The Big Giant Icon Thread

[TanKaLoL]

Thank you so much Codewalker  ;D

[therain93]

Thank you so much Codewalker  ;D

Yes.  I've posted in the other thread, but can't write it enough -- thank you Codewalker!  ( ' :

[Skull Thuggery]

Thankyou! This is awesome.

I had moved my entire CoH folder to an external HD to save space. I dropped icon.exe into my CoH folder and it runs perfectly from the external hard drive. Good job.

[Arachnion]

Infinity times thank you, Codewalker.

I've wanted NPC parts for a long time.

A. Loooooong. Time.

TIP: If you can save NPC costumes... you could probably upload them here http://demolition.mcuznz.ca/ to be put into a demo. Even if it isn't an NPC costume, you can still upload it to DEMOlition for it to be made into a demorecord file.

;D ;D ;D

[Arcana]

Testing results:

Works fine in the Beta client
Works fine in the Live client
Does not work in the Test client

Also, if I make a copy of the Live client in another directory, Icon does not work from that directory.  It seems if your client registry keys point to a valid client you can't run Icon from another directory with a copy of that client.  You *can* apparently run it from a client directory when the registry keys do not exist at all; it will make them just like the client will (as Icon basically launches the client).

[Manga]

FYI to everyone - some people are having problems launching the Mac version if the enclosing folder has a space in the name.  Try taking the space out.  Also make sure you follow these two steps, as they're very important to make sure the NC Launcher isn't launched:

- Use the finder's Go To Folder command and select ~/Library/Preferences.

- Delete com.ncsoft.* (anything beginning with that) and City of Heroes preferences.

[Felderburg]

Oh man, access to the costume creator would be AMAZING!!! Too bad I just found this out at work...

Instructions for Mac Users
IMPORTANT:  MAKE A COPY OF YOUR CITY OF HEROES FOLDER.  Since we'll be modifying it irrecoverably, it's best to work with a copy.

That only applies to Mac users, right? I already have a copy, but I want to be sure.

[Arachnion]

Oh man, access to the costume creator would be AMAZING!!! Too bad I just found this out at work...

That only applies to Mac users, right? I already have a copy, but I want to be sure.

Yes. For windows all you do is drop Icon.exe into one of your CoH folders then run it.

Perfectly safe. For windows.

:D

[daveyfiacre]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
tytytytytytytytyyty tthaaaannkkk yooouuuuu


also, im curious about parts like the snakes and banished pantheon parts. im guessing because those are such altered rigs they dont work at all for the bodies, but they still do emotes and the talons have the snake tails... so how did they do that? XD

and i made a princess peach. ^_^ grrr for no umbrella mace option.

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-prn1%2F60944_10101267525670430_198246204_n.jpg

[corvus1970]

"Bowser, you are SO eating this broom!"

Thank you yet again Codewalker. So very, very awesome! :)

[Arachnion]

also, im curious about parts like the snakes and banished pantheon parts. im guessing because those are such altered rigs they dont work at all for the bodies, but they still do emotes and the talons have the snake tails... so how did they do that? XD

Different geometry models, probably.

[Tardigrade]

First off, thank you Codewalker for the program, RedRacoon for the hint, and TheManga for the Mac instructions. This post concerns that last bit. Like other posters, I've had problems getting the character creator to work on a Mac, so I thought I'd provide more detailed information in the hopes it'll help someone figure out what's going wrong.

I followed TheManga's instructions with one change: I used Property List Editor to edit Info.plist, rather than using TextEdit. (I think the PLE is installed with the Apple developer tools.) When I try to launch the edited client, I get an error dialog: "ERROR Failed to launch process!" That's the same whether I try the I23 or I24 clients. I'm able to get more information, and a different error, if I launch the client manually using Terminal:

$./City\ of\ Heroes\ Beta\ copy.app/Contents/MacOS/cider
Could not stat /Users/brian/Stuff/games/City of Heroes/City of Heroes Beta copy.app/Contents/Resources/transgaming/f_drive (No such file or directory), ignoring drive F:
err:virtual:MapViewOfFileEx the address 0xffffffff has already been reserved!
err:heap:HEAP_CreateSystemHeap system heap base address 0x65430000 not available
err:wave_audiodevice:audio_device_stereo_channels device 258 failed to get preferred stereo channels (0x77686f3f)
err:wave_audiodevice:audio_device_channel_volume_writable device 258 failed to get volume writable (0x77686f3f)
err:wave_audiodevice:audio_device_format failed to get device 258 format inputChannel: 0 (0x77686f3f)
err:wave_audiodevice:audio_device_format failed to get device 260 format inputChannel: 1 (0x77686f3f)
err:wave_audiodevice:audio_device_format failed to get device 262 format inputChannel: 1 (0x77686f3f)

The client tries to connect to a few sites, then gives me the following error dialog: "ALERT You can't run this program directly, please run NCSoft Launcher instead." (followed by the same in French and German).

