ShawnVW

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I don't believe we'll ever get the ability to make custom critters who can do or be anything we couldn't make as a player character.

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I agree, based on what I've read posted by Arcanaville or Pohsyb. It's very, very difficult to make non-standard models use standard power animations (they said something about energy beams coming out of Warwolves' shoulders). Therefore it must be equally hard to apply non-standard animations to standard models.

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How will level scaling work? Will every mission automatically scale to your current level (+ difficulty, team size, etc.) or will it be predetermined by the "architect"?

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This is complicated. Every critter has a level range where they are valid. When you make a mission, all of the level ranges must overlap at some point. If you are outside this level range when you go to play the mission you will be brought up or down to the level range of the mission.

Example, I use critters A (1-54), B (34-45) and C (40-48). The level range of the mission is (40-45).

If I am level 5, I will play mission at level 40.
If I am level 50, I will play mission at level 45.
If I am level 42 I will play at level 42.
If I am level 5, but have set my difficulty to max, I will play at level 38.

Note: I said mission here, not arc, each mission has an independent level range.

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I got nothing about ally levels, though.

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I don't know if it was answered, but allies affect the overall system the same way enemies do. In other words, any of the Critters in the above example could be allies instead of enemies, and everything would work the same.

Now MY question:

I wanted a scenario where the player had to get past enemies substantially higher than himself. (I think I could do that by inserting MANY bosses, surrounded by their entourages.) The players would be hard-pressed to defeat them all, until he freed an ally who was substantially higher than THEM.

Would this auto-leveling system permit this to happen? Basically, could I insert an ally who'd con red to the enemy bosses?

If not, is there any way to get a similar effect? What if I make the ally a Hero/AV?

Will there be a way to have something spawn from an object? For instance, the glowie is a body bag and when you click it, a zombie appears "from inside"? Or there's a destructible urn, and when you destroy it, a genie appears?

1) Can you set the mission level when you create it, or is it chosen automatically based on what you put in?

2) If I want to make a mission geared towards Level 15, is there a maximum level of enemy that I can include? Or will the inclusion of a 30th level boss automatically raise the mission level? Or the experience given?

3) What about NPC allies like Fusionette? How high a level can an ally be? Or will freeing a 30th level NPC automatically lower the rewards for the 15th-level players?

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Here's my little beef about this system (from the Blue side perspective). I don't really care for the "entertainment" or Holo-deck explanation for this tool. If I'm role playing, would a hero actually go to a store and make a "simulated" game for other heroes to play? This doesn't seem to really fit into the general theme of the game-- fighting bad guys-- not simulated bad guys.

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Okay, don't call it a Holodeck. Call it a Danger Room. A training simulator, not an entertainment venue.

(I know, the Trek holodecks served both purposes, but we tend to remember Dixon Hill and Captain Proton better than the exercises.)

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What if the rating system rated by mission, with the combined mission total constituting the arc rating?

Or perhaps the arc rating would only be available to those who finished the arc; if players didn't finish the arc, they could only leave ratings for the mission they started/played?

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I was going to suggest this myself, or something like it:

Every player can give a mission a score, and they would all be displayed with their comments. The total Mission Score displayed on the board would be the average of all the scores given, with each score weighted by how far the player got in the mission. Unplayed missions would be weighted down to nothing.

There would also be an Arc Score, which would be the average of the Mission Scores. I think this means that the score for any unplayed missions would not affect the Arc score.

This is just off the top of my head. Something like this may already be in discussion, but I haven't had time to read the last few dozen pages of posts.

Just don't call it "Affine Transformations". I tutor geometry and even I don't know what that means.

Also, could you give the Embedded Feedback Wizard the ability to track the characters' POS and/or PYR in addition to the timecode?

While editing demos I have to wait for the CoH client to load every time I want to view a fix. Is there a way to speed up this process? Is it faster when I remove the map first?

Currently, I"ve been trying to edit one clip while the other is loading and running, but eventually I'll have to view the whole movie over and over and over.

