressions.

[@Derfholm]

If any of us who actively use HF stopped at first impressions, then I don't think there'd be much of a HF community, so I am definitely in the same boat - but I still think better first impressions would be important for the community at large

[@holycrusader9158]

And thats only the beginning of the shitty heroforge iceberg

[@awakedoctor8714]

the starting guy looks just like me.

[@awakedoctor8714]

know im working with my life, instead of against it.

[@1986Hikaru]

They need to fix the clothes thickness. God forbid if you ever want a shirtless character with any overlay in pants, you get all kinds of ugly shit.

[@legofanguyvid]

and the biggest one, heroforge OWNS your character, exactly like the bullshit WOTC was trying to pull by trashing the OGL

[@WeyounLP]

for me and my friends 8$ stl's are the problem :(

[@Derfholm]

Yeah, it sucks :(

[@timiddrake]

Tried to make a character with hero forge twice and came to the conclusion, that this tool is absolute trash. I'd rather just buy premades from Etsy. You basically need pro and 1h at least to make a character. This is ridiculous.

[@FrostSoul-qs6kq]

The female characters got big ass neck muscles ... IT IS MAN type muscles on their neck ...

[@Komix777]

I'd say constant politics are the biggest problem. I never expected my subscription to pay for someone's abortion.

[@HappyCynic]

Eh?

[@Komix777]

@@HappyCynic They recently donated a lot of money to organizations that provide abortions.

[@HappyCynic]

@@Komix777 Good.

[@titus4440]

How does this relate to HeroForge?

[@HappyCynic]

@@titus4440 It doesn't. The OP is a lunatic.

[@AgentA1cr]

Personally, my biggest problem with Heroforge, and the thing that's stopped me from creating an account, is the horrific privacy policy. To quote the offending portions: "We may disclose information we collect (including Site Usage Information and Personal Information) in the following ways to third parties, to the extent permitted by law: ... To third party marketers, as permitted by law;" and "If you would prefer that we not share your Personal Information with third-party marketers, please contact us at . Please understand that if you do request that we stop sharing your Personal Information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes, such request will only apply as of the date of your request, and we will not be responsible for any communications that you may receive from third parties that received your Personal Information prior to that request. In these cases, please opt out from or contact the third party directly." In other words, if you create a Heroforge account, they can sell the information you gave them in creating the account to advertisers, and the only way to opt out of this is by sending them an email, which they would presumably only consider a valid request if you actually have an account. But by that point, you would have already given them your information, which they could easily have automatically sold the moment you clicked Sign Up.