Dis-Tressed

Well, wouldn't ya know it? The hairstyles packs were all ready to roll, and then Ben comes back from holiday, takes one look at them, and finds three issues that need fixing. So after a some soul-searching, discussion, and banging of heads on desks, we decided to hold them for another week and do them properly. The upside to this is that we can also sneak in a few more things that we were reluctantly going to leave out, so it's not all bad.

That's what QA is for, after all.


The thing is, it'll only take a couple of days to fix the problem, but we have a pretty cast-iron rule round here. Never release on Fridays or Mondays. That's a rule born of painful experience. Friday releases almost always mean "c'mon, guys, just get it out of the door and then we can all go home," rapidly followed by "oops, there's a serious problem, and nobody's around to take a look at it for three days." Monday releases almost always mean, "let's shove this out first thing and then chalk up an instant win," rapidly followed by "we did go through the whole release checklist, didn't we? errr...."

Then we get to the corollary of that rule. Don't release on Thursdays unless you're sure it's going to work. Because then when there's a problem, you have to fix it on Friday, which leads to the Friday Release Syndrome, and a good chance you'll rush the fix and get it wrong.

So that's why we try to go for Wednesday releases. We have time to check everything properly at the start of the week, and time to fix it if we screwed something up. Which means that you'll have to wait for next week for the hairstyles.

But we'll tease you a bit in the meantime. We know you love it when we do that. All the screenshots are ready, so we'll post those on the main blog and make you drool. Just a little bit. We wouldn't want you messing up your keyboards.

In which Johnnie forces another work experience student to blog

Saddened as we were to lose Rhys at the end of last week, we've been buoyed somewhat this week by the addition of Ivan. Like Rhys, Ivan is here at Moviestorm Towers on a work experience placement. Also like Rhys, he's a keen Moviestorm hacker, his particular claim to fame being getting Moviestorm running on a sexy little netbook.

Ivan has done some great work in the QA department, including finding a bug which had gone unnoticed by the entire team for over a year. We asked him for his thoughts about Moviestorm now that his week with us is almost over.

Well, this has been a fine old week, and I have become a seer into the future of Moviestorm. What will happen is [CENSORED] will [CENSORED] and *stops talking as is being punched in the head by the censor machine*

Okay, that's me in crutches. Well, my time here started off very friendly, albeit very quiet and a little awkward. I ended up bringing in a set of headphones just to listen to the hum of the magnets. I've been doing QA work since i arrived.

I completely and utterly blame Johnnie for the mistake on Wednesday in which I spent the entire morning installing an incorrect (and broken) version of Moviestorm and then the rest of the day logging bugs that weren't of any consequence. In so doing, however, I got to see something great that I can't talk about but have to be cruel and just hint at.

One of the most interesting things I looked at was the new "hair" pack (I had a small inkling that it might be something from the musical but looks like it's not) in which the new options for hairstyles were revealed, i.e. morph sliders, different skin-head designs (how? you ask? wait and see, mwahahaha!), some anime styles and most importantly ... pink hairdos for men! Gasp!

I wasn't allowed to see the Pyro pack save a few glances over people's shoulders and some whispered comments now and then, but from what I have seen, it should cause some "ohhhs".

I'm not going to go on for too long, so I shall wrap up by saying "Johnnie did it!".

As a special bonus, here's a video capture I made earlier in the week, showing some of the morphing options available with the new hair deformation sliders.

Ladyspikes

A couple of people asked us whether there would be a female version of the spiky hair we posted yesterday. Well, ladies, here she is!

And, just to demonstrate our customisation prowess, we've used the hair length morpher to give her somewhat shorter spikes, and given her a striking purple look.

How's that?

Parting is such sweet sorrow

I'll admit it: I'm running out of puns.



Here's another work-in-progress shot from the Hairstyles Pack. This is a short haircut for female characters. There's a parting on the other side of the head, which means that my title pun is just about tolerable.

I've still to show you the morph sliders in action on the new hairstyles. I'll post a short video capture of those in a few days time. Meanwhile, don't forget to take a look at the brand new Moviestorm website if you haven't done already.

Funky librarian

Here's another of the upcoming hairstyles, and a first look at some of the customisation options.


No, you're not seeing things. That's all just one hairstyle. As well as changing the colour, you can trim the fringe and adjust the length all the way down to the shoulders to create many different looks from one basic template. This one cut gives you everything from schoolteacher to arts student and TV presenter.

Click on the pic for a real close look at the variations available.

Hair today, shorn tomorrow

Yesterday's screenshot gave you a taster of one of the longer hairstyles in store for you in the Hairstyles Content Pack. You seemed to like it, but some of you were worried that the only hairstyles we'd give you would be styles with long hair (and at least one eye obscured!). To allay your fears, let's go to the other extreme today and take a look at one of the shortest hairstyles we're working on.


This is a very short, shaved cut for male characters. There are several variants from which to pick, from the subtle ...


... to the, er, not-so-subtle:


I've got a few more images still to show you, and maybe even a video or two, so check back over the next few days to see some more of the work-in-progress Hairstyles Pack (and more terrible puns in the post title).

Click the images to see a high-resolution version.

Fringe favourite

A little while ago we asked you what sort of hairstyles you wanted to see on your Moviestorm characters. The upcoming Hairstyles Content Pack contains hairstyles inspired by many of the ideas and images you sent us.

I've got an early development build of the Pack, so I'm going to sneak a few screengrabs for you over the next couple of weeks. Let's start off with this, which is one of the new female hairstyles:



There's a huge amount of variety and customisability planned for the Hairstyles pack, so keep an eye on this blog in the coming weeks to see if the hairstyle you asked for has made it into the Content Pack.

Oh, right, yes - I almost forgot: When It's Ready™.