What If: Thunderbolts - Week 4 Behind the Scenes

Well, my Thunderbolts What-If series is done! I hope you enjoyed it, it was mostly fun to make, (even though it did eat up a LOT of my time!) and I think it was my best What-If yet.
See below for the last Behind the Scenes, showcasing the awesome group photo at the beginning of my last What-If Week.

---

So obviously to make a group image you need to have a group! I imported all the Thunderbolts into my scene, and then posed them accordingly. To pose them, I referenced the original image, (pre-tampering), that I was going to place them over. I tried to make it look as natural as possible-- Songbird and Ghost float, but you can tell where they are standing. Swordsman is in the middle of the image, because that's who I was pretending to be playing as. I tried to make it look as non-set up as possible. I'm not entirely sure I succeeded. I also made one of Swordsman's swords go through part of Radioactive Man, as though the models collided in game.

Here is the final poses without textures. Notice how I set up a subtle light so that Radioactive Man's arm would shine slightly and not look completely flat.

Here is a wireframe of the image. Not much to say here, it's just pretty. :)

Here is an image I rendered from a different, more dramatic angle. It's completely unedited, and as you can see, Swordsman's reflections are added in post. :)

You may use this as a wallpaper, it's big enough.

Here is the final image! Originally, there was a Spiderman standing where Scourge is now, and he was accessing the Prize Wheel, so I carefully placed Scourge so that he would be using the Prize Wheel, and that was my biggest mistake on this image. It's nearly impossible to use the Prize Wheel and face front at the same time in the game! Oh well, it's still an awesome image. :P

Finally, here are Ghost and Scourge's hero icons. :)

And that wraps up this totally awesome month! I hope you've enjoyed this, it was TONS of work. Whatever's coming next, I'm sure it'll be awesome. And, by the way, if you guys at Gazillion want to do the Thunderbolts, go right ahead. I want to see what you guys come up with officially!! :D In fact, that would be really cool, because then I could compare my What-If images to official ones! :D

Man, now that I said that I really want to play as Scourge in the game.

Well, you guys probably have better things to do, like making an Absorbing Man mission, (please)! :)

-- SHSOFan.

What-If: Thunderbolts - Week 4

The following post is fictional. None of the new characters or events described actually happened.

---

Yaaaay! All the heroes are released! I managed to snag a picture by convincing several other players to participate. Pretty awesome, huh? This happened right before I was about to spin the prize wheel to get the gold for Scourge.

Speaking of Scourge... :P

I purchased both Scourge and Ghost, (completing more challenges helped me get both of them).

Now my Thunderbolts collection is complete! :D

SCOURGE

EXPLORATION

Scourge's first power emote!

Scourge is so fun to play as, I managed to get him up to level ten TODAY! It's weird, I kept getting invited to missions and I spent a hundred gold coins on two Hero Up potions, just to level him up. This means I can guarantee that Scourge is a great fighter, but we'll get to that in a moment. For now, I just want to say that his exploration is sub-par, but due to his cool factor, (like so many heroes), I barely noticed.

I give his EXPLORATION a 3.9/5!

FIGHTING

Scourge is underpowered, unlike most of the Thunderbolts released this month, but at least he's a sniper, which makes it a lot less boring. His Hero Up is the same as his first power emote, where he blasts the ground, causing a tiny earthquake.

I give his FIGHTING a 4.2/5!

COOL FACTOR

Scourge is pretty cool. I like his mask and his coat, but the detail is kind of hard to see.

I give his COOL FACTOR a 3.7/5!

GHOST

Yay! It's Ghost! Ghost is one of my favorite heroes in the comics, but how does he compare in the game? Find out below!

EXPLORATION

Ghost floats while he explores the zones, so that's kind of cool. He's like Sentry. Flight, floats, but no double jump. Oh well. Still, it's cool to glide around the zones. :)

I give his EXPLORATION a 4.1/5!

FIGHTING

Ghost can shoot enemies with his electric guns, turn invisible, and my favorite part is that his first power attack lets him hack into robotic enemies and force them to be his allies for a brief period. It's awesome, and I can't wait to see what his other power attacks are!! :D

I give his FIGHTING a 4.7/5!

COOL FACTOR

Ghost is pretty cool, but I would have liked to see a bit of transparency, like in the comics. Also, even though he's skinny, he should be at least 20% thinner. :P

I give his COOL FACTOR a 3.9/5!

---

Well, that wraps up the Thunderbolts month! I wonder what will come in the future?

-- SHSOFan.

What-If: Thunderbolts - Week 4 Teaser

Coming soon to SHSO What-Ifs... an insane anti-hero!

-- SHSOFan.

What If: Thunderbolts - Week 3 Behind the Scenes

Another week, another What-If! So far I've managed to deliver on almost every single item on my "What New Thing Should I Show in My What-Ifs?" poll, except that last one, group shots. But it's coming! So anyway, the big thing this week was the mission screenshot, and I'll be explaining how I made it, a bit about the character rotating image that I show, and a even few words on that website image! :D

There's a lot to talk about, so let's get started!

