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.
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.
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. 
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.
Thought I'd post this list of major NPC heroes and villains I've compiled.
Handy for editting demos to include the villains or heroes of your choice.
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.
CoH Codex : Demo Models/FX/MOVs : Demo Info
Arc 111022: "Doctor Geist and the Scientific Method"
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.
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!
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.
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.
[ 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!
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.
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. Lemme know what you all think. 
VIRTUE
Mister Marbles - Ice/Rad Controller
Glass Titan - Elec/En Blapper
Miss Marbles - Inv/Fire Tanker
Chef Jinglemerry - Spines/DA Scrapper
Blood Envy - WP/DB Tanker
Velvette - WS
My Custom Demos
ROFL! Get'm Liberty! Smack him upside the head!
You're certainly welcome Master Marbles!
Heh, dude, um, you did watch the whole thing, right?
VIRTUE
Mister Marbles - Ice/Rad Controller
Glass Titan - Elec/En Blapper
Miss Marbles - Inv/Fire Tanker
Chef Jinglemerry - Spines/DA Scrapper
Blood Envy - WP/DB Tanker
Velvette - WS
My Custom Demos
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!
Zloth2,
You mentioned that costumes don't scale well with gigantic characters. That, I think, would be more bearable than in this screenshot (the demo is here).
Apparently the engine renders VERY FEW polygons when the camera is very far away. In fact, this is so bad that it's laughable. Any ideas on how to make this better? I understand that there probably isn't, but thought I'd ask anyway.
Thanks.
VIRTUE
Mister Marbles - Ice/Rad Controller
Glass Titan - Elec/En Blapper
Miss Marbles - Inv/Fire Tanker
Chef Jinglemerry - Spines/DA Scrapper
Blood Envy - WP/DB Tanker
Velvette - WS
My Custom Demos
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.
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.
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.)
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. 
I've updated the Demo Edit 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.
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
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!!
<voice emmulation="Dr. Smith">
Oh the pain.... the pain....
</voice>
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 ) 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. 
)
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]
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!)
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.