*note: wasn't sure where exactly to put this so mods feel free to shuffle this somewhere else*
At the announcement of City of Heroes' closure I had made a post on here about my intent to create and extensive map project for the purpose of being able to create and edit video demorecords after the sunset of CoH. I've been playing with demorecords since launch, won one of the two video contests back when they were around, and recently published my
Farewell Video to celebrate 8 years of memories in Paragon City. And the great thing about the demorecord function is that it doesn't require the CoH servers to be up, it only requires you to have the game installed. But you need some other things too, and that's why I started this thread now.
This post I'm going to talk about what my map project is, what I have, what I
need and what resources we have to work in demorecords - and most importantly what
you might want to capture before the ultimate mapserver on Nov. 30. Then I'm going to copy/paste my post in
this thread to give an example of how my project works using Atlas Park as an example.
What is the Evangel Map Project?Using the demorecord function in CoH (typing /demorecord <filename> in the chat box) I mapped the four corners (or more than four in most cases) of most of the zones in CoH. Then, using a grid program I map out the zone's map to scale with each unit of location on the grid equal to one foot. The units in the CoH coordinate system appear to coordinate to feet, so if you type /loc and then move about one foot and type /loc again one or two of the numbers (depending on your location relative to center, and where you're facing) should move by almost exactly 1.
My goal is to create a map grid for every zone and host them for download so that after sunset you can create demorecord movies and screenshots of your hero, so that you can still enjoy the game in a fashion. The project is currently on hold because I want to spend the next few weeks doing what I loved about CoH -
playing it. I don't want to spend time on a project when I can still enjoy the game. But as you'll see below I'm posting this now so that you can prepare your character in case you want to use these maps.
After sunset I will finish the grids and host the maps. And then I plan to do an extensive set of how-to posts and perhaps a few videos to get people going on how to record/edit/dump their files to make videos and screenshots.
What I Have:All hero, praetorian, and villain zones, as well as a few dozen unique indoor and outdoor maps.
Resources:There are many but my particular favorite is
The CoH Codex Site. It's out of date but has a massive collection of movement files, NPC character names, and FX animations. It even has a map section for zone files. If there are any more like this that you know about please post them here, it's great work by the author capturing all of that!
What YOU Need:If you want to take advantage of these maps to make your own movies or screenshots then you'll want to prepare with your character(s) by making demofiles of what I call their "skins". You can log in to the game and make a demofile that contains all of a character's costumes and once that is saved you can copy/paste that info into new demofiles even after sunset and you can have your hero walk the streets of Paragon once more! Here's how:
How to make a demorecord:1) The less clutter in a demofile the better - so I like to either enter a mission and clear it out completely or, easier in my opinion, make a quick MA arc that has no villains and something trivial like a glowie and then go into test mode and enter the mission. Either way the trick is to have it empty so that you don't have 100 other models cluttering up your demo file.
2) Once ready, keep the camera still, don't mess around with the mouse and pans because that clutters up the file as well.
3) in the chatbox type
/demorecord <filename> and hit enter (note: replace <filename> with whatever you want to call the file, like: evangels_costumes )
4) in local chat type
costume 1 and switch to that costume. wait thirty seconds, then type
costume 2 and switch to that one, rinse and repeat. You can name them whatever is helpful for you to remember that costume.
5) when all done type
/demostop and hit enter. You're done with the game portion!
6) navigate to your game folder (usually Program Files/NCSoft/CityOfHeroes) and there should be a folder labeled "client_demos". Inside that you should find your file. You can open it up using Notepad and if you scroll down a bit it should look similar to this:
7) Keep that file in a safe place and then go back to playing CoH while you can!
As stated above later I will do some how-to's so that you can clean that file up, make some edits and have some fun in Paragon City even after the doors are locked. The next post is an example of how I've used this all to map out AP. For now, capture your character(s) and then put it aside for a bit. Go enjoy the game!!
Go. Hunt. Save CoH.
Evangel | Infinity Server
