Demo File Format FAQ

[Zloth]

Demo File Format FAQ

Demo files are remarkably easy to read, yet I still have many questions about them. Consequently, this FAQ file still has much work to be done on it. Still, I believe I can save a lot of future demo editors some time by imparting what I’ve learned dinking around with the .cohdemo files.

Each line of a demo file has the following format: Timing, Object ID, Command, and Data.

Timing is easy, that’s just how much time has passed (in milliseconds?) since the last command. Many will start with 0, particularly at the start of a demo, indicating the command should happen immediately.

Object ID is also easy, it is simply a number the demo uses to identify each object in the demo. Each object is initialized with a NEW command to indicate what it is. Object numbers can be re-used so just because object 35 is a Reaper at the start of your demo doesn’t mean it is at the end of your demo. There is one special object called “CAM” to indicate changes in the camera’s point of view.

Commands and data tell CoH what is actually being done…..

Commands

Version – this has always been version 2 as long as I’ve been watching. If this ever changes, watch out. This whole FAQ file could become a waste of bits! I’ve never tried changing this number.

Map – the map that’s being used for the demo. Again, I’ve never fiddled with this. Changing it would probably result in most of the action happening inside walls. Note that using an elevator does not change maps! It just moves you far enough away that the areas you have already explored are off the edge of your map display in the game.

Time – how many hours past midnight the demo starts at. This is pretty irrelevant for indoor missions but you can change this to switch the action from night to day on an outdoor mission. Set it to 18 or 19 for a sunset, for instance.

POS – the object has changed to this new absolute position on the map. Changing it puts the object in a different position. The second number is the Z coordinate. One unit looks to be about one foot.

PYR – (pitch yaw roll) the object has changed orientation. Numbers range from positive to negative pi. The first number describes how much the object is leaning forward/backward, the second describes how the object is turned right/left, and the third describes how the object has tilted (so 0,0,1.5 would put the object on its right side). These are almost always “0,number,0.”

NEW – makes a new object of the given type. These commands are followed by other commands describing the properties of the object. Objects can be anything that isn’t static including MOBs, doors, players, and some lingering spell effects like rains. (Mission objective objects currently do not appear in demos.) For NPCs, the New command gives the NPC’s name.

DEL – destroys the object. The object number can then be re-used.

MOV – what animation the object is currently doing. Not all objects have all animations. For instance, you can’t make a door do a FEAR_A move. If you try to make an object do something for which there is no animation, your demo will give you a message box saying so then continue after you click OK. I believe all objects do have a READY move.

SEQ – I haven’t fiddled with this but I believe some objects (like computers) go through a sequence of animations. This starts that sequence and the game engine takes it from there.

CHAT – Tells who said what. Several system messages are included here, too, like who defeated a MOB and people joining the team. (Object numbers for the latter can be quite huge!) I think the first number after the chat is what channel is being used and the second is whether a player or the game itself made the chat.

Float/floatdmg – little numbers or words above an object. The first number is the object number and the second is a string of what will be there. Float shows specific messages like FloatMiss for a miss and FloatRecharging when you try to use a power that isn’t ready yet. Unfortunately, these don’t appear in demo playback right now. Floatdmg is used to float a number over the character. If you give it a positive number then the game will put a minus on the front and float it up as a red number. If you give it a negative number, it will get rid of the minus sign and float it up as a green number. (Yes, it’s a little backwards, but there it is.)

FX – A power effect is starting! This can be the power getting launched or a target undergoing an effect from the power. The name of the power is easy enough to figure out. The first number is an ID number for the effect but I have no idea what the last number is.
FXSCALE – Always 10 and 10. Making the last number too big makes the power go away but I can’t figure out what the numbers are really supposed to do.
ORIGIN ENT – The first number is the object that will be the origin of the effect. I don’t know what the second number does. If the first number is 0 then the origin is the object itself (which is pretty common).
TARGET ENT – Same as origin but this gives the target’s object number.
FXDESTROY – occurs further down in the demo when a repeating effect ends. Number is the ID number of the effect.

COSTUME – Now we’re having fun! This describes exactly how a character looks in the game. First it describes the basics of a character then it gives each part. The numbers are as follows:
<ul type="square">
The first number on the Costume line is the basic model. 0 is basic male, 1 basic female, and 4 huge male. (I’m guessing 2 and 3 are big male and big female but setting this makes most of the character invisible and gives lots of move animation errors.) Note that many costume options do not exist for all models, meaning that you can not put a bikini on your huge male. (THANK YOU Devs!!!)
The second number is the skin color. Colors are done in hexadecimal as BBGGRR so 00ff00 is pure green and white is ffffff.
The third is height. 0 is average height and values can range pretty far. –99 makes the character no more than a dot and at +1000 you’ll have to zoom back to see higher than the kneecap. Graphics don’t scale up too well so don’t expect a lot from the huge characters.
The fourth is the athletic/muscle scale. –1 is as skinny as possible and 1 is as muscular. If you go outside this range the demo will crash. [/list]

PARTSNAME – next follows a list of several parts names describing the costume the character is wearing. Each line has three strings and two colors. The strings give exactly what costume piece is being used for this part. Early on I tried to collect all these so I could list them off in this FAQ but there are just too many. Here’s the order they come in:
1. Pants
2. Top
3. Head/Face
4. Gloves
5. Boots
6. Belt
7. Hair
8. ?
9. Upper face decoration (glasses, tiaras, and so on)
10. Chest Emblem
11. Shoulder Detail
12. ?
13. ?
14. Lower Face decoration (breathers, beards, veils….)
15. Special robot arms

Costume gets re-saved when the costume changes or the character goes into/out of supergroup mode.

There’s a mission in the game that gives you a Freakshow disguise. This is a power, not a costume change. (It used to be “FX Maintained 3 POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/FREAKSHOWPARTS.FX 0” but this no longer works and my old demo now just has me running around without the disguise.)

Player - This comes before the NEW statement for the charcter recording the demo.

XLU – I have no clue what this is. These commands started up some time before launch and now no longer appear in demos.


Character Swapping

The thing folks seemed to find the most fun early on was swapping characters. You can alter a demo to, say, put all your alts into one demo then take a screenshot.

To do this, take a character you want to paste from one of your demos. Only copy the COSTUME and PARTSNAME commands and the initial NEW command. It should look something like this:

0 1 NEW Zloth
0 1 COSTUME 4 ffffff 23.945047 0.863297
0 1 PARTSNAME Armored armored_medieval_01 Blend 666600 00663b
0 1 PARTSNAME Armored Armor_Medieval_01 Blend 00007f 008cd4
0 1 PARTSNAME Great_Helm Great_Helm_01 None 00007f 0000d4
0 1 PARTSNAME Armored armored_medieval_01 Blend 006666 006600
0 1 PARTSNAME Big armored_medieval_01 Blend 3d3d00 990002
0 1 PARTSNAME None None None 009957 006666
0 1 PARTSNAME None None None 737373 3d0000
0 1 PARTSNAME None None None 737373 3d0000
0 1 PARTSNAME Wings_01 Wing_01a Wing_01b 3535fd 000055
0 1 PARTSNAME Armored base Scales 990002 990002
0 1 PARTSNAME Spiked spiked_01a spiked_01b 0000d4 000055
0 1 PARTSNAME None None None 737373 3d0000
0 1 PARTSNAME None None None 737373 3d0000
0 1 PARTSNAME None None None 737373 3d0000
0 1 PARTSNAME None None None 737373 3d0000

Now open the demo you want to put this character into and find the New statement for who you want to replace. Select all the costume and partsname commands (but not the NEW command) and paste over them with your character. Change the object number in each line (1 in the example) to the old character’s object number, which will still be up in the NEW command. Finally, erase the old NEW command.

