Star_Dancer

LOL - Yep. I was up til 2AM this morning hand-coding a battle scene. Thank God for Zloth's and Balshor's editing tools!

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LightHouse has already pointed out that we need to take it up with them. We have; they haven't responded.

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Alt, maybe you didn't understand what Dark_Respite posted. That was a direct email reply from the people running the contest. They HAVE replied, at least on the specific issue of musical content. And the way the phrased their reply seems to cover any form of content in these contest entries. Unless we create it ourselves - whether it be sounds, music, images, whatever - it has to come from CoX. CoX, Original or Nada.

IMO Demorecording actually is "in-game". It is just the game running with a different set of arguments.

On a related note, I wonder if royalty-free music is permissible? I have a collection of great music that I am licensed to use in any manner I wish (except selling it) and I'm wondering if that would fit their legal criteria?

So, how do we get clarifications of these rules?

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The rules appear to state that only in-game elements are allowed...

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Where does it say that in the rules? I've gone over the rules with a fine-toothed comb and I just don't see that. The rules prohibit use or copyrighted material unless it is part of the game, but there isn't any prohibition against using non-game elements. The closest they come is saying "Use CoX to make your video". It doesn't say Use ONLY CoX to make your video".

I bring this up because I'm planning to combine live action with my entry, similar to the "Missy K" video from a few years ago, plus maybe some greenscreening of CoX elements into live footage.

EF, there is a way to change the sky color to whatever you like, but we're not allowed to discuss it here because it involves altering CoX files and is therefore considered a "hack". Sorry...

Run a file diff on the pre- and post-edit copies? If you make no changes then shouldn't they only differ at the problem spot?

FYI - Balshor's Demo Edit (0.8.14) seems to be working fine. That's probably because he doesn't try to parse the command arguments, so the format changes aren't an issue there.

Since it looks like I12 is going live today...

Zloth, have you had time to enhance your Demo Edit program to be I12 compatible yet?

And has anyone tried Balshor's Demo Edit with I12? I use both since the each have strengths.

Oooh... Between this and learning how to greenscreen CoX demos, I foresee many, many hours of time consumed in my future...

Ooh... That works even better. I need to try something with the CAM angled up just to make sure the clouds don't appear then, but this seems to work pretty well.

Thanks, Dawthm!

OK, experimenting now. First problem I notice is that if I rotate a character to face "up" into the downfacing camera, his cape still hangs "down", which looks like it is blowing straight out behind him... Not exactly a show-stopper, but I wanted to throw that out for anyone that may be trying this too.

Thanks, Scuzz. Cape gravity aside, this may be just what I needed.

Wait a sec... Tilt... Headspin... Mindflip...

Oh. My. God.

This can totally work. I never thought of messing with the pitch (or yaw) of a toon in the demofile. I can totally make my characters stand/run/fly in any orientation I want! Some pre-planning will definitely save a lot of fiddling, but this may be the real McCoy...

Scuzz, you're a GENIUS!

Or should I call you, "Ender"?

This question has cropped up a couple of times, but I've never seen a really good solution to it:

How can we create vids with solid colored backgrounds, suitable for "greenscreening"?

I'm aware of a trick that allows us to remove all of the buildings, etc and leave just the sky. Its simple, really: You just delete the "Map" command line. Corrupting the binary value in the "Base" line for demos shot in a SG/VG base will accomplish teh same thing.

There is also a technique that will allow you to change the color of the sky, but I won't go into that here because its not an approved procedure...

The only problem with any of that is that the sky has clouds, so the background isn't solid. That won't work for greenscreening.

Has anyone ever accomplished this? If its a "non-approved procedure" (something not allowed to be discussed here) then feel free to point me to other channels/resources for an answer. I just really want to know if this do-able at all.

Southwest only? I can't talk you into visiting Atlanta for DragonCon?

Nope, That's pretty much the behavior we saw before when we tried to hack the demorecord files. That's as good as it gets: There one second and gone the next.

I give up.

Aww, come on, Ex Libris! Can we get a little luv here? We just want to know if the devs give a rat's patootie about demorecordings.

I mean, here we have this great contest to produce a CoX commercial and we can't even SHOW the latest improvement - WEAPONS CUSTOMIZATION! Entire classes of characters have to left out of these commercials we're creating for y'all because of this problem.

We're getting absolutely zero feedback that this problem (or the lack of ragdoll physics) will EVER be fixed. Heck, we can't even get official recognition that the problem exists!

Its not a lot to ask, is it? Please?

Hopefully after the hubbub dies down from Double XP Weekend, XP Smoothing and the Valentine's Event, then Ex Libris can spare us some time to check on where this problem is in the dev's queue...

Personally, I'm mystified as to why it is a problem at all. Its the same .exe as we use to play the game, just with different options. Why it would have such different code paths for something like this is weird.

Unfortunately, that trick doesn't always work. I tried every which a way to get my archery blaster's bow to show up even as the legacy version, but it comes and goes during power animations. I was forced to omit her from the updated StarForce vid because of this problem.

Please, please, please, with sprinkles on top and fudge sauce and that whipped marshmallow stuff?

Since we seem to be getting some of Ex Libris' attention here, is there any feel for when the 'missing weapons' demo playback bug will be addressed? Is it even on the Dev's radar?

For those of you that may not have encountered it yet, starting with I11 any weapons that can be customized are no longer showing up in demo playback. Even weapons that are still 'legacy' are invisible.

Thanks in advance!

Here's a few I made for the StarForce supergroup on Guardian

First StarForce Promo

Updated StarForce Promo

The Rikti Blitz!

Name: StarForce

Motto: "Ad Astra Gloria"
Leader(s): Goldstar, Star Dancer, Nova Healer
Player Type: Friendly and Helpful
RolePlay?: Encouraged, but not required
Membership levels: 5+
SuperGroup Colous & Emplem: Blue & Gold, 8-Pointed Star
Normal time of Gameplay: Any
Recruiting?: Yes
Other Info: We're devoted to helping others and each other. We don't allow our members to 'steal' targets, but we encourage random acts of kindness to strangers (healing, boosts, teleports...). We're heroes first, super comes second.