---

This.

The first thing I modeled, actually, was the Power Up Barrel. 

It was so important to have an object that would root the image in reality, (or that is, in the game in the real world). I think the barrels really sold that image, so it was really important to put them in there.

Another thing that makes this image look accurate is the texture on the floor. I put a bit more time then I probably should have for that, but it turned out really well. For one thing, most of the missions in SHSO have floor textures, so it would look weird without it, and for another, the grid like tiles help your eye figure out which characters are closer to one another. On the floor you'll also see a skull image. That is actually taken directly from the texture on Crossbones's face. 

the mission image "peeled away"

Some things that I added to the mission HUD which you may or may not have noticed are the two hubs and the mouse indicator. These, I felt, were pretty much essential to selling the image. I'm not really sure why I didn't add them before. Something weird that I also noticed is that, in the actual game, those hubs are just mirrored duplicates of each other! I never would've known.

The airplane on the far left is an example of the detail I add that ultimately never gets noticed. It was a last minute decision to have the mission take place in an aircraft carrier. Don't worry, I'm not an idiot. I know that there is no way an airplane would be able to take off from in that room. I guess the carrier is also a part-time museum. If you're wondering what an aircraft carrier has to do with Crossbones, I honestly don't know. It was so hard to think of a good location for the mission that I gave up! If you have a suggestion for where I SHOULD have placed the mission, tell me in the comments!

Now for...

The Rotating Character Image!

On my blog, (you may already know this), I like to show, with my review, a lovely image of the new hero, rotated to show the entire model so you can see the nice work that SHSO's modelers did.

The last one I did was of Iron Man MK II.

I thought it would be cool to see MY models done this way as well! It's pretty easy to make the image. First I render out around eight angles of the character, and then place them over a Photoshopped image of the game. Its nice and it adds yet another tool to my arsenal of awesome pictures of heroes.

Finally, I'd like to talk about the image of the website that appeared, which I know was one of the things on my poll. One of the things that makes this image special is the font: Tekton Pro. No, I didn't not purchase it, but I developed a sneaky workaround so that I didn't have to pay $15. Who knows how long this'll last, but at least I can save that $15 for in-game gold.

And that's it for this week!

Did you like Penance? Tell me in the comments!

And just so you know, more awesome is coming, not just in my What-Ifs but in the real game as well!

Keep playing. ;)

-- SHSOFan.

What-If: Thunderbolts - Week 3

The following post is fictional. None of the new characters or events described actually happened.

---

Penance was released today! Along with... wait for it... the Crossbones mission! Yippee!

First of all, I apologize for not being correct in my predictions for this month. My new guess is that Scourge and Ghost will be released next week. Yay! Hope I have enough gold to buy both of them...

Anyway, on to Penance!

---

PENANCE

EXPLORATION

Penance actually has a double jump, which surprised me, but was welcome nonetheless. :D

As you would expect, running around the zones with him is pretty fun, especially because of his cool factor and the fact that he's a new hero.

I give his EXPLORATION a 3.5/5!

FIGHTING

Today I fought as Penance for the Crossbones mission. He's slightly overpowered, especially for a week three hero, but it sure was fun running around, slinging spikes at skull-faced henchmen!

His Hero Up, where he unleashes all his spikes at once on enemies is really awesome, and is pretty well ranged.

I give his FIGHTING a 4.9/5!

COOL FACTOR

While I could've used a little more detail, the SHSO version is faithful to the comics, and that's good enough for me. I also received many new friend requests while playing as him. I managed to get him to level five, and his second power emote shows his cat, Niels, which is a nice nod to the comics.

I give his COOL FACTOR a 4.1/5! :D

---

THE CROSSBONES MISSION

OVERVIEW: The Crossbones mission takes place in an airplane hangar, which I'm not sure what is referencing but is cool anyway. The henchmen are all either male or female Skull-faced baddies. I would've liked more variety, but at least they didn't put the Nameless Ones in THIS mission like they do in so many others. Yeesh. What really shines in this mission, I think, is the boss battle.

Crossbones can call in his henchmen to help you, like many bosses, (i.e. Kingpin, Annihilus), which makes the boss fight trickier. But Crossbones actually has two stages to his fight. In the first stage, he is a sniper, shooting from far away, and you have to dodge him. In the second round, he comes down to fight you in person, which is about as fun as you'd expect.

All-in-all, I give this mission a 7.2/10!

And kudos for placing the mission in a new setting, rather then recycling an old one.

So that's it for this week! Tune in next week to see my reviews of Scourge and maybe Ghost! :D

-- SHSOFan.

What If: Thunderbolts - Week 3 Teaser

Coming soon to SHSO What-Ifs... a spiky anti-hero!

-- SHSOFan.

What If: Thunderbolts - Week 2 Behind the Scenes

Yay! It's the second What-If behind the scenes post!