Normally, that’s all there is to it. However, if the character in the demo changes costume or switches to/from supergroup mode, the character will revert.


Splicing

Cutting out parts of a demo is risky but it can be done. What gets you in trouble is when you miss NEW and DEL commands. For instance, if you cut out part of a demo and half a dozen monsters’ NEW commands along with it, your party may start fighting empty air. So when you do your cuts try to avoid cutting out NEW and DEL commands.

The easiest thing to do is cut off the end of a demo. At the end of a demo everything restarts anyway so you don’t care what commands are getting removed. Hack away!

Cutting out of the middle is harder. If your group is just standing around waiting for somebody who’s away from keyboard, though, you shouldn’t have any NEW or DEL commands. If you need to hack a lot out of the middle, try cutting until just before the main player goes into an elevator. (You can save yourself quite a bit of grief in searching for that point if somebody said something right before the player goes in. Just search for the chat message.)

Cutting out the very start can’t happen because it’s full of NEW statements. However, once those are all done you can cut just like the middle sections. Very handy if you start the demo then end up waiting around for somebody to enter. (Make sure you don’t cut out their entrance, though!)


Chats

It’s real easy to change what people say. You can fix spelling errors or, if their chat bubble is blocking out a nice view, get rid of it completely. You can cut out the line completely or, if you want to make sure you don’t mess the timing up, just make the text string empty and no text will appear. The line would look something like this:

22 4026 Chat 8 1 ""

Colors also appear right in the chat text and are easy to change or remove.

It’s also easy to add chat messages in, just follow the format of the other chat messages you see in the demo. This makes it easy to do a tutorial demo without having to pause the action to type in your informative messages. Just do what you want to do while you record then insert the chat info later.


Look! Up in the sky!!

Want to see what you missed at the end of beta? Take a demo in Atlas and replace the blimp with:

0 3248 NEW "Rikti Destroyer"
0 3248 NPC Rikti_Destroyer
(position data)
0 3248 MOV FLY_MID_POST

correcting the object number, of course.

[Zloth]

I'm just describing the .cohdemo file format here. For info on how to make/play demos in the first place, see my Screenshot &amp; Demo FAQ (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Board=faq&amp;Number=366654&amp;fpart=&amp;P HPSESSID=).

[Zloth]

It turns out the Freakshow disguise mission is just plain broken right now - the power fails to make you look Freaked even in the game. Hopefully the power effect I listed above will start working again when the bug is fixed.

[Omnicrola]

You may also find this imformative :
Demofile Archive (http://www.cityofvillans.com/educate.php?type=fx)
http://www.cityofvillans.com/educate.php?type=fx

Note that not all the names of the FX are correct. The names are extracted with a script, and named by their corresponding FX file. Cetain things may be difficult to find unless you know what you're looking for. Example : the FX for Lightning Field is named CHAINLIGHTNING2.

As for the above-mentioned MOV files, yes, every object has a READY movement.
Unfortunatly, nothing else has the ability to emote anything other than a threat, wave fist, or cheer, so you cant get a row of fire monkeys doing jumping jacks. Believe me, I've tried. :p

There are still a number of things missing from the database. More will get added as I accumulate demofiles from various zones with more high-level content.
If you have a demo of a fight with an Archvillain, or any other rare character please submit it!

[Zloth]

Sure they do! 5th Column do their workouts and speaches. There's probably an emote to get Lost bosses up on a box doing a speach. And so on.

[Omnicrola]

yes... i said that :confused:
Referring to the majority of player emotes I mean, you can't get most NPCs to do them.

Oh, and I think the 'soap box' used by the lost is a seperate entity, cuz it often stays in the area for awhile even if the villains have been defeated, however they are not ALWAYS in that same location.

[Jooky]

Could you give some description about how to format the demo file? Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that I wanted to do something totally nutso crazy like creating a demofile from scratch. What do the commands look like? How are they laid out? How many parameters does each command take? And so on. Could you give a couple examples of what a demofile looks like?

Also, are there commands that will move the camera? Panning, zooming, tilting, etc?

Also, rating this thread a 5, cuz it deserves notice.

[_Pax_]

[ QUOTE ]
Could you give some description about how to format the demo file? Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that I wanted to do something totally nutso crazy like creating a demofile from scratch. What do the commands look like? How are they laid out? How many parameters does each command take? And so on. Could you give a couple examples of what a demofile looks like?

Also, are there commands that will move the camera? Panning, zooming, tilting, etc?

Also, rating this thread a 5, cuz it deserves notice.

[/ QUOTE ]
I suggest makeing a demo file of your own and learning from it.

/demorecord &lt;name&gt;
/demostop

[Zloth]

Do one from scratch!? Oh my, that would be a mighty tedious to do by hand! I think it would be a ton easier to record a demo then modify it. That will at least get you started at a point that isn't deep inside some wall!

Camera movement is done by using the CAM object. It gets moved around and oriented (PYR) just like any other object. If you change the last number to, say, 3 on all the CAM's PYR statements then you'll get an upside down demo!

If you're looking for demo examples, my website for my demo launcher also has a few sample demos you can download.

A program to make global edits might be interesting. Maybe instead of splicing a program could go in and make all the timing values over a range really small so you fast forward through the dull parts?

A power demo is another thing in the neat but tedius section. Take two heroes and put a couple of simple MOBs in front of them. Do this in a good sized room, maybe something from the CoT city. Then edit in every single player power with a quick chat message to say what it is. (Possibly skipping the movement powers.) This will give us a power demo catalog, of sorts.

Unfortunately, I keep wasting all my free time playing a certain addicting online game! :o

[Omnicrola]

[ QUOTE ]
A program to make global edits might be interesting.

...

A power demo is another thing in the neat but tedius section. Take two heroes and put a couple of simple MOBs in front of them. Do this in a good sized room, maybe something from the CoT city.

[/ QUOTE ]

*cough*
In progress! :)
Rather tedious though, as my "job" tends to interfere with my progress almost as much as this silly game. :p

[Zloth]

I messed up on the float command! The number is actually the type of float being done and the string is which message to show.

So far, I've only seen two types, 5 and 6. You can see type five but not type 6 in playback. You can put type 5's over anyone. 5's that appear over the player use a smaller font than those over other players. Here's a list:

float 5 FloatOutOfRange
float 5 FloatMiss (normally the only one that appears above objects other than the player)
float 5 FloatRecharging
float 5 FloatInterrupted
float 5 FloatNotEnoughEndurance (out of power)
float 5 FloatNoEndurance (too tired)

The 6's are recorded but do not appear in playback:

float 6 FloatFoundClue
float 6 FloatFoundEnhancement
float 6 FloatMissionComplete

I'm sure there's a float 6 FloatMissionFailed, too, but naturally I have no examples of that. &lt;smirk&gt;

[Omnicrola]

I'm not sure if it's just because I'm using demos from other computers, but have you noticed an increase in stability when playing back files now? I got several files to not only load, but cycle, where before the 7/7 patch all demos would crash once they reached the end of the file.

[Zloth]

I was able to view several (not all) of my demos from the Rikti invasion once the Reflections patch went in! However, the sound system got seriously hosed. It was worth the trade, IMHO.

[Gladius_NA]

If you aren't already subscribed to the CoH Video's mailing list, click the link in my sig and join. There is some work being done by some of the members to editing the demo's and collaboration in parsing out the npc and fx variables.

There are some scripts that were just submitted to help in the process.

[adam_]

[ QUOTE ]
*cough*
In progress! :)
Rather tedious though, as my "job" tends to interfere with my progress almost as much as this silly game. :p

[/ QUOTE ]

the demo or the program is in progress? it seems interesting to maybe build a small program to help construct demos from scratch, but definatly not worth the time if one is already in the works.