On a different Mac I got a different error: "could not load library './City\ of\ Heroes\ copy.app/Contents/MacOS/cider.so' as Winelib application:". I've only been able to find that kind of error mentioned in two places with Google searches, so it's rare, whatever it is. On the Mac I'm testing now, I don't see that error.

I know that the I24 client I have works with the Icon program, as I copied the coh folder to a Windows machine and was able to launch the costume creator.

I suspect other Mac users encountering problems are having the same ones I am, so if anyone has suggestions for things to try, I'll test them and post my results here.

[Codewalker]

Testing results:

Works fine in the Beta client
Works fine in the Live client
Does not work in the Test client

Makes sense, the offsets are hardcoded for the two builds mentioned in the OP.

I have another technique that I may employ at some point that would make it compatible with virtually any build, possibly even really old ones. It was first developed for an unreleased program and later used in Cameraman, but works well for robust... meddling. Just takes longer to put together.

Also, if I make a copy of the Live client in another directory, Icon does not work from that directory.  It seems if your client registry keys point to a valid client you can't run Icon from another directory with a copy of that client.  You *can* apparently run it from a client directory when the registry keys do not exist at all; it will make them just like the client will (as Icon basically launches the client).

That's odd. If that happens then I'd think client itself doesn't work in that circumstance?

Icon completely ignores the registry entries. Mostly out of necessity (a pop-up installation chooser would have taken longer to write), but that also makes it so you can just drop it into a folder tree and it'll work, assuming the client itself works.

It just launches cityofheroes.exe from the working directory that it's run from.

[Arachnion]

You can save costumes while in NPC Edit mode.

;D

[John Phaser]

Thank you very much Codewalker, from french players.

And I want to thank participants of this topic too, in which this idea wouldn't be possible :)

[daveyfiacre]

yeah, thought so about the snake tails. :( lol

also curious, older npc pieces are not in here maybe? i cant really find Lord  Recluse stuff, or Kheldian man-sash...
just curious. :)

STILL OVERWHELMED WITH HAPPINESS WE STILL HAVE THIS. tytytytytytytyty

[Xenos]

FYI to everyone - some people are having problems launching the Mac version if the enclosing folder has a space in the name.  Try taking the space out. 

Which folder do you consider the "enclosing folder"? The one the icon.exe is in, or anything higher up? If it is the folder icon.exe is in, mine is "coh". No spaces...and yes, I deleted all the files you recommended. Still the same problem: "Error. Failed to launch process".

Thanks for the suggestion though.

[Arachnion]

also curious, older npc pieces are not in here maybe? i cant really find Lord  Recluse stuff, or Kheldian man-sash...
just curious. :)

Keep digging. Maybe try your Live version of the game.

There are a lot of NPC parts.

[Codewalker]

The ones selectable in the creator are generally only the ones designed to be used with the player rig.

Older NPCs were often entire models. They might or might not use the same skeleton, but they didn't have interchangeable costume parts like players do -- even portions that were similar to player costumes were "baked in" to the model. Those models had lower polygon counts than players, for performance reasons. There are a few exceptions -- most of them static contacts like Woodsman.

Lord Recluse for instance has a geo file all to himself that the game treats as a single part.

Sometime right around CoV, the devs must have decided that graphics cards had improved to the point where they could just use player rigs for many NPCs. That meant that they could use the costume creator to design them -- making it easier and faster to do so. After that point many more NPCs were designed using discrete parts, which also meant they could mix and match for variety.

There are also a few costume parts -- like the elusive Kheldian sash -- that have separate geos for them, but have no entry in costume.bin. PPD Awakened use the player rig along with this piece in their belt slot:

male_BELT.geo/GEO_BELT_Sunstorm !Belt_V_Kheldian_PPD_01 none 4b4b4b ababab

That particular geo could be manually added to a demorecord and it should work, but it's not one of the selections that the costume creator gives -- even to devs.

[daveyfiacre]

thanks so much Arachnion and Codewalker! :)

y'all are genius. and very very much appreciated.