broken demorecord :(

Ok so I took a fairly extensive demorecord of a zombie invasion that I want to use for a screenshot comic I'm going to make.

Problem is it seems to be broken.
I have tried to open it in both of zloth's demo programs, but it wont work.

In the demolauncher it loads for a while then tells me "don't know how to open demo program."
In the demoeditor it tells me that I need to update the program, but I have the newest version of it.

I was hoping to put the wall of demo txt up here for the more experienced of you to eyeball to see if you can see the problem, but when I tried to copy and paste what I have when I open it in notepad it crashed my computer.

I opened the file in word and it turns out the file is 8994 pages long.

So my next question is, is there a limit to how big demorecords can be to open?
Can I cut up a demorecord by just saving every 130 pages or so?

Here is the .cohdemo file to download if you have any ideas on how to fix it. I warn you though, its a mean one.

zombies.cohdemo

Thank you very much for your time.

PS oh and for anyone who hasn't downloaded from 4shared before. Its not the most convinent free file sharer, but it is what it is.

Allow me to make this quick and painless.

You are going to hate your demo record. Allow me to show you an example of Demo Record

FRAPS is what I use. Allow me to show you an example of FRAPS.

If interested, FRAPS can be Downloaded From This Page.

If you absolutely must use Demo Record, I believe you have to take the file and unzip it first. Can't remember actually, because once I seen the quality of Demorecord, I gave up on trying to figure out how to make it work.

Just take out the entire first line with POS and the numbers and it works just fine. That version 2 bit just has to be the first thing it sees. I don't know how stuff gets in there before it sometimes, but it happens. Also, make sure your file gets saved in .cohdemo format when you do save it, some text programs like to add their own extensions.

Let me take a look at it. After all, I did just teach two classes on demorecording, I might be able to find what's wrong.

EDIT: *smirk* I was right. Give me a second to fix this and send it back to you.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

well i solved ur demo problem, in it you have at the top a bunch of numbers before Version 2, You should always have this at the top (there was a pos for object 49 that I just got rid of) so it should read as

1 0 Version 2
0 0 Map maps/City_Zones/City_01_02/City_01_02.txt
0 0 Time 0.000000
0 DYNGROUPS DYNARRAY |100,0

And that should allow the game to read ur demo file. However, I'm not sure about ur notepad problem, mine read it fine. But I hope this helps a little bit

lol and apparently every1 else was a bit faster then me /e sigh

Okay, your demorecord is fixed. You can download it at:

http://www.zazaza.net/cohuploads/zombies2.cohdemo

The problem was not the size - trust me on this one, I have an 86MB demofile from a Hami raid. The problem was that every now and again, a demofile mis-saves and certain information that has to be at the start of the demofile goes missing. As a result, it won't load. Don't ask me what makes it do it, I don't know. But since I've run into this problem before, I just fixed your starting code, and whoosh it works.

Second - don't use Word to edit your demofiles. Notepad all the way. It's a text editor so you don't get all the .doc coding embedded into the file.

Third - do not just hack and slash your democode to make it shorter, because the 'later' demorecords will be missing information that is needed. If you want more manageable demofiles, you need to stop recording and then start again. The longer you record (and especially if there's a lot going on), the longer the file will be.

I don't FRAPS in-game unless ABSOLUTELY necessary, because I AM one of those people who knows how to edit a demofile and put only what I want in there. If I had a KILLER shot and some dufus player ran right through it, I just remove him from the democode and my killer shot stays killer. If I'd FRAPS'd it, I'd be hosed.

Just my two cents.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[ QUOTE ]
Allow me to make this quick and painless.

You are going to hate your demo record. Allow me to show you an example of Demo Record

FRAPS is what I use. Allow me to show you an example of FRAPS.

If interested, FRAPS can be Downloaded From This Page.

If you absolutely must use Demo Record, I believe you have to take the file and unzip it first. Can't remember actually, because once I seen the quality of Demorecord, I gave up on trying to figure out how to make it work.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hm, I'm afraid you've been a bit misinformed. First, that first video is actually something done with screen capture software like FRAPS. With demos you don't get all of the UI stuff. All 4 of the videos in my signature have been done with demo recordings, if you want a good example.

There's nothing terribly fancy involved in getting a demo to play. Doing it manually through shortcuts can be a bit tedious, but with programs like Zloth's demo launcher it's easy as pie.

Demos can be better than recording in-game videos in a lot of ways. I use them not only because (with a bit of work) I can do things that aren't generally doable in the game, but mainly with regards to drive space. Since a demo is essentially just a text file, it uses a relatively small amount of space compared to say an .AVI file. If I took video of every demo I've recorded, I'd probably have well over 100gb (of course I record just about everything). Also, you can use pretty much any graphics settings you can in-game, and even use things like FRAPS to record those demos into video formats.

