Leandro

I'm not! I love showing it off in his face. Twice. http://i.imgur.com/Cug8H.jpg http://i.imgur.com/zQ2by.jpg

(And he loves pointing that I don't have Celebrant even though I should.)

Clarification: I'm not "with" the Titan Network. The site www.savecoh.com was a request from TonyV (and Altoholic Monkey bought the domain), but other than that, I just throw stuff online and see what sticks. Nothing I say is endorsed by the Titan Network guys and I probably say plenty of things that they don't like.

I am awake now and I'll post the pack in a little while. I'll post it on Twitter, so follow me there if you don't want to miss it.

Splasher can change most billboards. It just needs some persuasion to work with Windows 7. I'll see what I can do tomorrow, I'm still not home and I'm running on 3 hours of sleep.

Jessie "Hit Streak" Lawrence, Assistant Community Manager of Paragon Studios.

Links for the curious:

http://cohtube.blogspot.com/2008/05/boom-de-yada.html
http://cohtube.blogspot.com/2009/12/boom-de-yada-2.html

Thor's Assassin has been helping me to update it lately, so it's getting better. It's just a Blogger site, so it's easy to bring other people in to update it; it's just that nobody was interested.

It should be using the same graphics settings as when you run COH normally. If that's not the case, you can force a couple of things via command line:

cityofheroes.exe -demoplay output -disable2d -screen 1920 1080 -fullscreen 1 -visscale 4

That plays the demo without the floating 2D elements, forces the screen to fullscale 1920x1080, and sets the render distance to 400%. If you can't display 1920x1080, you'll get an error and it'll default to 800x600 (yuck).

cityofheroes.exe -demoplay output -disable2d -fullscreen 0 -visscale 4

Same render distance but plays in a window, so you can resize it. I use this for drafts so I can quickly switch programs.

cityofheroes.exe -demoplay output -disable2d -screen 1920 1080 -fullscreen 1 -visscale 4 -demofps 30 -demodump

Same as the first but it forces the client to render each frame in the demo (at 30fps) to disk. The frames will be saved inside a folder called "screens" in client_demos. Then you can put those frames together for supersmooth 30fps animation even with 3700 characters; instructions for that in this post.

Not a large enough area is painted red to fit them all. If it's a flat area, you can open the image in a graphics editor and just paint a larger area in the proper shade of red using the pen tool (make sure antialiasing is NOT enabled; it's in the Paint.NET toolbar). Or you can get ingame and run around a larger area to place them. Or, you can open fillmap.pl in notepad to make the characters stand closer together. To do that last one, locate the two lines:

$densitx = 3; # How close characters are together.
$density = 3; # How close characters are together.

And the first one is for how close they are on the east/west axis, the second for the north/south axis. Change the 3s to 2s or 1s to put them closer together, to 4s or 5s to put them farther apart.

But just painting a larger area is probably easier. Remember that makemap.pl will process ALL the demos named "place" with a number, so you don't have to overwrite your first demo: leave it there, start a new demo (place314 or whatever) and run around the area again. Then the generated image will include both your original area and the new one.

Tips on the hashtag things:

* The script processes the demos sequentially: place, place1, place2, place3, etcetera; and it will only keep the last camera lock it finds. So if you want to play with different viewpoints, you can just record a demo with a higher number and say #camera again, and it will lock to that location.

* It doesn't care about missing files. So if you have place, place1, place2 and place3, and you don't like the crowd you added in place2, you can delete it and the script will still process place, place1 and place3.

* #red starts painting the area and it doesn't stop until it sees #black -- even if it's in a different file. So if you say #red in your first cohdemo, forget #black, and record a second cohdemo, the first #red tag will still be enabled. This can be useful if you want to place several crowds facing towards the same way and you don't want to be doing #black and #red every time; just stop the demo, move towards the second place, and start recording a new one. The #red tag with the original facing will still be active.

* Characters placed manually are painted as blue dots with a cyan aura in the output.png. This prevents fillmap.pl from placing characters on top of them; so you can have a large crowd and then a few characters in specific locations, with no worries about the crowd spawning on top of the manually placed characters. How large is the "aura" around them is controlled by then $density/$densitx lines in makemap.pl (the ones in fillmap.pl are for the random crowd).

* Something that I haven't posted in the videos because I don't want to complicate people, is the default emote. It's based on the blue channel. There's this table on fillmap.pl:

$emotes[0] = "READY";
$emotes[1] = "WEPREADY";
$emotes[2] = "EMOTE_CRACKKNUCKLES";
$emotes[3] = "EMOTE_CELLPHONE_CYCLE";
$emotes[4] = "AFK_NEWSPAPER";
$emotes[5] = "PL_PAMPHLET";
$emotes[6] = "EMOTE_PROTEST";
$emotes[7] = "EMOTE_HOLD_TORCH_CYCLE";

By default we have no blue component, so all the characters are using the default pose. If you were to create a new layer with Paint.NET and paint it with blue=7, setting the mode to screen, then the characters in the painted area would be doing the hold torch emote instead.