[Omnicrola]

I have a program that currently outputs a demo file that displays all the powers in a selected set at 10sec intervals, with various adjustments in timing available. It also crashes the game when you try and play it, for as-yet undetermined reasons.
This is all in PHP btw. If you want to write one of your own, please be my guest, as mine is nothing extrordinary yet. I would love to see the program if you do one, and would be more than happy to host it for you.

I had intended to eventually create the ability to script out entire sequences, including camera movements, NPC animations, etc etc.

[skycrosser]

I've been playing with editing and modfying the demo files and I have a quick question.

What is the entry description for Babbage and some of the other rare mobs? Does anyone have a database going for these yet? I just want to know before I go trying to start one from scratch. :cool:

[Zloth]

I believe he's a Giant_Sprocket. There's a database going at City of Villans (http://www.cityofvillans.com/educate.php?type=npc) (sic) that has quite a few NPCs and powers.

[Omnicrola]

Yup, every time someone submits a demo file do the system, it parses it, extracts players, npcs, and FX. So the more demos that get uploaded, the more complete the database gets.
Indoor missions are especially nice, as they arent as prone to crash, and they often contain NPCs that aren't accessible anywhre else. IE Skyraider Jumpbots and Engineers, Archvillains, etc.

[CelticKOR]

So my question would be how do i do a convert for the demmo to another format?

[Omnicrola]

You cant. And that's all there is to it. The demo is a VERY simple text file that only makes some sense to us, and only CoH's graphics engine can do anything with it. You cannot convert it to video, audio, MP3, quicktime, divx, VHS, DVD, or anything else.
Sorry if that sounded crass, but a lot of people thing that a demo is some sort of special movie you can convert to a windows AVI.
There are ways to capture demo footage while it is playing and make a movie out of THAT, and in fact several people have done so.

[ QUOTE ]
Origonal post by Zloth2
Playback commands:
These commands all run from the command line when you start the game. So you would (for instance) make a shortcut to cityofheroes.exe and add these to the ‘target’

-demoplay &lt;demoname&gt;
plays back the demo. Loops forever, writing performance data to cityofheroes/client_demos/results/demo_name. (It has min,max,avg and time for each frame)
-demopause &lt;msecs&gt;
This is for videocard performance debug. Runs until it gets the the frame given (in milliseconds) then redraws that frame forever.
-demodump
Dumps a .tga file of each frame rendered to client_demos/screens/&lt;demoname&gt;/*.tga
-demofps &lt;frames per second&gt;
Forces the player to simulate a fixed frame per second. This works well with demodump to get a smooth movie.
-fullscreen
Put game in fullscreen mode (overrides the registry key)
-screen &lt;xsize&gt; &lt;ysize&gt;
Set the screensize. Ex: -screen 1024 768


[/ QUOTE ]

[Zloth]

[ QUOTE ]
So my question would be how do i do a convert for the demmo to another format?

[/ QUOTE ]
Let me be a bit nitpicky.... you do not "convert" a demo. A demo and a video are completely different things. A video is a collection of a series of images. A demo is just a list of commands that City of Heroes can read.

That said, I think you want to look at this thread (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&amp;Number=923559&amp;page=&amp;view=&amp;sb =5&amp;o=&amp;vc=1) for how to record video from a demo. (Converting a video back to a demo just isn't going to happen.)

[adam_]

doesn't sound possible to convert it because the commands are only of use to the coh client. you could get some video capture program and record while you played back the demo...

btw a question... i'm playing back some demos and sometimes the sound cuts out... and sometimes it returns... not really sure what's up there or how i can fix this. any thoughts?

[skycrosser]

I've noticed that too and as far as I can tell it's just a quirk of the demo system, much like the Ghosts that appear after you kill mobs sometimes.

And thank you guys for the quick response, you all rock!

[Bladerunner]

Sweet thanks for the info!

[Zloth]

[ QUOTE ]
btw a question... i'm playing back some demos and sometimes the sound cuts out... and sometimes it returns... not really sure what's up there or how i can fix this. any thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a demo bug. When the Reflections update came out, demo playback got a LOT more stable but the sound now freaks out. I'm sure Cryptic is aware of it but, as demos aren't an officially supported feature, the fix will come when it comes.

[Zloth]

You may notice that some of your demos just sit there at the end. They eventually loop back but it takes forever!

If you open up the demo file itself and go all the way to the end you'll probably find a single line with a HUGE delay time. Something like:

54016 31 float 5 FloatMiss

That first number means the demo will pause almost a minute before the demo will loop.

Fixing it is easy. It's right at the end of the demo so just delete the line. Or change the first number to something sane like 50.

I'm not sure about the cause. I *think* it may happen when you don't use /demostop at the end of a demo and just let it stop automatically by zoning or logging out.

[Zloth]

Looks like there is a bug in the format demos are saved in. If a chat message includes a " mark, the message will not play back correctly. For instance, if you try to say:

That's his "nice" outfit!

When played back in a demo, this comes out as:

That's his

And in the demo file itself, the text portion of the command will be something like:

"That's his " nice" outfit!"

Blah. What a mess. You should probably just replace the enclosed " marks with one or two ' marks.

[Boilermaker]

[ QUOTE ]
Looks like there is a bug in the format demos are saved in. If a chat message includes a " mark, the message will not play back correctly. For instance, if you try to say:

That's his "nice" outfit!

When played back in a demo, this comes out as:

That's his

And in the demo file itself, the text portion of the command will be something like:

"That's his " nice" outfit!"

Blah. What a mess. You should probably just replace the enclosed " marks with one or two ' marks.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is very common in the progamming world. While I haven't tried it myself, you might want to try hacking the file and putting a \ before the " that you want to show up as text.

i.e. "That's his \" nice\" outfit!"

[Zloth]

Good idea, but it didn't work. It just ends at the slash. (A pity, we could have stuck in all manner of escape codes in there! ;)

[Zloth]

Finally got a demo edit program in working order! See this thread (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Number=1032920&amp;page=0&amp;view=colla psed&amp;sb=5&amp;o=&amp;fpart=&amp;vc=1)!

[Hotaru]

First off, let me say how much I enjoy demos, and your utilities and posts have certainly helped that no end, Zloth.

I've been playing around, picking apart some demos I recorded, looking for cool animations, models, etc. I noticed that the XLU command appears for the Tsoo Ancestor Spirit model, and my guess was that this is used to set the degree of translucency on the model. That was something I really wanted to play around with, but it doesn't seem to be supported when the demos play back--my Ancestor Spirits are now rock solid.

The SEQ seem to be used most notably for "glowies" in missions and for 5th Column Mek Men. Neither of these show up for me in demos, either. I think the SEQ must have something to do with an animated skin being used on some of the models--alternating between a light and dark version of the computer/bodybag/crate to give give the glowing effect. Why this doesn't display correctly in demos is beyond me.

Thanks again for the great utilites, and keep up the good work. :)

[Achtung]

Ah, disregard, figured it out. Thanks!

[ QUOTE ]
Awesome tools you got here Zloth2. Thanks!

I have a silly question for you, or maybe not. I don't know enough about all of this yet. Is it possible to replace a player with an npc, and if so, how? and vice versa?

[/ QUOTE ]

Cheers,

[Zloth]

Thanks!

[Achtung]

ok, so I was able to turn one of my friends into a Crey Crisis unit in atlas park, which was really neat. The problem is, now, their name is no longer displayed above their head. This makes sense, since I had to turn him into an npc to do it and the npcs do not display names. Is there a way to make them?

Is it, for instance, possible to make my friend a Crey Drama Queen? and have it display that over His head?

Cheers,

[Scuzzbopper]

Great guide.

Was wondering if anyone had a download link to piggviewer to go with it. They've all gone poof off the boards because of the mods, but it'd still be a useful just for editting demos (being able to look up what's what in order to make changes).