That isn't to say that demos don't have their issues, like timing being totally off, animations not playing, or our case here with it just not playing at all. But these things don't happen every day and, all in all, I do find demos better for making videos.

Sounds like you guys are way more savvy with demo record than I am....

<------ one of the videographer geeks, and proud of it

And come on, Relentless... ONLY 100GB?!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

But...I really liked Relentless's video...just curious though, why so choppy with the graphics? Was it your video settings or is that Windows Movie Maker butchering the graphics like it does with FRAPS?

[ QUOTE ]
Sounds like you guys are way more savvy with demo record than I am....

[/ QUOTE ]
Easy to learn! Check out the Wiki!

Also, WeGame.Com has a pretty good FRAPS-like recorder for free. Seems to be higher quality though I have found the AVI files aren't as compatible as I could wish. For instance, I can't play them on my Xbox-360. (And I so wanted to "play" CoH on my X-Box! )

Thank you Relentless for fixing the problem, and thank you Dark_Respite for FIXING the problem.

You know i was looking at the awesome little demowebpage that Ms. Respite put up there and I noticed some things that said "entragdoll F40000 blah blah blah"
Does that mean you could thoereticly add your own ragdoll physics into a demorecord?

And Magmabolt, you get an A+ for effort.

JFS
-The Legendary J-Man-

Yes, you can - we're still trying to figure out exactly how it works, but Leandro's got a thread going about the Ragdoll thing and a tool for creating your own. It's worth a look.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[ QUOTE ]
And Magmabolt, you get an A+ for effort.

[/ QUOTE ]
YAY!

[ QUOTE ]


And Magmabolt, you get an A+ for effort.

JFS
-The Legendary J-Man-

[/ QUOTE ]
Can I at least get a D-? A D- is still a passing grade you know?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


And Magmabolt, you get an A+ for effort.

JFS
-The Legendary J-Man-

[/ QUOTE ]
Can I at least get a D-? A D- is still a passing grade you know?

[/ QUOTE ]

Lets see, you showed up on time, you participated, an' you suited up fer P.E., yea

Solid D fer Wraiven.

JFS
-The Legendary J-Man-

Ok I have ran into another problem, this one being more complicated.

When I play the demorecords, they now work, but they crash.

In this ( zombies3.cohdemo ) one it crashes 7 seconds in, saying "city of heroes as encountered a problem." My normal coh actually has to verify files once this happens.

Sadley the one that you all fixed for me crashes too, but half way through the movie. zombies.cohdemo

I am loading them both using Zloth's demolauncher. There has got to be something in the text that is messing it up, but I don't know what to look for, or to find "7 seconds in" because there is just so much information there.

Thank you all very much for your time.

PS. I even tried to load the exact txt that dark_respite fixed, but even that crashed at the same point.

I'll take a crack at it when I get home from work today - I won't have time before I leave to troubleshoot. Unless, of course, the guys fix the problem before I do, in which case it's all good.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[ QUOTE ]
Unless, of course, the guys fix the problem before I do, in which case it's all good.

[/ QUOTE ]

I got nothin XD

The toon is named "J-Ranger", so the game engine just keeps saying "no"

OK, serious now...

The problem has something to do with reference ID 3179, which belongs to a PC named "US Customs Inspector". If you delete all of those references, it runs. At least it gets past that 7-second hang. I didn't run much past that.

Not sure what line referencing 3179 is the actual problem. I'll leave that as an "exercise for the reader".

While I won't have time to look at the demo until sometime tomorrow, I suspect it's an issue with someone wearing (or changing into/out of) one of the halloween costumes you get for trick or treating. That seemed to have caused some issues for demos last year.

[ QUOTE ]
<------ one of the videographer geeks, and proud of it

And come on, Relentless... ONLY 100GB?!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[/ QUOTE ]

I was being modest actually . At an average of ~10MB/minute I'd actually be a bit scared to see how much space videos of all that demoing would take up.

[ QUOTE ]
But...I really liked Relentless's video...just curious though, why so choppy with the graphics? Was it your video settings or is that Windows Movie Maker butchering the graphics like it does with FRAPS?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure where you're seeing anything especially choppy... I remember the end of "Smooth Criminal" is a bit messified, and yes that was due to windows movie maker. If you're talking about image quality, well that's youtube for ya.

[ QUOTE ]
If I took video of every demo I've recorded, I'd probably have well over 100gb (of course I record just about everything).

[/ QUOTE ]

heh, I've close to 100gbs of demo files that aren't video. What does that say about me?