Quick addenda....
Screenshots in the character creation only go to your clipboard.
For the folks out there who have no problem with passing command parameters, here are the commands as a dev posted back in beta:
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In game commands:
/demorecord <demoname>
/demostop
Saves your demo to cityofheroes/client_demos/<demoname.cohdemo>
Quitting the game or changing maps will force demostop to get run.
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 <demoname>
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 <msecs>
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/<demoname>/*.tga
-demofps <frames per second>
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 <xsize> <ysize>
Set the screensize. Ex: -screen 1024 768
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Fullscreen actually takes a parameter. Fullscreen 0 will turn off fullscreen mode even if your game is set up to play in fullscreen. Handy, given that demos in full screen mode typically have to be stopped by doing control-alt-delete and killing the game with task manager.
As of this writing, demos are having major playback problems. Try to keep the demos short and you'll have better luck.
Is there a way to quit the demoplayback with a key command that's bound to something like /quit?
So I could type a key and quit the demo or close the program?
For one reason or another, I have been unable to take a print screen of my character in the character selection portion. In game I can take as many as I want, but the CS doesn't allow me to do it 
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For one reason or another, I have been unable to take a print screen of my character in the character selection portion. In game I can take as many as I want, but the CS doesn't allow me to do it
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Once you hit print screen in the CS menu. Open MS Paint (or any graphic/paint program) and select Edit->Paste. The CS menu only copies the screen to your clipboard, you need to paste it into a document/image to see it. You can even Paste it into Word.
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Is there a way to quit the demoplayback with a key command that's bound to something like /quit?
So I could type a key and quit the demo or close the program?
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If you are in full screen mode, the way to quit out of a demo is to control-alt-delete and use task manager to kill it. At least that's how I do it. (Mostly I stick to windowed mode when viewing demos. Then you just close the window and it's gone.)
Wow Zloth!!! It worked just like you said! Thanks much for the effort you've put into this...
FYI, Demo playback is still crashing constantly. The ONLY demo that I could get to run at all required me to:
1. Stand on the edge of the zone
2. Pass no more than 3 enemies.
3. Activate no more than 2 powers (sprint, then super-speed)
Even then, it still crashed after 6 seconds. At least it displayed the super-speed power first. I would LOVE for demo recording to actually work...
i wonder if using a bind to do a /screenshot (dont know if thats the correct slash or not) to build a libary of .jpeg's consecutively would work. then use a movie editor to build a .mpg out of the .jpeg's.
of course there would need to be a way to subtract the .tga file because of its size.
/bind screenshot "print_screen tga=0" or something to that effect
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i wonder if using a bind to do a /screenshot (dont know if thats the correct slash or not) to build a libary of .jpeg's consecutively would work. then use a movie editor to build a .mpg out of the .jpeg's.
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No it wouldn't work. Well, technically it would, but the way the program has to pause a bit while it writes the screenshot file would result in a movie with horrible FPS.
Use the demodump and forced FPS options of the demo function for making actual movies.
At 3 megs a frame, I hope you have some free space on your HD. 
Is there a way to convert these demos?
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Is there a way to convert these demos?
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Nope. The only thing in the world that knows how to read them is your City of Heroes program.
As somebody said earlier, you could do a demodump option and set it to 10fps or something, then take the resulting TGA files and load those into some animator program. It won't be anywhere near the quality of the actual demo, though.
Demos still crash a lot. A few of mine work but even those only work sometimes. I'll play a demo back and it will run all the way through just fine. Then I'll try to play it again and it will crash on load.
A new data entry has popped up in the demo text files, too. XLU. It shows up toward the end of some character models. Dunno what it is yet. (Testing is kinda hard when you crash four out of five times just starting the demo.)
I've found that ALL my outdoor demos crash; all the indoor demos play entirely, we're talking 10+ minutes sometimes.
I started talking to CS about this, but they decided to close the issue because their reply system is borked. I will probably try again.
I have been able to get Fraps 2.0 to record decent movies within COH. I had to lower the res to 800x600 for a complicated scene, but for just flying around, high res worked also.
Yeah I also have Fraps. Haven't used it in CoH, but have used it in other mulitplayer games. Ususally FPS, which is very cool to watch yourself kickin some *** in game. Fraps files can get very large though, but if you have a good program to compress them, they can look very cool for a website playback. Or to share with your buddies.
Just tried to do this but can seem to get it to work. Was wondering exactly how should the target line look.