Also, watch my YouTube channel for an upcoming Thunderbolts video, which will only be available to people who read this blog! :D

---

Alright, so the time has come. There is a slight lull because this week didn't show anything new that you hadn't really seen before. So you know what that means? Yeah! It's time to get REALLY DETAILED! Today, I'll be talking through all the steps I take to deliver one of the images in this week's What-If: Thunderbolts post!

Which image?

This one.

Okay, so, where to begin? First of all, you have to have a model of the character. I make my own models, but some people can't do that. What do you do if you aren't a 3D modeler? Well, my advice would be to manually paint over a character, which takes less time, but is probably not as fun. So, anyway, what if you actually model a character? Well, what I do is I take a photo of a hero in the game. Like this.

This image is a good one, because you'll notice Elektra is on a nice, neutral background. It's mostly one shade, so blending her into it shouldn't bee too hard. I've also turned off the Hero Name and Squad Name, which you can do in the settings, because if they were on that would, frankly, be a nightmare.

The next step: render out your character! The program I use, Cheetah3D, (shameless plug), lets you lower the anti-aliasing a bit, so that it looks like a game, (anti aliasing makes an image have jagged edges). What I normally do is put the normal picture in the background, and render my character on top at first.

That gets the position of your character right. Now I open up my background image, and select and copy and paste parts of the image, smoothing it out with the eraser tool, erasing Elektra from the image. Usually this is easy, because I select easy backgrounds on purpose, but sometimes it isn't, and that's where you want to be careful. I wouldn't try TOO hard, after all, it's going to get covered up by your hero, but keep in mind that bits of it will still show under your hero.

Now, I bring it all into Photoshop, and paste in my rendered out hero, (this time with a transparent background).

Photoshop cleanly pastes in my image, I position it correctly, and then I usually have to edit the hero's name. For this, I currently use the font Webletterer BB,  but the actual one is, I suspect Tekton Pro, which is not a free font, and that's why I don't usually use it for these What-ifs.

Then it's time to make the hero icon. I use the CBR forum's template, (discussed in an earlier post), and I delete the name of the hero from the template, which doesn't appear in the game.

I should probably make my own icon background for it, seeing as the game doesn't have the same ridges around the outside. So... expect that next What-If! Now I have to render out an image of the character in "Hero pose".

Then I import it to the Photoshop template, scale it down, and cut it so that it looks like she's inside, and I have this!

Once this icon's done, I save it as a .png, reimport it as one layer, and then put it over the real hero's icon, and there you go, it's... almost done.

There's one last thing that I do, which is scale it down to 600 pixels wide, and add Contrast, and then I apply a lighting effect, like I do with all my pictures on this blog. :)

And there you go! That's how I do it. :)

Any questions? Comments?

Leave them in the comment section.

And for now, I'll leave with a small, small spoiler for next week:

Something spiky this way comes.

-- SHSOFan.

What If: Thunderbolts - Week 2

The following post is fictional. None of the new characters or events described actually happened.

---

So today Radioactive Man and Moonstone came out! So it's time to redo my predictions.

So I rescheduled the calendar a bit in light of this new information...

I think Scourge may be coming with the Crossbones mission, and Ghost and Penance are coming later. It's either that or Ghost and the Crossbones mission, with Scourge and Penance coming later, OR it's Penance with the Crossbones mission, and Scourge and Ghost last. But I'll have to wait to see if this prediction comes true. I know my last prediction didn't. :P

RADIOACTIVE MAN

So, yeah! Radioactive Man! I'm glad I was able to get him, with yet another gold card. *sigh*

Radioactive Man-- I'll just call him "RM" for now-- Is pretty fun to walk around as, seeing as he is the only non-Hulk character I've seen so far that has the Hulk jump! It's pretty cool, and it makes exploring the Daily Bugle zone more fun then usual. I also played through a mission with him, and he's a bit underpowered for my tastes, but he's definitely worth getting just for the cool hood and his exploration, which is really good.

OVERALL: I give RM a 7/10! :D

---

MOONSTONE

Yes, I bought Moonstone, but I didn't have too much time to play as her, and only got through half a mission, so just a little warning that I might be slightly under informed. Moonstone has a boring standard locomotion system, so nothing too special there. But what I saw of her fighting is enough to make her worth the 600 gold. Also, she's essential to completing your Thunderbolts collection.

What really shines through in the missions, though, is her Hero Up, which is a short but powerful blast. You'd think you'd want a ranged attack, but with Moonstone, this Hero Up is actually better. The blast knocks over enemies and gets wider as it travels, so it's good for getting enemies ahead of you. :)

OVERALL: Moonstone shines in the missions, but her exploration is slightly lacking.

I give Moonstone a 8.5/10!

Now go add her to your squad!

---

Well, that wraps up week two of the Thunderbolts releases! Do you think I am right in my prediction for next week, or do you think I'm out of my mind? Whatever you think, leave a comment below!

-- SHSOFan.