Star Trek Miniature Maker 2.0

The marvellous Mechanical Star Trek Paper Miniature Maker 2.0

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Some of you may remember an old site of mine where you could construct Star Trek paper miniatures by dragging the relevant arms and props on to the bodies at the top of the page. I recently, finally retired that site in favour of version 2.0 with significantly better art, a higher resolution and a menu based construction method instead of having to drag several screens up :)

You can find it here:

http://www.crowstuff.co.uk/temp/MiniMaker2/index.html

I know Modiphius are planning on producing some lovely Trek minis. This isn't as cool, obviously but might do if you need a swarm of crew members in a pinch.

Things to note:

It takes about 30-40 seconds to load so you'll just have a blank, dark blue screen for that period. Please be patient.

The page has a fixed window resolution of 1200x700. This is so that the figures are displayed at the correct resolution to print at 300dpi. This means you will need a monitor resolution big enough to be able to display the screen properly.
I may try and reduce this later on for folks who don't have high-res monitors.

The minis, when printed at 300dpi will be 32mm tall. You are, of course at liberty to rescale them to any size you wish.

This is still very much a work in progress - a First draft if you will - so I understand it looks like ass. The UI is placeholder but should serve it's purpose for now.

It should be self explanatory to use: Click the buttons on the left to bring up the menus on the right and click the item you want in the menu on the right. Job done.

I eventually want to implement a save/load and a print function but that's way out of my depth at the moment. For now, when you have a character you're happy with either use 'print screen' and paste into an art package of your choice for printing or use something like Snips in Windows to screengrab.

Fold the figure in half and glue. Either fold the bottom tabs up as a base or cut them in to a tab if you have those fancy slot bases for paper miniatures.

I've taken pains to make sure the figures are symmetrical. However, there's many a slip twixt cup and the lip, so my suggestion is to cut close to the figure and then either leave a white border or colour it in with a black sharpie.

Any thoughts, suggestions, problems, feedback in general, please do let me know. It will be warmly welcome.
However. Please read the following first before you do:


Things I intend to include:

The answer to the question that starts, 'Are you going to include...?' Will almost always be met with the answer, 'Yes. Eventually.'
All uniforms and costumes from all eras of Trek. I will start with the duty uniforms as a priority and add to them from there.
Communicators, PADDs, tricorders in the hands and on the shoulders and belt.
Facial hair
Blue, green and red skin colours.
Most, if not all humanoid races.
A nicer looking UI

Finally here are some TOS era minis that I generated by spamming the Random button:

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This looks really cool. I tried it, with some human and Betazoid officers from two eras. And they worked really well. I even did our bald Android officer and he looked pretty good.

I've now added Enterprise duty uniforms to the mini maker:

http://www.crowstuff.co.uk/temp/MiniMaker2/index.html

Enjoy,

Wayne

I have now added the Enterprise Duty uniform to the mini maker.

Enjoy

Wayne

The Mini Maker has now been updated with a whole host of new hairstyles, TOS Pilot suty uniforms, alien races and a vulcan salute.

There's also beena slight address change as I've moved it to it's new permanent folder:

http://www.crowstuff.co.uk/MiniMaker/index.html

The Miniature Maker has now been updated to include the following:

Alien races
TOS pilot uniforms
A load more hairstyles
Facial hair
Vulcan salute

It's also moved home. The new address is:

http://www.crowstuff.co.uk/MiniMaker/index.html

Enjoy

Wayne

The Miniature Maker has now been updated with Denobulans, Benzites, Communicators, Tricorders, PADDs and the Kelvin Timeline duty uniforms from the first two movies.

http://www.crowstuff.co.uk/MiniMaker/index.html

Enjoy.

Is the site still up?

Yes, it's moved though. I have posted two update messages to this thread over the past few weeks but they haven't appeared as they are still awaiting moderator approval :mad:

The MiniMaker can be found here:

http://www.crowstuff.co.uk/MiniMaker/index.html

Wayne

If I was interested in submitting alien faces etc, what format would be good?

I'm not accepting submissions I'm afraid.
You are of course at liberty to mod the figures and suggest things you'd like me to include as well.

Mostly just missing Tellarites at this point.

It doesn't load properly in Chrome.

Owen, yes, I've been having issues with Chrome.

I think it works okay on PC (certainly I've got it to work via Chrome on PC) but can sometimes throw up an error on loading. I've had folks get the error but then have it work on reloading. I think it may be more problematic (or actually non-functional) in Chrome on Mac. I wonder if it makes a difference in 32 and 64 bit versions.
It apparently has a 100% success rate in Firefox and I've been told it works in Safari too.
I understand that it will not work at all in IE because the elements are not uspported by IE however MS's new browser, Edge apparently does support it. I haven't verified that, though.

Taterdemalion, I'm afraid Tellarites will not be included. Neither will Edoans or Caitians which breaks my heart because I adore all three and would love for them to be in. Sadly, they have noticeably different body shapes to humans and the slightest deviation from human means an entire new set of uniforms for each new species which is a heck of a lot of work for me.
I may draw up some sheets of those races in a similar style to make up for it.

