Screenshot and Demo Guide v3


ArgonShadowstar

 

Posted

No more static guide for me, I've webbed the guide and put it into FAQ format. This should make it a lot easier to update. This topic can serve to ask/answer questions.


 

Posted

already have it bookmarked. Thanks Zloth.


[color=gold][b][size=5]♪ Sometimes you feel like a Tank, Sometimes you don't! ♪[/size][/color][/b]

[url=http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=114726][color=black][b][size=5]Moon [color=red]Hazard [color=black]Zone![/size][/color][/color][/color][/b][/url]

 

Posted

Since you're willing to answer questions not answered in your guide -- Is there anyway to change the folder/directory your screenshots get saved into? I'd prefer that my screenshots get saved on my large storage/media hdd as opposed to the one my game runs on.

Thanks in advance.


 

Posted

Nope. (Well, OK, maybe if you are running the game with a Windows emmulator in linux, but that's going to be a very very rare player.) You probably won't fill up the hard drive anytime soon, though, and you also probably will want to rename those pictures sometime soon. Just move them then.

Now demodumps on the other hand....


 

Posted

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?


 

Posted

Yep, still here! (Though I've been getting kinda lazy checking of late. I9 chatter is... distracting.) This topic isn't really about my demo edit program but, since it's only gotten one question in almost a year, what the heck....

Let's see if I can do some examples. Say your demo has a car cruising along one of Paragon City's roads. You want to have the camera zoom in on the car even as it keeps moving.

1. Select any line in the demo for the camera and click the 'object to move' button.

2. Go to the point in the demo where you want to have the camera start moving. This can be tricky. If somebody says something right at that point in time then you can find that bit of chat. If somebody does a somewhat rare move or emote you can find that. Or, if you know the point in time is, say, 75 seconds into the demo then you can use the time values listed on the left. Anyway, once you get your point in time picked out, click the Start Time button.

3. In this case you are zooming in on the car, not some point in space, so find the car in the demo and click the Facing Object button.

4. Now find the point in the demo where you want your zoom-in to stop. For this zoom in, that would be the car again, so go down a few seconds in the demo and find your car again. Select that line in the demo and click End Point. Go ahead and click End Time, too.

5. Now click the Movement button. This brings up the movement form and, because you clicked all those buttons ahead of time, it will have most everything filled out for you already.

6. Lets fiddle with the numbers just a bit. As is, the camera will zoom right into the car, which is likely more than you want. Let's avoid that by having the camera zoom to a point above the car. Go to the Ending Point tab and make the Z value about 10 larger than what it is now. This way you'll zoom to a point about 10 feet above the car.

7. Select the Always Face Object option. The car should already be selected.

8. The Add Z number should be about half the height of the object. For a car, I think you would probably want to look at window level. Let's guess 4 for that.

9. Everything else should be fine so click the Move button. Your computer churns through the math and you've got it!

10. Save your demo under a new name and launch it with my demo launcher (or whatever). The camera should move smoothly from point A to point B, facing the car the entire time.

Circles are done in pretty much the same way with the big difference being the end point - you don't have an end point. Instead, you'll be deciding how many times you want to go around in a circle.

Anyway, check the Readme file for complete instructions on what every button and box does. I would suggest making a small, one-minute demo with a small team in a mission then using that to experiment on.


 

Posted

Is it possible to override the camera while viewing a demo and basically take control of the camera?


 

Posted

Nope. Sure would be nice, wouldn't it? As is, you have to edit the demo to move the camera around. (I did it once so I could peek inside the VIP room in Pocket D.)


 

Posted

What would be really cool is if you could do that and then get the camera coordinates. You could find the perfect camera position, grab the coordinates and then put them into your demo file.

Wonder if they'll add that feature in the future? I would guess not, since the demo recorder seems to be an unsupported feature.