EDIT: I'm assuming here that it will just let me see the code lines which I could edit in the demo to change models, FXs, etc. If piggviewer doesn't do that, then nevermind.

[Storm_Knight]

There's links on this site (http://www.paragoncity.com/forum/archive/topic/6173.html)

[Scuzzbopper]

Thanks!

[Zloth]

For lists of all things you can put in, I go to City of Villians (http://www.cityofvillans.com/index.php) (even though it's made it forever impossible for me to remember how to spell 'villains' without looking at his web site :))

As for putting a character name over an NPC, I don't think it can currently be done. The best you could do is change the character's costume/model so he looks a lot like the NPC you are trying to get.

[Achtung]

Thanks. I decided to just chuck all names, so I didn't have to deal with it. I was playing around with having someone turn into an npc just as they do the BOOSTUP animation and the healing aura around them. It turned out really great, well, except that I somehow threw off the timing of my own toon. Ah well, still much to learn...

I figure I will start using editors once I actually know what I am doing in the file manually. That way, when I run into a problem that the editor can't handle, I will at least have an idea of where to start.

[adam_]

bump for survival

[Morchaint]

I've been searching around and can't seem to find and answer to this question, so apologies ahead of time if its been covered a million times before.

Is there anyway to remove the player names or stop them from appearing over the player heads in a demorecord? Also anyway to stop the text label of a new city zone from appearing in a demorecord?

[Zloth]

Hmm, I don't THINK the FAQ area lets threads expire? Not sure how that works.

You can get rid of player names easily. Just go in to their NEW commands and erase the name. (My demo edit will do it for you, too.) Unfortunately, I don't know how to get rid of the zone name.

By the way - demos made on the Test server right now add four new lines to character models. Three for capes and one for auras. I'll update the demo edit to handle those once it's released (and I have the time to fix it).

[Demos are also doubling chat lines a lot. Bugged it in game.]

[Hotaru]

I noticed a lot of excellent new MOV commands in the demos I recorded on the Training Room server. I can't wait to play around with having PCs use the TORCH, dig with shovels and picks, have books floating around them, etc. Good, good stuff! :D

[Jeb_Zero]

Got a question for the more tech-savvy among you: I put together demofiles for the film contest, but when I went to make them into AVIs for editing the quality was somewhat lacking. The images were clear, but the action was always slowed down.

I pretty much went through the process using StormKnight's guide, which advocates COHED for demo playback and GameCam as the capture tool of choice. The trouble was, no matter what I did to change the quality levels, things always seemed to suffer a terrible slowdown during capture. I wanted to email StormKnight direct to ask his thoughts, but no email link on his pages. I'm hoping he or some other smarter-than-me folks browse through here.

One odd point: COHED lets you play your demo back in the recommmended 640x480 format of the final product, but City of Heroes cannot run 640x480 in fullscreen mode. This causes it to default to windowed mode, BUT GameCam claims it works poory in windowed mode, creating something of an impasse. As a workaround, I went to 800x600 for both demo playback and capture preference, figuring I could bump it back to 640x480 when I edited in Premiere. The problem was that even fullscreen, the quality issue was crappy. Everything had that "chug-a-chug" stutter quality. You know, when your computer tries to do too much at one time and has to slow everything down? With my specs, though, I don't see how this can be a technical problem. I mean:

PIV 2GHz; 512Mb RAM; 256Mb GeForce FX w/Detonator drivers; 2Gb pagefile

I can play CoH all day at 1024x768 with little to no slowdown at all. So where, I wonder, does my capture problem come in? My biggest regret in all of this is that the technical problem has set me too far back to make the deadline. I wonder if they might consider extending it for late entries?

[Zloth]

Errr, not really what this thread is about. This is for discussing the format and commands of the text within those demo files.

All COHED (or any other demo launcher) does is pass a command line to City of Heroes so CoH can play the demo back. You might try asking in the Technical Discussions area.

[Storm_Knight]

EDIT: apologies for replying in this thread - I know it's off topic - I didn't look which thread it was before answering. D'oh!

Answer is now over in This Thread (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Number=1383351&amp;page=0&amp;view=colla psed&amp;sb=5&amp;o=&amp;fpart=1&amp;vc=1&amp;PHPSESSID=)

[Jeb_Zero]

My sincerest apologies - I didn't even realize there was a separate thread for StormKnight's COH editor. That's what I get for being a lazy forum angler and not doing a thorough search. Zloth, your work in this arena has been top notch, which is what drew me here first - I hope you'll keep it up in spite of knuckleheads cluttering up your threads!

[Hotaru]

[ QUOTE ]
[b]There’s a mission in the game that gives you a Freakshow disguise. This is a power, not a costume change. (It used to be “FX Maintained 3 POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/FREAKSHOWPARTS.FX 0�Ebut this no longer works and my old demo now just has me running around without the disguise.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this may be fixed with Issue 2--I saw someone "freaked out" in Boomtown this weekend, so it seems to be working in game. I shot a quick demo, but haven't looked at the text yet to see if it's using the same command as before. :)

[Zloth]

It's back all right! An old demo I made back in beta still shows it just fine. That's got to be one of the most fun missions in the whole game!

[Red_Fall]

I have a question about camera movements. I want to shoot a fight and then play with the camera movements later but can't figure out how to do it without putting me and the mob in space. I was also wondering about the brightness level as all myd emos playback very dark.

[Zloth]

Brightness level isn't controlled by the demo file. Somebody else who had this problem said they were able to get it to work right by running the game itself then running a demo at the same time.... or something like that. I'm afraid I can't remember the details.

Fiddling with camera position/angle is a pain. A fixed camera position isn't too bad, you just have to experiment until you find the right one. Each unit in the position is about 1ft, I think. The angle (PYR) is pitch, yaw, and roll done in Radians. So a value of 1.5 will just about turn you 180 degrees and 3.14 will turn you very nearly 360 degrees. Once you get the camera where you want it, delete all the following camera statements for as long as you want the camera to stay still.

If you want a moving camera, though, you'll have to put in a LOT of camera position/angle statements. I've never even tried to do this.

[Red_Fall]

What about pausing the demo file? And yes, I'm thinking of a some matrix like effects in doing that but also in doing something on the order of switching the camera to the pov of the villain, activating crane kick, and then zooming out with the knockback. Neat concept, I know it'll be a pain to do, but if I can get it to work it will be fun to see.

[Forum_Police]

I simply want to know how to make characters walk.

Heres a good example of what I want to do, if somone could show me how the script would look.

Portal Corp room, infront of Portal. Three characters materialize and walk down the pathway.

Simple right? Yea, tell me how. :p

[Spacekitten]

How far do you want them walking?

Do you want them materializing as if coming out of the portal, or do you just want a view of them walking forward?

Where should the camera be? Side, front, or back view?

Simple enough, answer those questions to me in a PM, and I'll get back to you on it in the morning (noonish actually), as I'm about to log off now and get some sleep.

[Scuzzbopper]

Thought I'd post this list of major NPC heroes and villains (http://home.twcny.rr.com/scuzzbopper/coh/models.html) I've compiled.

Handy for editting demos to include the villains or heroes of your choice.


www.cityofvillans.com (http://www.cityofvillans.com) has some of these and many more mobs but I've noticed many of the big NPCs or archvillains are listed under different names (I think they're extracted from editted demos), so I put this list together for my own reference. Most are pretty self evident, but what the heck. If anyone has ones I'm missing, a PM with the model names would be welcome.

[Zloth]

Pausing the demo isn't so hard. Just go to the point where you want it to pause and make the time value much larger. Slo-mo would not work, though. You could do just a series of pauses but there is no way to change the animation speed.

