Best places in game for consistent Screenshots
By
Amish_Justice,
Posted on: 2008-02-14 13:48 in Multi-Media Fan Creations
step one: put all of them in one SG
step two: Create base - set lighting to how you want it, wall to whatever background you like
step three: pictures
Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)
When I wanted a screenshot of two of my characters together (not a dual boxer), I shot both of them in front of the Steel Canyon University. The concrete "tiles" on the ground make great "place markers* and the shadows from the tree are good indicators of the same light level (i.e. time of "day")
Siberian Spring-50 (Cold/Rad, Rad/Ice, Ice/Rad, Sh/Ice) - KGB SS8
Chernozem-50 (Ice/MM, Emp/Ice, MA/Regen) - KGB SS8
Wila-50 (Dark/Arch) - KGB SS8
Also: Krassivy Mechtayu-50 (Ill/Rad) - KGB SS8; Ms. Hypatia-50 (Dark/Regen)
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When I wanted a screenshot of two of my characters together (not a dual boxer), I shot both of them in front of the Steel Canyon University. The concrete "tiles" on the ground make great "place markers* and the shadows from the tree are good indicators of the same light level (i.e. time of "day")
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Excellent notion. Thanks for the idea.
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step one: put all of them in one SG
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Hmmm, unfortunately, that won't work. They're not on one server (as you can see...there's too many of them for that).
Tough Black Girl, so good
I wanna make a Kinetics/Radiation Controller too 
And to be a little helpful...check out the lighting in the Tailor shops. The backgrounds would be different for Hero to Villain. How about the Vanguard Base? White light in there and open to both factions...
No, the tailor shops are terrible for lighting.
The best thing to do is make demorecords of all your characters, then line them up somewhere nice and set the time of day to just after noon.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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Hey all.
Recently I created a sort of amalgam of all of my favorite toons
http://ctu.spotlightmobile.com/get/7...ce-sHeroes.jpg
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Hey, I just realized that I teamed with you a while back: I was Kid Hawk.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
Tailor EDITING SCREEN.
Have your graphics program running in the BG, go into Icon/FaceMaker... access a costume as if you want to edit it... arrange the character how you wish...
... and hit PrintScreen.
This copies the image to the clipboard.
Alt-tab to graphics program, start a NEW document at 72dpi, with same resolution as your screen, and Paste.
Crop to just the costume.
An Example - Hero
Another Example - Villain
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Do a demo, put them all together wherever you want.
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Tough Black Girl, so good
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You should see her in her team, Girl Power.
It's a trio, with an electricity blaster (Smart Asian Girl) and a fire tanker (Pretty White Girl). 
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Tailor EDITING SCREEN.
Have your graphics program running in the BG, go into Icon/FaceMaker... access a costume as if you want to edit it... arrange the character how you wish...
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I had considered this idea, but I was really hoping to incorporate emotes. That's why I was thinking of something outside. Plus, I'd really love to avoid those annoying rotation arrows 
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The best thing to do is make demorecords of all your characters, then line them up somewhere nice and set the time of day to just after noon.
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Pardon my confusion. What's a demorecord?
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Hey, I just realized that I teamed with you a while back: I was Kid Hawk.
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I love that screen shot! Man, we gotta bring those three characters back into action. We just need a couple blasters and we're ready to roll
Feels a little weird looking at that image, and not being able to determine whether either of those Multiple Men was me. I might be off camera somewhere
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The best thing to do is make demorecords of all your characters, then line them up somewhere nice and set the time of day to just after noon.
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Pardon my confusion. What's a demorecord?
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Demorecording is something you can do in game by typing:
/demorecord name
Now you are creating a file that is recording all of the characters, npc's, bad guys, FX, etc., that is occuring in the game around you. Type:
/demostop
to stop recording. Go to your City of Heroes install folder and look for a client_demos folder. This is where your demorecords wind up. Pull the info of your character sout and put them in a new demo file, choose your location, run the demo and you've got your characters all side by side and emoting...
Demos are easy to edit, but they can be intimidating. Check out the Multi-Media section for more info on it. In particular, look for MastrerMarbles demo tutorial. It'll walk you through, step-by-step, how to make your own demo. After that tutorial, you'll have the skills you need to do what you want here.
Be warned, it is so simple, you'll get more ideas than you'll be able to follow up on.
The HARD part about demo editing is getting the coordinates right! Some tools that make this easier, though are Zloth's demoeditor and demolauncher.
Test Subject 42 - lvl 50 Sp/DA Scrapper
Oku No Te - lvl 50 MA/SR Scrapper
Borg Master - lvl 24 Bots/traps MM
Pinnacle
Nyghtfyre - lvl 50 DM/SR Scrapper
Champion
That's a pretty good explanation of demo editing. It sometimes takes a little futzing to get it right, but if you start off with a simple shot, you can pretty easily figure out where to place characters and the camera.
Here are a couple tests I did with some of my and my friends' villains standing in Atlas Park.
Villain line-up
Same line-up, with Heavies added and camera moved back.
Then I took my hero Minotaurus and his evil doppelganger Minotaur X and let them groove together.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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That's a pretty good explanation of demo editing. It sometimes takes a little futzing to get it right, but if you start off with a simple shot, you can pretty easily figure out where to place characters and the camera.
Here are a couple tests I did with some of my and my friends' villains standing in Atlas Park.
Villain line-up
Same line-up, with Heavies added and camera moved back.
Then I took my hero Minotaurus and his evil doppelganger Minotaur X and let them groove together.
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Oh my lordy! This is exactly what I'm looking for! Genius!
I'll start looking into right away! Well, tomorrow, it's late Huzzah!
If we can get Sparky in here to talk about his demoediting skills, you'll have a masterclass in it.
Two of Sparky's I have saved:
Eat Foot
Gone Fishing
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
Hey all.
Recently I created a sort of amalgam of all of my favorite toons
http://ctu.spotlightmobile.com/get/7...ce-sHeroes.jpg
Thing is, I'd like to do something similar, in game, but the variations of light and background make meshing together images somewhat difficult.
Any suggestions for locations where there's a consistency of light which won't render flesh looking purpleish or red (like wentworths does), but that isn't bland? Ideally it would be something generic, so that it can be repeated in a meshed together background.
You're welcome to comment on the heroes here too, if you like.