 

Posted

Maybe in the Marvel game....? <shrug>


 

Posted

On the demorecords I've done (and I'll admit to only having done 4 or 5), clickables don't show up on screen, and I've got no UI visible. Is there any way to have demos playback with the UI active and to get clickables to show up? Made for some annoying playback on one of the "<Verb-meaning-click-on> a whole buncha <target-objects>" missions I ran in which I'd periodically just stand in one place for a long time. Since I made the demo, I knew what I was doing, but not seeing the altar/desk/coconut tree/elmo doll during demo playback just makes the whole demo look extra-moronic.

I've resorted to FRAPS for demos like I use in my fire controller write-up (w00t for dual-core and decent GPUs), but I would like to play around some with demo files, too.

RagManX


"if the market were religion Fulmens would be Moses and you'd be L. Ron Hubbard. " --Nethergoat to eryq2

The economy is not broken. The players are

 

Posted

Wow thanks brother!...I have many questions...ill PM ya with them...

God speed


 

Posted

Question on the demodump:
I recorded a demo of my toon faceplanting in Grandville 5 times in a row (arrive in Grandville, faceplant, rez, faceplant, etc, leave), and played it back with your demolauncher at 32 fps, demodumping to .jpg files. The period of time between the first rez in the hospital to the second faceplant was, however, a series of blank images (matte gray), amounting to a little over 3000 useless images that I've since deleted (because the timing for the error worked out so well [stopped working in the leftmost rez spot and started working again in the same spot] I'm not scrapping the project). Any idea as to what could have caused it?


http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

 

Posted

For those interested, I've put version 4 of my Demo Launcher up. Just follow the signature.

Big New Feature: you can now flip a setting that will let your demos display your player's graphics effects. No more demos where your player swings an invisible sword and fires bolts from an invisible Nemesis staff!


 

Posted

I really like your Demo Launcher app Zloth, it shows my claws when I attack and makes it easy to remove the hovering text. However...I am a Stalker and nothing I do actually activates the stealth effect from Hide. Is there something I'm missing or do I just have to deal with being visible when I come up on mobs. It looks kind of silly.


 

Posted

Well that's odd. I'll check it out tomorrow. I would think that would just be like any old power.


 

Posted

That's what I thought as well when I loaded the demorecord from your application, but I was still quite visible when running around the recorded mission. I can convert it to a compressed format if you want to see what it looks like.


 

Posted

Pah, what am I thinking!? Yeah Carmesi, that's what happens. Invisibility powers have never worked in demos. There's a command in there we think is telling the game to turn you invisible but it doesn't seem to be working.


 

Posted

That's what I thought, but wanted to make sure it wasn't something I was doing. Thanks Zloth, I'll just deal with it looking like my enemies are blind. I do love your app though. Makes it so much easier to get what I need for videos with all the pretty little effects.


 

Posted

ok I'm trying to change somethings and launch the demo. I went into wordpad and changed a few names and saved it but when I ran your launcher the launch demo button won't come up unless i take away the .txt from the file. When I did the demo worked but it ran the original demo. Help!!!!!


 

Posted

Demos have to be saved as a .cohdemo file, not a .txt one. Just add .cohdemo to the end of the file name when you save it and all should be well.


 

Posted

How do I get the demo to not just be a demo? I meen like , to be able to watch it on winamp or something?


 

Posted

A demorecord is specifically made to use the game to play it back, so you won't be able to just watch the demo with something like winamp without at least a little work.

There are a number of ways to create a video from the game. Probably the simplest way would be to get some screen capture software (like fraps) that creates a straight to video record of what you're seeing in the game. On the other end of the spectrum, you can do a /demorecord and dump that info into a series of screenshots, which you can then compile into video form. There are a number of other methods, but all in all it really all depends on how much time you want to put into making videos.

There are a bunch of nice guides on making demos and videos too, if you want to look further into the subject.


 

Posted

We're trying to get a little Wikiness going, too.


 

Posted

Alright guys, Thanks! I will see what I can come up with.

Again, thanks!


-Whiteseeker