Walking is a pain but could be done. You'll have to do the pre-walk animation, the walk animation, then a bunch of position updates. Get yourself in an empty mission and record a demo of you walking to see exactly how it's done. You might even be able to cut and paste that into your target demo if you record it at the place you want this to happen.

[Mr_Fury]

Zloth...

How do I get rid of the names above people's head? Your demo launch does great in removing the damages number and text bubbles... but how about character names!

I LOVE using demos and then running FRAPS off that... the quality is SO much better!

[Zloth]

If you are doing it by hand, just remove the names from the NEW command that creates the characters. If you are using my DemoEdit program, there's a checkbox near the Save button that lets you save the demo sans names.

I just updated my DemoEdit so it can handle all those auras and capes. If the character is defined with the issue 2 costume extensions then they will be saved with them. If not, then not. I haven't tested this real extensively yet but it's up on my web site so you can try it out. Just follow the link at the bottom of the Demo Launcher page.

[Omnicrola]

Your assumption is correct. All the NPCs/players/FX on cityofvillans.com are extracted by a PHP script and databased. So if someone hasn't recorded a demo of a certain AV or monster, we don't have it.
We do periodicly sift through the NPCs and catagorize them according to villain group, that usually helps a little when searching for a specific type.

[Mr_Fury]

[ QUOTE ]
If you are doing it by hand, just remove the names from the NEW command that creates the characters. If you are using my DemoEdit program, there's a checkbox near the Save button that lets you save the demo sans names.

I just updated my DemoEdit so it can handle all those auras and capes. If the character is defined with the issue 2 costume extensions then they will be saved with them. If not, then not. I haven't tested this real extensively yet but it's up on my web site so you can try it out. Just follow the link at the bottom of the Demo Launcher page.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, I must've missed that! Thanks!

[MasterMarbles]

Zloth2,
Hey man. Thanks a lot for writing this up! Thanks in a big part to this, I was able to make my avatar, and also my first custom demo (http://www.rhyswolf.com/eternal/coh/rps_tourney_1.cohdemo).

Doing this is just about as addicting as playing the game itself. In fact, I was thinking that this could be an alternate form of webcomic, with hi-Q graphics and sound for the CoH player, while silent animated GIFs for the general public... but not sure if it'll be popular enough, since the players would be playing, and the non-players would be... playing something else.

In any case, here's a screenshot (http://www.rhyswolf.com/eternal/coh/rps_tourney_1_01.jpg). Lemme know what you all think. :)

[Zloth]

ROFL! Get'm Liberty! Smack him upside the head!

You're certainly welcome Master Marbles!

[MasterMarbles]

Heh, dude, um, you did watch the whole thing, right? :p

[Zloth]

Yep. Including the bit where the looser took over 7000 damage! What, you think I'm going to hush just because that guy tells me to? HA!

[MasterMarbles]

Zloth2,
You mentioned that costumes don't scale well with gigantic characters. That, I think, would be more bearable than in this screenshot (http://www.rhyswolf.com/eternal/coh/atlas_buddy.jpg) (the demo is here (http://www.rhyswolf.com/eternal/coh/atlas_buddy.cohdemo)).

Apparently the engine renders VERY FEW polygons when the camera is very far away. In fact, this is so bad that it's laughable. :p Any ideas on how to make this better? I understand that there probably isn't, but thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks. :)

[Zloth]

Yeah, I'm sure the game engine uses fewer polygons for distant objects. You can go into the game and max your settings out, but I wouldn't bet on it helping much.

P.S. Demos made in the current version of the Test Server don't save character models right. There's a known issue with character models and I'm betting this is a symptom of that bug. Until that's fixed, I wouldn't try putting one of those demos into the demo edittor. It's liable to freak out and hurt somebody.

[Zloth]

Issue 3 is not saving characters correctly in demo files. Instead of having a costume line like:

0 3124 COSTUME 4 ffffff 23.945047 0.863297

You get several lines like:

0 3124 COSTUME 4 ffffff
0 3124 23.945047
0 3124 0.742435
0 3124 0.000000
0 3124 0.000000
0 3124 0.448914
0 3124 0.319420
0 3124 0.000000
0 3124 0.000000

When read back, the extra lines are ignored so you can still see all the action and your character will mostly look right, but they won't be the right height or weight.

My demo edit program will have no clue what to do with all this. I wouldn't use it on these sorts of demos until I get a fix in.

[Zloth]

Well, it looks like this isn't going to be fixed by Cryptic anytime soon so I fixed up the Demo Edit program to handle it. Kinda. I'm afraid there's just no getting that last number back (the thin/athletic slider). If you've got another demo with the character you want, load that up and save the character, then replace the Issue 3's character with the saved version. (Or just copy the COSTUME command line by hand, which is what I do.)

[Innovator]

I'm sure those extra lines are place holders for the new size sliders to be released with issue #4. It is unlikely it will be changed back, though further changes may yet be forthcomming. :eek:

[Zloth]

I've updated the Demo Edit (http://home.kc.rr.com/dasloth/CoH/Demos/DemoEdit.htm) program to handle criticle hits in FloatDmg commands. I also added a couple of new buttons. The first lists all objects in your demo and lets you quickly find their creation point in your demo. The second shows everything that happened to a given object in your demo and lets you find where that command happened in your demo.

[Zloth]

Looks like big changes to the character definition, as you would expect with all those sliders. Characters now look like the following:

0 2133 NEW CuppaJo
0 2133 COSTUME 1 9bb2ff
0 2133 8.228567
0 2133 -0.873016
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.555556
0 2133 -0.809524
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 -0.015873
0 2133 PARTSNAME Tight Metallic None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME Tight Metallic None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME Standard skin_head_06 Streak 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME Smooth skin_bare None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME Flat Metallic Fade_Line 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME Retro_01 Retro_01a Retro_01b 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME Medium_04 Long_01a Long_01b 0000aa 000000
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME Metal Studded_01a Studded_01b 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 00000000 00000000
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 00000000 00000000
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 00000000 00000000
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 00000000 00000000
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 00000000 00000000
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 00000000 00000000
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 00000000 00000000
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 00000000 00000000
0 2133 PARTSNAME None None None 00000000 00000000

[Zloth]

AAARRRGGH!!!!

OK, what we got here is a bug. All those numbers between the COSTUME line and the PARTSNAME line should be in the COSTUME line as parameters. So, in issue 4, you get a big honking line like:

0 394 COSTUME 0 89a0ea 99 1 0 .777 .661 .202 .126 -0.1 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0

So why so glum? I found the bug, I can work around it easy enough. Well, this same bug is in issue 3 and can be fixed the same way. The Demo Edit didn't do that, so it isn't saving back as well as it could. More to the point, though, it means WE COULD HAVE BEEN PLAYING WITH (some of) THE SLIDERS BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!

&lt;voice emmulation="Dr. Smith"&gt;
Oh the pain.... the pain....
&lt;/voice&gt;

[All_Star]

Point of clarifaction?

Maybe it's the two different characters you are using that is throwing me off...

If I follow you correctly, the 29 variables on the lines following the COSTUME command, bodytype, and (umm, I forget what the 2nd variable is for in the COSTUME command :p) should all be on the same COSTUME command line?

So the CuppaJo declaration would appear as follows:
0 2133 NEW CuppaJo
0 2133 COSTUME 1 9bb2ff 8.228567 -0.873016 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.555556 -0.809524 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873 -0.015873
0 2133 PARTSNAME Tight Metallic None 0000aa 1f0b00
0 2133 PARTSNAME Tight Metallic None 0000aa 1f0b00
etc...

Yes? No? I'm out of my mind? (Wouldn't be the first time. :D)

If so, the COSTUME command now takes 31 variables instead of the old 2?