Or, if you want to change the default for everyone and don't want to mess with the image, you could change the first line so it reads:

$emotes[0] = "EMOTE_HOLD_TORCH_CYCLE";

And then everybody's holding torches (except the manually placed characters).

* Something else I didn't say in the video because, again, it requires editing a file. This line:

$analyze = 0; # Insert default animations for some costume types.

Change the 0 to 1, run fillmap.pl, and all the characters that have wings or rocket boots will be flying in the air. Reading the folder with the characters will take a while, because it has to open every costume to flag it. I can speed this up but I haven't gotten around to it, another reason why I haven't mentioned it in the video.

Also, near the bottom, there are these two lines:

#if (lc($in) =~ /custom_titanweapon/) { $titan{$f} = 1; }
#if (lc($in) =~ /customshields/) { $shield{$f} = 1; }

If you remove the hashtags at the beginning, everybody with the Shields powerset will have their shield out, and everybody with a Titan weapon will be holding it.

I need to modify the script so it can alter the default emote via hashtags you say in local channel, I just haven't gotten around to it.

Open hamicam.pl and go to line 292; it says:

$angle = $angle + 0.005;

That's the angular change of the camera per frame. The smaller the number, the slower the rotation. Do not confuse it with $angle = $angle + 0.1; a few lines above; that's the rotation speed for the first part while Hami is exploding.

The angle is in radians, so 6.283184/0.005=1256. At the current speed, it takes 1256 frames to complete a full circle, and since the demo is generated at 30 frames per second, that means 41.86 seconds.

So, if you want the spin around Hamidon to take 60 seconds, you need it to last 60*30=1800 frames. 6.283184/1800 = 0.0035. Change that line to:

$angle = $angle + 0.0035;

And it will take 60 seconds to spin around the whole crowd.

IMPORTANT: hamicam.pl stops generating the demo when it reaches a certain time limit in line 276:

while ($time < 70000) {

The limit is in milliseconds, so in this case, it'll stop after 70 seconds; 30 for Hami to explode, 40 for the spin. If you are slowing down the spin, you also need to increase the time limit, or the demo will cut short. Taking the 60-second spin above, you want a time limit of 30 (for hami) + 60 = 90 seconds; so you change that line to:

while ($time < 90000) {

And there you go. Run hamicam.pl and it will regenerate the 20MB output.txt with the new camera movement.

If what you want is the list of characters, the ones in the draft are:

