Relentless

Zloth's demo editor can deal with movement in circles and lines. Once you get used to the interface it works pretty well. As for the FXSCALE lines, I've never messed with them specifically. You can always get rid of FX entirely by taking out the accompanying lines, but you probably knew that already.

Sadly, I have not. I tried pasting a few of the old ragdoll lines into a new demo a while back but it didn't do anything (where in the past doing so would create some really contorted characters).

The only videos I've done are the three CoH/V ones available in my signature. To make my videos I use Zloth's demo edit/launcher programs, virtualdub, and windows movie maker 2.

I may make more videos in the future, but lately I hardly even have much time to play .

I see you've already linked to Paragon's Greatest hero, here's the other two I've made (all three available through my youtube channel):

City of Heroes
Smooth Criminal


You might also want to link to the first and second film festival contest winners, plenty of nice videos there .

Glad to see you finished your scene, now I can truly see what an undertaking this was. I really hope you find time to finish this some day, I know what it can be like having to leave a project just hanging there. And I'd like to find out why people are cheering this nemesis parade .

Zloth's editor has had about the same interface as long as I've used it, so you're probably thinking of a different one. The only other available editor I know of would be Balshor's, which you may prefer but I don't believe is the same one you had before. As for a list of NPC's and such, you can always look them up here.

The search function can be a fickle creature, sometimes you have to offer up your first born and a cheese sammich to get the results you wanted.

Anyway, this guide covers the shortcut method for demo records, and you can find Zloth's demo launcher and editor here and here. As for guides, plenty of them can be found in the guide to guides.

Let's say you want to make one character dance, then 2 seconds later a second character starts dancing. This is basically what your demo would look like (regular characters are fine, NPC's just take less space):

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>1 0 Version 2
0 0 Map Maps/blah/blah/blah
0 0 Time 9
0 CAM POS 0 0 10
0 CAM PYR 0 0 0
0 1 Player
0 1 NEW Mekkie
0 1 NPC 5th_Mek_Man
0 1 POS 0 0 0
0 1 PYR 0 0 0
0 1 MOV D_MONKEY
0 2 NEW Ghosty
0 2 NPC Signature_Ghost_Widow
0 2 POS 3 0 0
0 2 PYR 0 0 0
2000 2 MOV D_BLOCK</pre><hr />
Since the first number in every line is the time entry, your demo takes 2 seconds to finish (just as the second character starts dancing) and you really won't see much. So what you'll need to do is tack some time on by adding an extra command. Just about any command will do, I generally just have a character do a 'MOV READY' 5-10 seconds later:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>5000 2 MOV READY </pre><hr />

Note that time is in milliseconds, so 5000=5 seconds and so on. Also note that those 5 seconds start after the previous line, so your demo is now a total of 7 seconds. Just tack on whatever amount of time you want to extend the demo by.

For more on demo editing, I'd check out this basic guide. If you want to get more in-depth with demo making/editing, I'd look through this one as well.

As for your other problem, is the client actually crashing, or does it just shut down? Also, how much free hard drive space do you have? I'm not sure what the problem really is if it's only doing it during a dump (and you know the demo itself works), but maybe someone else can lend their expertise for that one.

I'm pretty sure that works. Alternatively, you can just use the -disable2d option unless there's chat bubbles/floating numbers you want to see (or the "disable text" box if you've got zloth's demo launcher, it does the same thing).

Without seeing the demo itself I can't really say much, but my best guess would be that you don't have a long enough demo. It's always a good idea to add an extra command 5-10 seconds after the last line of a custom demo to make sure everything has had time to render and whatnot. Otherwise the whole thing basically ends before it even starts, and you get that effect where they pop in and out when it loops around continuously.

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.

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.

Perhaps the best basic guide I've found on the subject can be found here. It's a bit old so some of the links don't work anymore, but still a wonderful guide.

A new 'demos for dummies' guide certainly wouldn't be a bad idea. Even with all of the information available on the subject, I still found myself having to figure stuff out on my own when I was getting to know the basics.

Part of the bug I mentioned earlier. Pretty much any FX from the player simply won't show up in demos currently, including things like weapons. Just take the player tag off of your character and add this bit in:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>0 2 Player
0 2 NEW Puddle
0 2 NPC Puddle
0 2 POS 97 25.5 -305
0 2 PYR 0 0 0
0 2 MOV READY </pre><hr />

The only real issue with this fix is that sounds in demos are centered around the player, so moving away from the puddle will cause any sounds from your player to become more and more distant. But for the purposes of your demo, this really isn't an issue.

Change the 8 1 "This is etc." to an 8 0 "This is etc.". I forget exactly what each of the chat numbers mean, something to do with what channel they end up in.

And while I do appreciate someone testing 18 gotrillion MOV commands, I do question your sanity for compiling them all into a 90+ minute demo.

Is this the entirety of the demo? If so, I see 2 small problems:

1- You don't have any characters marked as "player". Without that line, the map loads but nothing else shows up. Note that currently, whatever is marked as the 'player' won't have any fx show up, so I'd just put an NPC puddle in the same spot and make it the player.

2- Add at least a couple seconds on to the end of the demo, otherwise the chat command will happen just as the demo is ending and you probably won't even see it. A simple 'MOV READY' command does just fine.

Ah, such sweet nostalgia. So much of this has brought up many great memories, so here's a few of mine:

I remember chasing the atlas blimp...with hover. I then remember finding out you couldn't land on it anyway .

I remember having to compete with 3-4 other teams for hydra spawns.

I remember when the best two places to find a team were the atlas gate in perez park..... and the atlas hospital.

I remember going to the exit point of the train, thinking it must be broken. Then going to my destination the long way and dying somewhere in skyway. I was such a noob sometimes.

I remember when level 20 was a big accomplishment.

I remember getting 1000 xp for finishing the synapse TF and thinking to myself, 'wow, that's a lot'. I did that TF 3 times before ever hitting 20.

I remember having to zone 3 times to see if anyone your level was looking for a team.

I remember how cool it was to fly for the first time.

I remember when ICON hit Paragon, and the massive lag-inducing dance parties in front of them. I also remember how hard it was to find tsoo that day . I spent every ounce of influence I had just to pay for that second costume.

I remember the katana animations geting changed, and suddenly liking my scrapper again (even if I am still a little miffed about it being left handed ).

I remember doing the respec many, many, many times on both test and live, and only getting one success out of it all. Then they changed it soon after and I was a bit disappointed at how easy it was to breeze through.

I remember the rikti sword bug, and getting one-shot by a -5.

I remember laughing at all the winter lord babies crying about how hard missions were when the event faded away.

I remember stepping into Peregrine Island for the first time in my 30's, just to explore.... and getting killed by snipers before ever getting off the ferry.

I remember wishing the snipers to be put back in PI after seeing a bunch of single digit heroes sitting on the ferry.

I remember taking on Infernal for the very first time at level 45, only to find out the praetorians spawn at a minimum of 48. It took our 44-45 team a good while to do it, and many deaths from our ice tanker, but we finally pulled it off. One of my favorite game experiences ever.

[ QUOTE ]

Arch Mage of Agony is from completeing the 3rd Shard TF


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't mean to take this discussion off course, but I did this TF before I5. I don't have the TF badge, but I got the gladiator....

Here's my entry:

Jemona, Triumph server

Same on Triumph, I get the 'thanks for testing' message but can't do anything with it.