And now for the really hard questions ....
<ul type="square"> What are valid values for the slider variables? What is each slider set for/change?[/list]

[Zloth]

Yep, you've got it right. It does the body sliders in some order then it does the face variables in some order. I'll work out which is which after I get some changes into my demo player so people can fix these.

There's a tricky bit, too - we've got one extra number! There's a height slider, six body sliders, and 7x3 head sliders. That's 28 sliders but there are 29 numbers after the skin color. Hmmm...... And people are getting different numbers in there.

Max/Min values look to be 1.00 and -1.00 for normal characters. I haven't played to see what playback will allow. (We could have some serious fun if it lets us go outside the boundaries!)

[Zloth]

Well, I have all those numbers down now except the 5th one. It doesn't seen to change anything! Each character I've made has had a 0 value but I haven't seen any other characters with a 0 value yet.

Here's an excerpt from my soon-to-be-redone FAQ....

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>0 394 COSTUME 0 89a0ea 77 1 0 .77 .66 .20 .12 -0.1 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0</pre><hr />
<ul type="square">
The first number on the Costume line is the basic model. 0 is basic male, 1 basic female, and 4 huge male. (I’m guessing 2 and 3 are big male and big female but setting this makes most of the character invisible and gives lots of move animation errors.) Note that many costume options do not exist for all models so switching gender will often result in no texture at all.
The second number is the skin color. Colors are done in hexadecimal as BBGGRR so 00ff00 is pure green and white is ffffff. While character creation limits your skin colors quite a bit, I think you can use any color you like in a demo.
The third is height. 0 is average height and values can range pretty far. –99 makes the character no more than a dot and at +1000 you’ll have to zoom back to see higher than the kneecap. Graphics don’t scale up too well so don’t expect a lot from characters larger than 25.
The fourth is the overall physique scale. –1 is as skinny as possible and 1 is as muscular. Going above 1 has no affect I can see but, when I put a huge male’s physique at –40, his head shrunk totally into his chest!
The next number doesn’t seem to have any effect. I suspect it is something that the following numbers override.
Shoulders are next (.77 above). Normally between -1 and 1, you can go outside those bounds and make some real strange folk. Going negative very far will make the right shoulder come out the left side and vise versa.
Chest next (.66 above). Going outside the -1 to 1 range has no effect.
Waist (.20) work just like chest.
Hips (.12) work more like shoulders. If you go over 1 you start getting a very bow-legged hero. Going much under –1, though, just makes the hips vanish completely.
Legs (-0.1 above) are different. The max/min value the game lets you make seems to depend on other factors (probably including height). The end results are almost always pretty near 0. You can change this a lot in a demo, though. A 1 makes your legs twice as big as the rest of your body. By –0.9 you’ll have no legs at all. Below that and you start sinking into the pavement, and the game starts to act odd.
The last 21 numbers are all used to describe the head. The seven parts are head, brow, cheek, chin, cranium, jaw, and nose (the same order they appear in the costume creator). Each part gets three numbers reflecting the width, the height, and the depth. In the example, all seven parts are given max width, minimum height, and average depth. The range goes from –1 to 1. If you go outside that range there is no effect, it just uses the max or min. (So a nose of 9 9 –9 will look just like a 1 1 –1 nose.) The exception to this is the head. A head of –9, -9, -9 makes for a pretty tiny head, while heads over +9 start to really bury into the chest.
[/list]

Maybe I can figure out new costume options tomorrow. If the Arena doesn't come up too soon, that is....

[Zloth]

The latest version of issue four now records body sliders correctly! W00T!

(Now about those Kheldians that never return to their original form..... ;))

[Scuzzbopper]

Anyone know what's up with www.cityofvillans.com (http://www.cityofvillans.com/)? Looks like it's kaput. Be a shame if that's gone for good. One of the best demo resources out there.

[Shadowguard]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone know what's up with www.cityofvillans.com (http://www.cityofvillans.com/)? Looks like it's kaput. Be a shame if that's gone for good. One of the best demo resources out there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not being a spelling N a z i, but it might help if you spelled it right. www.cityofvillains.com (http://www.cityofvillains.com)

[Scuzzbopper]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Anyone know what's up with www.cityofvillans.com (http://www.cityofvillans.com/)? Looks like it's kaput. Be a shame if that's gone for good. One of the best demo resources out there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not being a spelling N a z i, but it might help if you spelled it right. www.cityofvillains.com (http://www.cityofvillains.com)

[/ QUOTE ]

No, that's the City of Villains web site. :p

www.cityofvillans.com (http://www.cityofvillans.com/), spelled just that way, was a fan site with a database of demo resources, including NPC and FX resources for editting and customizing demos. If you read back through the thread, you'll see multiple references to it.

Don't blame me, I didn't pick the name.

[Zloth]

I haven't seen him update things there in a long time. Guess we lost him. :(

[Gladius_NA]

Yeah, Omnicrola hasn't posted anything here since back in November. I've e-mailed him asking if the resources from cityofvillans are available to put up on another site.

If so, I'll add them in with the Heroes Hideaway revamp I'm working on.

[Gladius_NA]

Ok, I just got an e-mail from Omnicrola and apparently the WoW monster grabbed him and ran away.

He did say that I could get all the data and I'll get it back online as quickly as I can.

[Zloth]

GREAT!!!!

[Helmkat]

Quick question video master. All my demo file are not loading. Each demo file begins with something like the following.

[ QUOTE ]
1 2843 POS -32748.074219 -32738.949219 -32753.925781
31880959 2843 POS -65495.75 -65477.5 -65508.25
31880959 2843 POS -98241.476563 -98217.203125 -98262.875
31316894 0 Version 2

[/ QUOTE ]

removing this to look like this.

[ QUOTE ]
1 0 Version 2

[/ QUOTE ]

corrects the problem and the video is playable. Any suggestions as to why my files are starting this way?


thanks

/e bow

[Zloth]

HOLY....!! Yeah, you need to make the change to make those work. I've never seen that problem before, myself. That stuff is all figured out when it initializes so maybe your computer is really busy when you're starting the demo?

[Helmkat]

Well I have made a few demos since and the info is no longer there! go figure. Very strange.

[Hotaru]

[ QUOTE ]
HOLY....!! Yeah, you need to make the change to make those work. I've never seen that problem before, myself. That stuff is all figured out when it initializes so maybe your computer is really busy when you're starting the demo?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've had that happen before--for demos shot during hami raids. Three out of my first four demos were like that (hey, there were like 160 people there) and some of them had a hundred lines of action before the header. But a little snip-snip and everything was back to normal.

[IanTheM1]

Does anyone have a saved copy of the "Big Bad List of NPCs, Objects, and Actions"? Because the site it was originally on (Might have been CityofVillans.com) is, of course, unavailable now.

[All_Star]

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone have a saved copy of the "Big Bad List of NPCs, Objects, and Actions"? Because the site it was originally on (Might have been CityofVillans.com) is, of course, unavailable now.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. It was named demodata.txt from MasterMarbles and promoted in the Custom Demo Creation Guide (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Number=2645688&amp;Main=1838565#Post 2645688).

His site was down as of his last posting in that guide, but as also metioned in the thread I have maintained a local copy that I've updated a bit. (Still need to organize the file into a cleaner format and add in various FX, models, costume pieces, MOVs, but since they are all from local demofiles I have it isn't a high priority for me. Some day. ;))

As noted in Marbles' guide, the file is available for distribution to those that want to drop me a PM with a valid email address.

*All Star*

[Scuzzbopper]

I keep a partial list of model names (http://home.twcny.rr.com/scuzzbopper/coh/models.html) for villains and major NPCs. No actions/FXs at this point, though may add those down the line if I find the time.

