Updated 12/13! Last summer, the folks over at Spy Monkey Creations put their storefront on hold while they made plans to retool their product line and expand their operation for 2012. As the New Year draws nearer, some teases for 2012 are starting to pop on the Spy Monkey Blog…
Just a couple weeks ago, I was catching up on some posts over at He-Man.Org when I ran across an update from SMC’s very own Brian-Man. Simply put, the post (reposted here in our 7th Market Forum) blew my mind. Sure, I expected bigger and better things from SMC’s return, but the modular aspect took me completely by surprise. Better still? Glyos & Outer Space Men compatibility!! All that and more affordable to boot. Ladies & Gentlemen, we have died and gone to accessory heaven.
Since that post, the Spy Monkey Creations Blog has revved up again to showcase teaser images of their upcoming offerings. The silhouettes of the first couple are familiar, but with interchangeable aparts, it’s a whole new ballgame. The reveal of the third weapon should be sometime today, so keep your eyes peeled and a tab open for SMC!
In the meantime, one of the fun things about these silhouette images is that you can plop them over into Paint or Photoshop and mess around a bit with the pieces to “pre-plan” (i.e. play) what you might do with these accessories once you get them in-hand. I gotta a kick out of doing just that and thought it’d be cool if I could whip something together that lets everybody play with the pieces right there on their browser. After a java-fueled javascript crash course and some boneheaded “duh” moments with the CSS, I finally got the “Virtual” Builder 1.0 up and running.
The “Virtual” Builder features breakdowns of the silhouetted weapons revealed so far and, if I did everything right, you should be able to configure some crazy builds by dragging the pieces to the right side of your screen (some may be tricky to grab, I’m still working on it). The pegs are obvious, but the holes are represented by a small indention equal to the width of a peg. Also, since I didn’t have a way to rotate the images, multiple turnarounds are included. As the remaining teasers are rolled out, I’ll add to the virtual builder as time allows.
Continue to the “Virtual” Builder 1.0!
the virtual builder is one of many reasons why IAT is a titan of the toy geek world so quickly. BRILLIANT!
that said, there are a few glitches… some of the pieces don’t like to get moved back once they get moved to the right… but the essentials are there, and the pieces are cool to swap around… i can’t wait to see how this will unfold as more pieces get added to the “database.”
Ah, the sound of excitement slightly dulled. 😀
While I was at work today, I was turning the code around in my “virtual” space and solved a lot, but not all, of the little inconsistencies. Have a hack at it again today and let me know what you think!
Nice work on that Virtual Builder Noisy. Very impressive.
Thanks, Dwal!
Hm, seems a little broken on a Mac running Firefox as a browser.
It starts out OK but once there’s some pieces out in the ‘work space’ things go wonky, as trying to move one part moves a different part, as if edges are overlapping or conflicting.
I’m not complaining,it’s wonderful you got it to work as much as it does, just stating this for other Mac users who might be frustrated and stuff. 🙂
Still, it’s a cool idea. They should add a long shaft for making spears, pikes and other pole arms. 🙂
actually, that’s something I’d be concerned about, that connection between whatever ‘hilt’ and the other parts. That should be more robust because that’s likely to get the most stress from use (unplugging and plugging to fit a sword into a hand for example) than anything else, right?
I’m hoping it wasn’t Mac related (as I can’t check that) but rather due to some buffoonery on my part in the coding. I sometimes get compliments on some of the coding on the site, but it’s all smoke & mirrors with me learning it as I do it and promptly forgetting after. 😛
It sounds like they’ll be using the same grade of materials as Glyos proper, so I think the connections will handle stress pretty well. I’m really looking forward to these (as if my all-night bender on how to play with javascript wasn’t an indication…)
After my latest update, I went and made a huge mess in Firefox with nary a glitch in sight:
Unless that’s one big glitch there to the left…
Try it out this morning and let me know!
Thanks man, this is awesome.
I can’t wait until we have the final color samples in hand and can start showing you all everything these sets are capable of.
We still have 3 more weapons to reveal and the parts count on the 4th & 5th weapons will blow some minds. The long requested long shaft weapons will finally be a reality.
The only real limitations of this stuff is one’s own imagination.
The quality of the test shots we’ve received is better than we could have asked for. The factory did a remarkable job. Some parts are cast in PVC and others in ABS.
2012 is gonna be a fun ride.
It can still use a lot of work, but I’m glad you approve!
I’ve got the newest sword added in tonight, but from the sounds of your post at the Org that 4th weapon is going to have me up all night making the pieces for the builder. 😀
I’m not sure where I read it, but the best sum up here is that you guys are going from making accessories to making stand alone toys. Great time to be a toy collector!
Love the builder. It’s so cool that you were able to put it together so quickly. I noticed that you fixed some stuff on it. It’s still a little glitchy but it’s running better than earlier. 🙂
Thanks! I’m thinking about putting you to work though… who better to make some Glyos and OSM silhouettes for me? 🙂
Hahaha, Virtual Builder rules! 😀
Thanks!
Loving the teasers, Can’t wait to get some new Spymonkey in my hands…
2012 can’t come fast enough!!
much better. i tried stacking some pieces over each other and crossed the boundary from work space to storage space, and everything worked well. excellent smithers!