1 TON HAMMER, Abraxxus, Abyssal Frost, Adanya Jax, Admiral Justice, Affable Blast, Agdenes Man, Agent Inhakos, Agent Thomson, Aghra, Agrona Jax, Ainsley Jerden, Akamage, Alcahest, Alferrida, Alley Kat, Allyriah, Alucia, Amaka, Amanthia, American Steele, Andean IceStorm, Angel Red, Angelika Jax, Anger Mgmt, Aqua Leviathan, Aqua-Lord, Aquanetta, Arctic Force., Arctic Prince, Areolith, Armed and Hammered, ArmorShrike, Arrow Shard, Arti'Kanna, Arwen Darkblade, Ashen Fury, Aurora Firma, Back-Fire, Bad Alien, BADA BOOOOM, Bee Free, Belenus Jax, BigKitty, Bionic Flea, Black Giver, Blade of Immol, Bleyszen Lord, Blu J, Blue Tabby, Bob the Ped., BomFireTank, Bounty Hunter 005, Browncoat, Brownian Cessation, Brutalitarian, Capt. Ontario, Cat Spark, Catalystic, Chieftain2, Ciara Jax, City Striker, Cold Blooded Flea, Con Flict, Consultant, Cosmic Cannon, Count Vampyro, Counter Spike, Crazed Drifter, Crill Dunbe, Crimson Sidhe, Criticality-D, Crystalline Heart, Cyber Girl, Cygnus X01, D' Arkangel, Daimyo Takeda, Damonaeous, Dan the Armless, Daniel Decker, Dark Ascension, Dark Necessity, Dark Sceptre, Dax Strife, DAYNAMIQGIRL, DEAD BOT BOY, DeathProbe, Desi nova, Despoena, Detective Question, Devil in a Red Dress, Diamond Dragoon, DiDi Guns, Diem Perdidi, Divinaca, DJ Judge and Friends, DJ Redshadows, DKAS, Doc Double-Tap, Dr. Pharaoh, Dr. Tabitha Katts, Dynomite, Ebon Soul, Electroanagesia, Electromo, Elfin Medic, Emerald Scorpion, Esmerelda Wigglybits, Etan, Eterah II, Fan J. Lockhart, Faust 1394, Felphon, Feng'Shui, fire phenox, Fission Wall, FlamedWarrior, Flameguy, FlameVoltz, Forensic Evidence, Fortune's Shadow, Foxy Blade, Freddy Kroger, Freeflux, Frozen Fish Stickz, Fyrestomper, Galactic Dragon, GalaxyGal, Gamma Catechism, Geek Goddess, gen harbinger, Girl of Your Dreams, Goddess Freyja, Golden Ember, Got Satan, GothGirl, Gravity Prism, Green Thermal, Grottnikk, Guardian Spirit, Gzetson, Harley Armstrong, Heartsick, Hellfiend, Hellmeister, Hoosier, Hyperion Tekk, Ice Knight, Immortal Woodsman, Infinity Princess, IORNCLAD, Isabella's Fist, Iushamure, Jack Moartea, Jadedblossom, Jason Z, JenX, Jirra Roo, JLicious, Joyride, June Cleavers, Junkyard Mutt, Just Deserts, Kadmon, KAKTOS, Kaoru Nan'Drak, KeldonOfTheHood, Kenjutsu Kid, Kheldian Groupie, Kijo, Killer Wail, Killerhurtz, Kilspyke, Kitty LOVES COH, Knack, Knuckledragger, Krisis Averteris, Kryphon, Kung Pao Su, L8R-0N, Lady Aeris, Lady Icy Storm, Lady Thunderlace, lashs, Last Chapter, Le Guilletine, Lehua, Leo Darkheart, Liberty Justice, Liminous, Little Pika, lncandescence, Lomyril, London Girl, Lone Knight, Lone Timber Wolf, Lord 0f Valhalla, Lord Kleo, LOTUS OF SIAM, Lumin, Mala Justed, Man 0f Tomorrow, Mandy Z, ManifestEntropy, Marge Fury, Maribelle, MediBot 3000, Mediocrity Man, Megumi Yamato, Mekanikron, Mekkanos, Midnight Witch, Mighty Lornac, Mikel, Miss Animal, Miss Cross, Miss Djinn, Miss S. Ippi, Miss Stabby, Mister Liberty, Mistress E. Vil, Mitrissa, Miyu A. Dragonheart, Money Hive, Monument, Morc the Orc', Mordath., Morgan Chance, Morgan Smith, Mortus Amicus, Mrs Animal, Mud Elemental, MUDD, Muggy, Nakoa, Napalm Wolverine, Naphil, Neck of Red, NightSeade, Nine Lives 8, Nuclear Autumn, Nuprin Feelgood, Nursette, Oberon., Omni Girl, Onibi, Operative Stryker, Orbius, OrelIia, Original CockAroach, Painted Patriot, Pam Prin, Passionate Embrace, Penelope Pistol, Phantom Enigma, Philly Girl, Philly Project, PhoenixCE, Pink Nova Star, Pion Wave, Pip Pyro, Plucky Sidekick, Pointsphere, Poisonous Fumes, Police Drone H1, Police Drone KH, Police Drone X9, POOT, Porphyris, Poseidon's Knight, Power Elle, Pretty Darkness, Princess Lee, Princess Warrior, Profile X, Prototype V 2.0, ProudAmericanGirl, PSLAnimal, Purple Peach Sandi, Quat SMASH, Quatermain, Queen La Mort Essor, Questor, Qui-Jinn, R u catgurl, R'an, Radiant Infusion, Rajana, Randori, Rangle M. Down, Raven Mindstalker, RavensWing, RealHulk, Red Grenadier, Reo The Wolf, Rex Kaizel, Rive, Robo Assault, Rock of Ages, Rock-Hard Abs, Rose Star, RussianBlue, Sadryna-27000, Sam Hufinson, SassMonster, Scoville Kid, Scrappy MacScrapper, ScreamingBlueMeanie, Sethlans, Sgt Liberty, Sheryl Fiero, Shield Marshal, Shimmering Psyche, Shocklust, Sid Wants Change, Slotter, Smofzilla, Sonic Remedy, Sonic Rictor, Spark Inferno, Starkla, Steel Yankee, Stellar Striker, Stomp n Burn, Strongest Blue Tiger, Sugar Kills, Swan Song, Sweet Mercy, Sword Angel, Sylph Knight, SynapseOverload, Tachyonic Daze, Tanya Tigerclaw, Taurus Maximus, Tempus Storm, Terry B., Texas Lawyer, Thor's Assassin, Thorns, Tic-Toc, Time O Lite, Titan-D, Tod's Squirt Gun, Topher Wade, Tremorr, Valknut, Vampire Lestat, Vamprella, velara, Volcanichic, Waffle Supreme, War Mongrel, War Patriot, Wildlight, Willowbright, Willpower Steal, Witchwoman, Xaviera PhoeniX, Yapper, Yodel Sausagefest, Zak the Space Varmit, Zanatos., Zanco, Zappalina, Zaran and zartain.

Called a locksmith, and _he_ used the clothes hanger method. My car's lock is in the side of the door (pull to open, push to lock) so it took a while.

Draft of the wicked idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ8vvButxJY

What location are you placing your avatars in? There are some spots where the game geometry is broken and it hides characters from some camera angles. An obvious one is in The Hive by a large rock. If you email me your output.cohdemo file I'll take a look and see if that's the problem. leandrotlz@gmail.com

That really, really sucks. I am lucky that I was given an old box code to become VIP just a few days before the 19th.