[Gladius_NA]

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone have a saved copy of the "Big Bad List of NPCs, Objects, and Actions"? Because the site it was originally on (Might have been CityofVillans.com) is, of course, unavailable now.

[/ QUOTE ]

I should have the CityofVillans site back up in some form by this weekend.

[Hammer_Biscuit]

Are fixed map objects (buildings, etc...not doors or cars) integrated in the demo somehow?

I am looking at the demo files and wondering if there is some minimum_height that an object can occupy. For example, if I have a toon walking up a hill, must I adjust his Z manually?

My main concern for this is obviously to save time but also to prevent ground clipping. Any ideas Zloth? Anyone else?

Edit:
Again for the point of clarity - I want to know if these objects are somehow detected in the demo file.

[Gladius_NA]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone have a saved copy of the "Big Bad List of NPCs, Objects, and Actions"? Because the site it was originally on (Might have been CityofVillans.com) is, of course, unavailable now.

[/ QUOTE ]

I should have the CityofVillans site back up in some form by this weekend.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or not :)

I'm having some minor script/db issues on my server that are causing the data to not display. Site up when I get it resolved.

[All_Star]

[ QUOTE ]
Are fixed map objects (buildings, etc...not doors or cars) integrated in the demo somehow?

I am looking at the demo files and wondering if there is some minimum_height that an object can occupy. For example, if I have a toon walking up a hill, must I adjust his Z manually?

My main concern for this is obviously to save time but also to prevent ground clipping. Any ideas Zloth? Anyone else?

Edit:
Again for the point of clarity - I want to know if these objects are somehow detected in the demo file.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no collision detection in demofile editing. The map models, character models, and FX models appear to interect with one another through manipulation.

The map models are static, and unable to be manipulated, rotated, scaled, or otherwise transformed. What you see is what you get.

Character models can be placed anywhere within the map models. Including within map 'objects'. So a character model can walk directly through a hill, building, other character model, etc., by altering the model's XYZ.

Generally speaking, using an existing demofile as a baseline for model locations is the easiest way to precisely place a character model within a map model. Alternately, (and with greater practice) an editor can make a 'best guess' at the intended destination and run the demo to adjust as needed through observation in veiwing it. (Having the model use CHAT to state locations helps with this process.)

In order to save time, you may want to record a demo that has your (or another) character model in the locations you desire and use that as a base. Raw location editing is a time consuming process if you are trying to use it with any precision. While it can be done, the edit time scales up tremendously if you want everything looking 'just right'. (I probably could have done Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls. The Movie in 3 weeks vs. the 6 it took with raw editing. :p)

For clarity - there is NO collision detection within demofile editing; which is what you are asking.

*All Star*

[Zloth]

[ QUOTE ]
Character models can be placed anywhere within the map models. Including within map 'objects'. So a character model can walk directly through a hill, building, other character model, etc., by altering the model's XYZ.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yep. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any in the game client itself. The server figures out how high things should be. You'll still sometimes see pedestrians walk through fountains and stairs.

[Hammer_Biscuit]

I am planning a demo with multiple actors doing various things at the same time. Some of the actor movement involves climbing up beaches (in striga) and running up the side of the volcano...

Which would be the easiest/fastest way to do this?
1) record several demos of my toon doing various actions in the same area, then splicing them into the main demo (replacing my toon with other toons)?
2) Manually insert NPCs

[Zloth]

First one, though what could be even faster is to actually get some friends to help out and have them all do it at once. You can put them 'in costume' by doing a demo edit.

[Giambino]

ok heres a stupid question but how do i rotate the camera in fron of my character ( to see my face ) i can only rotate the sided and up and down but they don't allow me to view my toon from the front im having a little trouble understanding camera postion right now :-P

[IanTheM1]

Object question: Does anyone know if there are any good placeable light fixtures available?

I was hoping that the lazer lights of the PDP or the spot lights that show up all over the city were objects, but no such luck.

[Scuzzbopper]

[ QUOTE ]
Object question: Does anyone know if there are any good placeable light fixtures available?

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty sure there aren't any that are actual objects (NPC models).

However, some models, like the Singularity pet, appear to be null/invisibile models and the visible part is then the FX applied to that model. I believe this is commonly done in the game using the model "Puddle" which appears to be an invisible and non-collidable object and is used as a placeholder to apply FX to.

If there was an FX that gives the lighting effect you are looking for, you might be able to do it that way.

Depending on what MOVs Puddle (or another invisible model) will accept, you might also be able to use a MOV such as "TORCH" (the MOV that the CoT in the Hollows use to hold a torch) to create lights. Torches, in this case, but there may also be a MOV for flashlights (such as the Hellions use at night when breaking into a building) or other lighting-type things. Not all MOVs are available to all models, though, so these may be limited to people-types and not available to the invisible models.


EDIT: Yeah, just tried the Torch MOV idea with Puddle and it's not a supported MOV for that model, so going with Puddle + FX is my best suggestion.

[TopDoc]

Doing the TORCH MOV may not be required. That's probably just an animation that holds up one hand. From what I've seen, carrying things is normally just a maintained FX. That's the way weapons and other devices work. So maybe you just need the torch FX on the puddle. If that doesn't work, there are lots of other maintained effects that provide light in some form, like glowing hands from Hasten or burning hands from some Fire powers. See if they can be maintained on a puddle.

Another option is to make a PC with a glowing aura, and find a way to hide the PC without hiding the aura.

But I think the best solution would be to use a Photon Seeker. They're little balls of light, maybe exactly what you're looking for.

[TopDoc]

[ QUOTE ]
I was hoping that the lazer lights of the PDP or the spot lights that show up all over the city were objects, but no such luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

I recently worked on a script to parse a demo file and categorize the objects. (Planned to use it on COV, or maybe as a cheat to find plaques, badges, etc.) Then I ran a character very fast all around AP. You get PCs, NPCs, mobs, cars (the blimp is considered a car), and doors (the Hospital teleport pads are doors). Nothing else. No badges, no plaques. I can easily identify mob spawn points, mission doors, and special NPCs, but that's it. I should probably try some more zones, just to see what else there is.

Think about it. The most efficient way to handle objects is to have the server deal with as few as possible. If an object can be completely controlled (animated) by the client, there's no need for the server to manage it. Things like spotlights, building lights, and flags can all be controlled by the client, because nothing can affect their animations. Doors are the only objects that a client cannot completely control, so they're the only objects that show up in demo files. The map itself probably defines the topography as well as client controlled objects with their MOVs.

Anyone have a map editor? That's what it would take to sniff out plaques and badges, or to put lights where you want them.

[Scuzzbopper]

[ QUOTE ]
Doing the TORCH MOV may not be required. That's probably just an animation that holds up one hand. From what I've seen, carrying things is normally just a maintained FX. That's the way weapons and other devices work. So maybe you just need the torch FX on the puddle. If that doesn't work, there are lots of other maintained effects that provide light in some form, like glowing hands from Hasten or burning hands from some Fire powers. See if they can be maintained on a puddle.

Another option is to make a PC with a glowing aura, and find a way to hide the PC without hiding the aura.


[/ QUOTE ]


Most of the eye-candy MOVs, such as TORCH, are entirely self-contained. The torch isn't applied by an FX. Most weapons I've seen are the way you describe, where the weapon is actually an FX, but all the ambience MOVs include all the graphics and player-associated objects within the MOV itself. There is no FX.

For an aura, there's no need to hide a PC. You can just apply that FX to Puddle, put puddle where you want, and you're all set. Unlike MOVs, most FXs (EDIT: auras, anyway) appear to be model-independent.

[Zloth]

[ QUOTE ]
ok heres a stupid question but how do i rotate the camera in fron of my character ( to see my face ) i can only rotate the sided and up and down but they don't allow me to view my toon from the front im having a little trouble understanding camera postion right now :-P

[/ QUOTE ]
Just change the position of the CAM to move it a few feet in front of you then change the yaw (in the PYR command) by adding or subtracting 1.5.