Wayne

I usually get a blurry half-loaded Enterprise image. Occasionally, I'll get through to the menu interface, and it hangs there.

I've tried in Firefox and Chrome and cannot get past the blurry Enterprise...damn.

Curious. I've had folk report that it outright refuses to load in Chrome citing a list of errors, but not that it semi-loads or crashes. Usually if you get through to the menus you should be good. :/
There is an interminably long load time on the app unfortunately and no way of adding a loading wheel or bar. You essentially get a blurred picture of the Enterprise for anything up to a minute and a half before the splash screens appear and you get in to the app itself. I've had folk tell me it's slower in Chrome.
Can I ask what your setup is. I know the browser is Chrome. Is it 32 or 64 bit and are you on a Mac or PC?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Owen E Oulton

I usually get a blurry half-loaded Enterprise image. Occasionally, I'll get through to the menu interface, and it hangs there.

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I get the same thing - the blurry Enterprise. On Chrome and Firefox. My daughter tried her phone, but that didn't seem to work either.

The blurry backdrop of the Enterprise is what you see whilst it's loading.
It can take a very long time to load. It shouldn't take longer than about 90 seconds but please give it 3 or 4 minutes before giving up.
It's enfuriating that I can't add some sort of loading wheel or bar to indicate that it's actually loading and not just hung. I can't even add text to the backdrop because it's not possible to make the image unblurry :(

I think once it has completed downloading once it should load in quicker on later visits.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wayne_Peters

Curious. I've had folk report that it outright refuses to load in Chrome citing a list of errors, but not that it semi-loads or crashes. Usually if you get through to the menus you should be good. :/
There is an interminably long load time on the app unfortunately and no way of adding a loading wheel or bar. You essentially get a blurred picture of the Enterprise for anything up to a minute and a half before the splash screens appear and you get in to the app itself. I've had folk tell me it's slower in Chrome.
Can I ask what your setup is. I know the browser is Chrome. Is it 32 or 64 bit and are you on a Mac or PC?

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64 Bit and it is a Dell PC....I did get it to finally load but then the left half of the screen was chopped in half making it hard to understand the choices...

Switched to a newer machine and finally got it to run...now how can I save the image to make the mini?

Ok been so long since I read the first post...figured out and once I get home with a color printer I can make use of these...

Ayup! It's a fixed resolution so that the images are 300 dpi for printing. Once I figure out how to do a print function, I might be able to make it resizeable but until then you'll need a monitor display of at least 1024x800 (I think) which is pretty minimal these days - but sadly, not for everyone.

As for printing, I'm afraid the only option at the moment is to screengrab and paste in to your favourite paint package - GIMP being a good free one. Crop and arrange with others on a page before printing.

Star Trek Mini-Maker is updated with:

Motion Picture, Wrath of Khan and First Contact uniforms and props.
Phasers, Tricorders, communicators and PADDs vary from movie to movie. For now I've chosen my favourites and will most likely add the others at a later date.
I've also added TOS Andorian antennae for the TOS and TOS Pilot periods.
I've tidied up the hand and arm positioning in places where it was a bit patchy. Wrist connections are still scrappy on bare arms. I'll look at that for the next build.
I've also included a new loading screen.
As ever the app can take several minutes to load depending on your connection. Please be patient.

I may take a bit of a break before the next update as there are currently nearly 2500 seperate images in the app, the vast majority of which are arms and I'm really really sick of drawing arms! :D

http://www.crowstuff.co.uk/MiniMaker/index.html

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Minor Update: Okay, apparently Andorian antennae weren't showing up in the TNG movie era. I fixed it but at the same time have added the option to have either classic Andorian or modern Enterprise style Andorians in every era. Enjoy.

Okay, gentlebeings. John over at the Star Trek Tabletop Gaming Facebook group has asked me to put together a banner for the group featuring a row of characters from the minimaker.
If you'd like your character to be included post a screengrab here.
I'd like to have one from each era and a good mix of male and female and different species and there's limited space, so I can't promise to use them all, I'm afraid but let's see them anyway.

The group is here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/538822979615690/

Okay, minor update to the MiniMaker.

The Andorian horn issue was being caused by the horn in question and the background were on the same sorting layer and Unity was randomly prioritising each. So, sometimes the horn was drawn on top and another the background was.

I also discovered another bug which was that the classic Andorians didn't have the blue skin menu. That's now fixed.

also...

THE TELLARITES ARE IN SO YOU CAN ALL STOP WHINING NOW!

Okay, so you'll have to put up with human hands, human beards and denobulan hair for the time being but the faces are there so you can Tellarise with impunity. I haven't chosen any particular era I just gave them a piggy nose and made them craggy. To be honest they remind me of the STO Tellarites but that wasn't intentional.

I resisted putting them in because to my mind, Tellarites are short and fat. However there was a 6-foot muscular tellarite in an Enterprise episode which pretty much quashed that argument and also as Tellarites are a player species in STA and as I've had more requests for them than anything else, I relented.