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So, if any of you have requests for new wizards, feel free to make them.

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Okay, how a version of Translate POS that uses an absolute start or ending location rather than an offset? And you could enter either the beginning direction of motion.

To use your example above, take the motion of your character running north on the park road, have him run instead the east-west road, headed west. You'd extract the motion, enter a starting location, and enter some kind of Yaw coordinate that means "westbound", or pick a location somewhere west of him that he will run towards. (whichever is easiest for you to code.)

Also - or instead - what if you could enter a reference instead of a direction, so he runs towards the specified character? If you set the CAM as the reference, the character will run towards the camera. Cool, huh?

Thanks again. I guess if the four heroes really want take "slightly different paths", then they have to have different Points A and B, right?

Also, if the destination demo is in a different zone that the original demo, must I must use "Translate POS" to position the paths to their new location?

Thanks for the prompt response! But could you elaborate on the Extract Movement Path Wizard? I"m guessing it lets you copy a character's path through space. Does it let you apply it to another character?

More importantly, does it let you move the path to a new location - for instance, if your character is running on a Skyway highway, can you use this to have him run on a different road on a lower level?

I've found Balshor's Demo Editor to be an incredibly useful tool that I think will be even better once I get the hang of the many built-in wizards. The trouble is that I can't determine what some of them are for, and he hasn't completed his Help file. Can anyone help me complete this list? Balshor, are you out there?

Interpolation Wizard - Balshor explained this in his "Jumping on a Truck" post. I guess you enter the character or CAM's starting and ending points, and some other info, and it outputs the necessary string of MOV commands.

Smart Cut Wizard - deletes a desired range of lines without deleting the important ones that shouldn't be touched.

Costume Import/Export Wizard - lets you take a character's appearance and use it to replace that of another character (in the same demo or another). "Costume" in this case includes body type, face, height, etc.

Fix Ghosts Wizard - I don't know what ghosts are, but this fixes them.

Generate PYR from POS -

Generate PYR/POS from formula -

Large File Filter Wizard -

Extract Movement Path -

CAM Movement Wizard - The Wizard converts all CAM PYR commands to standard coordinates and back. You see, the Y in PYR works differently for CAM and for characters. I guess this lets you copy a camera's movements for a character, or vice versa.

Command Stripping Wizard - Removes player names, chat messages, etc. from demo.

POS Analysis Wizard - This shows the maximum and minimum of the XZY coordinates. Either it's the physical limits of the zone, or it shows how far the characters in this demo have strayed from the origin. I don't know which.

Dummy Player Wizard - I suspect this has something to do with me.

Embedded Feedback Wizard - I think this lets a character of your choice recite the timecode of the movie repeatedly. Good for editing.

Vanity Demo Creator - This creates a movie of the character of your choice, standing on Ms.Victory's platform while the camera rotates around it.

Is there a way to edit a demo so that it takes place on a unmarked white background? Or a background that's just distant sky or abstract "wallpaper"?

Is there any restriction to the music or sound effects permitted? (The CoH film contests always said you had to use clips from their library, if any)

I want my SG team to try to do this TF in 4 hours. I'll describe our line-up. Do you think our chances are good?

All characters are 10-11 level. Nearly all have temporary flight/superjump jetpacks, so we can move faster than those at this level normally can. At least three of us have Assemble the Team (group recall) too.

The players aren't newbies; we've been playing this group together since first level. We generally wait until everyone's ready before starting a fight, but we have a habit of aggroing another nearby group of targets.

Blaster AR/Energy
Defender Sonic/Trick Arrow
Scrapper Dual Blade/Will?
Tanker Dual Blade/Will?
Tanker Dual Blade/Will?

One or more of these chars may join the team:
Defender Empathy/Trick Arrow
Tanker WarMace/?

I await your comments.

Are you still following this forum, Zloth? I've got your Demo Editor but I'm afraid I haven't figured out how to use most of your buttons. For a start, how can I zoom in on an object, or circle the camera around it?