[Weevil]

Umm, just FYI; if you still need a place to host Cityofvillans.com; I'm sure the Liberty League server can accomdate it, as long as it's not graphics/media heavy. Let me know if I can help....

[Gladius_NA]

[ QUOTE ]
Umm, just FYI; if you still need a place to host Cityofvillans.com; I'm sure the Liberty League server can accomdate it, as long as it's not graphics/media heavy. Let me know if I can help....

[/ QUOTE ]

Hosting the CoV site and data isn't the issue. Plenty of space and bandwidth at Heroes Hideaway. I'm just having a few issues with the database and getting it to display properly.

Honestly, I haven't had the time to do anything to resolve it in the last week or two. Possibly I can get things done tomorrow night.

[Scuzzbopper]

Hey all,

With the film festival contest announced, I decided to put some time into the Codex's Demo Content Resources (http://home.twcny.rr.com/scuzzbopper/coh/models.html) (model names, maps, movs, etc.).

I've added an FX page (http://home.twcny.rr.com/scuzzbopper/coh/dfxs.html) and have the first batch up that I have sorted. I'll be rolling out more this weekend, along with additions to the Model Names, Maps, &amp; MOVs.

[Zloth]

Many thanks Scuzzbopper!

[TopDoc]

FYI, I noticed some new commands in demo files while testing update 5. The new commands are "HP" and "HPMAX", both followed by a floating point number if I recall. I expect this is so that you can see status bars (or HP at least) in demo recordings.

I can use it to help with mapping. I wrote a script to find things in a demo file. I have my high level char run around a zone in a search pattern. I've used it on many of the lower level zones to locate contacts, mob spawn points, and other interesting things. This will let me map mob levels as well, based on their HP.

And when CoV comes out, I expect to have a lot of fun with it.

[Zloth]

I guess those HP will be so they can track a bar over the enemy's head. You can see the HP go down as you fight, which might make tracking damage for powers a LOT easier. I wonder if the endurance values will be next?

Here's a fun one....

0 174 MOV TOSSGNOME
0 174 FX OneShot 104 GENERIC/FX_GOBLIN_FLY.FX 0

and

FX Maintained 107 GENERIC/FX_GOBLIN_SMOTHER.FX 0

[Zloth]

New Demo Edit program up. No big changes except it handles the HP and HPMAX commands in demos.

[TopDoc]

Bad news on the HP values. I was looking at them to try to determine exact pet damage. No good. The values reported for yourself (and maybe other players) are exact. The values reported for mobs appear to be rounded to 5 HP. Basically, the same values you see if you click on the mob and hold your cursor over the HP bar in the target window. :-( Not good enough to determine exact brawl numbers, or hardly even get close. Maybe if I figure out how it rounds, and use Enhancements to get right around that value. Hmm.

[Zloth]

Got some new stuff coming down in I7.....

1. You can now record demos in bases! You still get the blank MAP command but it is followed by a new BASE command. The map is encoded in binary so I wouldn't try to edit it. If you demorecord while editting the base you get the same camera angles but the base doesn't change. New items do not appear and the lighting changes I made didn't happen in the demo. Still, this will be great for people recording base raids!

2. Recluse's Victory has a big DYNARRAY command right after the Time. The data consists of several number pairs. The first number in the pair is normally 0 (evil?), 50 (neutral?), or 100 (good?). The second has always been 0 so far. More DynArray commands appear throughout the demo updating the landscape. I didn't have any demos that show the map that displays who owns what sectors but I wouldn't be surprised if it showed the real situation!

3. A new SKYFILE SKY command appears in missions and bases. I fiddled with this a lot but couldn't see any change when I changed the values. Maybe something for the future?

4. PHYSICS is in! Blown up cars blow up in demos, too (though the pieces probably don't go in exactly the same directions). NPCs have some new moves like "MOV RAGDOLL_BELLY".


On the downside, my demos seem to be getting a little out of sync between animations and movement. My character will slide forward a bit, then start running, for instance. Also, even though my registry says to use high shaders, they aren't getting used in demo playback for some reason.

[Zloth]

I've put a new version of the Demo Edit program up. I didn't really add anything yet, I just made it so the program doesn't choke on the new commands.

There's some strangeness going on with the ragdolls. I don't see any RAGDOLL_BELLY commands showing up in my demos now but there is a DEFAULT_DEATH move. Also, it looks like a few maps no longer work on demo playback. (Though I haven't checked today's patch yet.)

[BuddhaFist]

I have 2 demos that won't play. I assumed it was because I forgot to use /demostop before exiting. But that shouldn't be the case, right?

The maps are the Clockwork King at the end on Synapse's TF &amp; the Eden Trial. I tried looking at the end of the files &amp; they appear to be the same as the end of a working file.

Are the maps bugged? Any editing hints that might fix them?
Thanks

[Seek_Trouble]

My demos dont seen to work anymore. Everytime I try to play one it crashes COH and it needs to repair the next time I play. I noticed this start happening when I tried to play a demo after my account expired. Later that night I reactivated it and it hasnt worked since. Anyone help out there ?

[Sir_Noir]

I dont know how long its been since this thread has been active but I'm just getting into the coh/cov movie making and I'm interested in how you put the main npc's like statesman, posi and recluse in the movie. and if its just like the costume swap then please let me know the stuff to put in to turn my toon into one of them for movie posing purposes

[Zloth]

It's pretty easy. Say you have a player in there that looks something like....

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
0 4 NEW YourCharacter
0 4 COSTUME 1 9bc3ff -12.350402 -0.780952 0.000000 -0.529304 -0.614652 -0.563855....
0 4 PARTSNAME Tight Tights_Shiny Lightning 310099 00fdff
0 4 PARTSNAME Both_Amp Tights_Shiny Pattern_6 310099 00fdff
0 4 PARTSNAME Standard skin_head_11 Lips 0000ff 990002
0 4 PARTSNAME Robotic_01 Tech_Banded_01 none 737373 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME Smooth smooth_01 Lightning 310099 00fdff
0 4 PARTSNAME Jewel Jewel_01a Jewel_01b 00fdff 00cc78
0 4 PARTSNAME Japan_01 Long_01a Long_01b 4cfdff 3fbeff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME Monocle_01 Lens_01a Lens_01b 00a9ff ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 00547f
0 4 PARTSNAME Smooth spiked_01a spiked_01b 310099 c7c7c7
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none ffffff 990002
0 4 PARTSNAME Robotic_Both_03 Robotic_Clean none ffffff 990002
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 4cfdff ffffff 000000 000000 Auras/Female/StarburstGlow/StarGlowFists.fx
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 990002 ffffff
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 00000000 00000000
0 4 PARTSNAME none none none 00000000 00000000
</pre><hr />

You just replace all that with an NPC like....

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
0 4 NEW Akarist
0 4 NPC Model_Akarist
</pre><hr />

Notice that the "0 4" at the start of each line is the same as it was before. That's important. You should have 0's in your demo, too, but the 4 will likely be a different number. Be sure to keep the same number that's in your demo, not the 4. (That's the ID number the game uses to keep track of what's happening to whom.)

[RedwoodTheElf]

[ QUOTE ]
What about pausing the demo file? And yes, I'm thinking of a some matrix like effects in doing that but also in doing something on the order of switching the camera to the pov of the villain, activating crane kick, and then zooming out with the knockback. Neat concept, I know it'll be a pain to do, but if I can get it to work it will be fun to see.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats not really all that hard to do...just "Splice in" the commands to the character you want to actually be moving, in between the actions of all the other things in the scene...ther rest of the Demo will freeze until that character's commands are done.