"C:\Documents and Settings\Andre L. Nedderman\Desktop\CohUpdater.exe" -demoplay argas.cohdemo"
Is that correct?
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Just tried to do this but can seem to get it to work. Was wondering exactly how should the target line look.
"C:\Documents and Settings\Andre L. Nedderman\Desktop\CohUpdater.exe" -demoplay argas.cohdemo"
Is that correct?
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Almost. But you want to run cityofheroes.exe not the updater.
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Just tried to do this but can seem to get it to work. Was wondering exactly how should the target line look.
"C:\Documents and Settings\Andre L. Nedderman\Desktop\CohUpdater.exe" -demoplay argas.cohdemo"
Is that correct?
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Almost. But you want to run cityofheroes.exe not the updater.
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heh I tried running CityofHeroes.exe passing in that command line option (demo file in place in proper directory) and all I get is a dialogue saying that it cannot be run directly.
"Please run updater instead". 
Something is up with the quote marks. Argas is nice and short so it shouldn't need them.
Like the previous poster said you're running the main exe, not the updater. If you got a message about running the updater then it didn't see your command line parameters for some reason.
By the way, if you want the UI to be included in the TGA files, you can do "/screenshotui 1".
Zloth, I was merely quoting the other post.
Let me rephrase it.
I have tried using that command line parameter calling cityofheroes.exe. It simply does not work. It displays the typical mfc dialogue with a simple message staying You cannot call cityofheroes.exe directly. Please try running the updater instead.
I've tried numerous things for passing in the parameter and always get the same. Not that it matters anyway, the in game demos aren't very useful at all: no UI showing, no chat, no target window, etc. About the only thing it's good for is eye candy, or a screen saver lol.
i have wondered why i coulnt see the tga files thanks for the info
Demos have been working a LOT better lately! Thanks Cryptic!
The /ScreenshotUI command is used to toggle whether or not your saved (TGA) screenshots include your user interface. This command doesn't itself make a screenshot, it's just a setting for your future screenshots. /screenshotui 1 to include the UI, /screenshotui 0 to make shots without the user interface.
The /screenshot command does the actual screenshot.
These are covered in the in-game help on the last tab under Slash Commands.
HOW TO MAKE A SCREENSHOT
In the upper right area of your keyboard there should be a key called "Print Screen" (or PrntScreen or some such). When you press that, you should get not one, but two screenshots.
The first shot made has exactly what you see on the screen, including your chat window. This screenshot is not really saved, though, it is just put in your copy & paste (aka Clipboard) buffer. To see it, you need to open a compatible program (IrfanView works extremely well and is free, though Microsoft Paint should also work fine) and paste it in, probably with control-V.
The second shot is saved for you in .TGA (targa) format. IrfanView (a free viewer at www.irfanview.com) can read that format just fine but TGAs are rather huge so I suggest re-saving in JPG format. These screenshots do NOT have the user interface (nav window, chat window, and so on) on them. Unless I'm taking a shot of a bug, that's the one I normally use. The files are saved in your City of Heroes directory under Screenshots.
The second screenshot is taken a split second after the first so they will not quite look the same even if you ignore the UI. It does take a second to save the TGA file so you'll know you made a screenshot when you do one.
{Note for users of the newer Microsoft keyboards: If you are using function keys and the little light under "F" is turned on, you can not take a screenshot. You will have to hit the F-Lock button, then hit the PrtScreen. That, or do some key binding.}
HOW TO MAKE A DEMO
A demo is a recording of your game session. When you replay them, they are pretty much without user interface. These are not MPG's or AVI's or any of those, these are simply text files that the game engine reads to repeat what happened when you recorded. The feature is not supported and there are glitches but, I'll tell ya, they leave screenshots in the dust. They are small, too - a recording of a good battle typically takes about one megabyte.
Recording one is really simple - just enter the command:
/demorecord Whatever
where 'Whatever' is the file name you want to use. Then play the game just like normal. When you want to stop recording, use the /demostop command. Recording will automatically stop if you zone to another area.
Watching them is not so simple. You do it by creating a shortcut to the CityOfHeroes.Exe and pass in a command parameter like -demoplay YourDemoName.cohdemo to play the demo. Honestly, its a lot easier to use a program like my demo player (see my sig). The demo must be in you City of Heroes client_demos directory or a subdirectory in that directory to play it back.
That about wraps it up. You are now ready to make your own scrapbook and home movies! Share and enjoy.