Enjoy,

Wayne

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The Minimaker is updated

It now includes:
Kirk's TOS era green command wrap - male and female
Star Trek Beyond Uniforms - Only the dress uniform for the women at the moment, sorry . Trousers will follow.
More hairstyles
Trill spots now go all the way down.
Tellarite Beards, hands and ears
TNG era Skants - male and female

...aaaaaand the biggie...

Discovery Uniforms - Command, Ops, Science and Captain. I've given them TOS equipment (with the Cage communciator obvs) and I will replace them once we see what the Discovery gear looks like. I know they gave Michelle Yeoh a Cage communicator but I'm pretty confident when we see the Phaser and Tricorder it'll probably look more like TOS than the Cage (if it looks remotely like either!).

Anyway, enjoy. It might be a while before the next update. I really want to do something else with my spare time for a while! :D - I think it might either be EVA suits or Cadet uniforms next, though.

Also - they've removed the ability to add GIFs as the splash screen which means I can't have the animated loading pic anymore. They have put their own loading bar in, though but it seems to only show up when it feels like it.

EDIT - Apparently Chrome is throwing up an Uncaught Reference Error. If you click 'okay' the app still works, though.

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The astute amongst you may notice a slight update to the Mini Maker. There's no new content for this one but I have gone through and tidied up the way the hands connect to the sleeves and wrists. It's still not perfect in some places but it is much improved, I hope you'll find.
I've also corrected the proportions on a couple of the arms as two of them had very short forearms and it's been bugging me for ages.
I've also added a couple more Random options and also a Help button that will answer a few obvious questions for folk who find the site without seeing the initial forum post first.
Finally, as Nathan requested it, I've given you the option of having standard or medical tricorders on all uniforms in the TNG era. Unfortunately due to the way I've written the code, both hands will be the same, so if you have a tricorder in both hands, then they both either have to be medical or both standard - switching one will switch both. I'll fix this at some point but as it's a ballache for a very minor inconvenience, it's a bit of a way down the priority list.

Also - for those of you who tried the app early on and found it to be hanging. I urge you to try it again. There is a loading bar now which should give you an indication of whether it is working or not and It's been proven almost without fail to run in Firefox and Chrome for the past two dozen builds or so.

Enjoy,

Wayne

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wayne_Peters

The astute amongst you may notice a slight update to the Mini Maker. There's no new content for this one but I have gone through and tidied up the way the hands connect to the sleeves and wrists. It's still not perfect in some places but it is much improved, I hope you'll find.
I've also corrected the proportions on a couple of the arms as two of them had very short forearms and it's been bugging me for ages.
I've also added a couple more Random options and also a Help button that will answer a few obvious questions for folk who find the site without seeing the initial forum post first.
Finally, as Nathan requested it, I've given you the option of having standard or medical tricorders on all uniforms in the TNG era. Unfortunately due to the way I've written the code, both hands will be the same, so if you have a tricorder in both hands, then they both either have to be medical or both standard - switching one will switch both. I'll fix this at some point but as it's a ballache for a very minor inconvenience, it's a bit of a way down the priority list.

Also - for those of you who tried the app early on and found it to be hanging. I urge you to try it again. There is a loading bar now which should give you an indication of whether it is working or not and It's been proven almost without fail to run in Firefox and Chrome for the past two dozen builds or so.

Enjoy,

Wayne

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I realize that 90% of this thread is you posting updates, but I just wanted to chime in and thank you for all the hard work you've put in so far. This more than suits 90% of my party's needs.

(It was important enough to me to thank you that I logged in for the first time in about a decade!)

I look forward to eventually being able to create Zakdorn and Caitian figures (and whatever else you throw into the mix).

Minimaker updated. The Admirals are in.
I'm getting a weird bug, though. Very occcasionally, the TNG communicator hand fails to deactivate and you get two hands in one sleeve! - but only on the left hand in the rear view. I haven't figured out why, yet. The code looks fine. I'll keep looking. In the mean time, you can usually clear it by changing the hand, arm, era or hitting 'random'. It's perfectly useable otherwise.

http://www.crowstuff.co.uk/MiniMaker/index.html

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Gamethyme,

Thank you. Zakdorn aren't beyond the realms of possibility but I'm afraid Caitians won't be appearing (as much as I'd absolutely LOVE to include them). The trouble is, their body type is non-human and the way the app is structured, I would need an entire set of new art assets for each different body type. I cheated a bit with the Tellarites, making them humanoid instead of the slightly porcine legs they are sometimes depicted with. Caitians, on the other hand have distinctly lupine legs and that just throws a spanner in the works. If I can figure out a workable solution, I will definitely include them, though.

All the best,

Wayne

Thanks for making this neat tool.

Enthused by episode 1 of Lower Decks, I have finally updated the Mini maker to include Pike's Enterprise uniforms from Discovery and the Lower Decks uniforms. I've added a couple of new hairstyles and some new funky hair colours. I'll hopefully add the Picard uniforms in a few weeks and after that, Klingons.

Enjoy

www.crowstuff.co.uk/MiniMaker/index.html

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