I really need some way to get powers to actually animate

[Noyjitat]

Got videos I'm working on but I can only do so much without powers. We have punches and kicks but maces and guns disappear when you type the /mov command for them. And other than a very few select powers nothing elemental, energy etc works. No fireblasts, energy, dark or psi. Or perhaps some commands exist that I don't know of?

I wish I had the knowledge and time to learn how to make demofiles and code them but I don't. And since we don't have a playable version of the game to load up the trusty arena or some zone,  icon is the only way for me to make these videos.

I'm using icon as a way to tell my story for an animation series  that I one day hope to have out in the entertainment world. So I won't be posting it on youtube or anywhere for public eye or the evil people at disney to steal. It's simply a thing being passed between only the closest friends. I'm too afraid of someone stealing my ideas you know.

But icon gives me a way to take the story in my mind and put it out there visually for friends to enjoy. It's going to make it easier to brainstorm and when the time comes I'll actually use my own art and make it available to others (once everything is legal and trademarked)

[Drauger9]

This isn't really helpful but... I'm not sure how much time you spent in CoH. As for myself, I can still visualize how some of the powers would interplay with each other. Like the elec/ice controller I've been drooling over the past couple of months. I've played both power sets with different primary/secondaries. Elec/Emp and Ice/Ice so I can visualize how the Elec and Ice powers would interplay to some degree. If your able to do the same, the maybe all you'll actually need is Icon to help materialize the look of the characters you have in mind. Then let your visualization and your own creativety work it's magic for the powers your characters have.

I myself had thought about (when CoH was still running) using demo record to make my own make shift anime. Where the cast was a heavy metal band. Keeping Metal alive in a post appocaliptic world. LOL! The lead singer was going to be an SS/Fire brute. :P From one of my mains in the game. With most of my other favorites being other band members and roadies.

Take care. :)

[Garble]

Sadly there's currently no way to use powers inside the maps in Icon. Though, if you're a pro at video editing, you could make video of the powers from inside the costume editor and merge them with video from inside the maps.

It's not the same as being able to use powers in the game but here are some ways to use the current features of Icon to help make some effects.

Mov animations that feature special effects:

BLUE_SPELLCAST_BLINDING
BLUE_SPELLCAST_CYCLE
BLUE_SPELLCAST_CYCLE2
BLUE_SPELLCAST_LEVITATE
DEMUTATE
DEMUTATE_POSTCYCLE
ENC_PLANTTRAP_A   
ENC_PLANTTRAP_B   
ENC_PLANTTRAP_C
FAERIEWARP_RUNIN   
FAERIEWARP_RUNIN_POST   
FAERIEWARP_RUNOUT
GHOSTESCAPE
HERO_SPELLCASTFEAR
M_TRAINBOW_CONE   
M_TRAINBOW_HEAVY   
M_TRAINBOW_MID
MAGICWALK_A
MIRRORSPIRIT_TELEPORT
ORACLEFLOAT_IN
ORACLEFLOAT_OUT
PRESTIGE_SELFDESTRUCT
SIGNATURE_TELEPORT_PRE
SPELLCAST_BALLCAST   
SPELLCAST_BLINDING   
SPELLCAST_CYCLE   
SPELLCAST_CYCLE2   
SPELLCAST_CYCLE3   
SPELLCAST_LEVITATE   
SPELLCASTFEAR
TV_WARP_IN

Useful NPC models for creating special effects:

Ball_of_Light
Cloud_of_Ice
Croatoa_Dark_Fog
Crystal_Ball
Fireball
Floating_Fire
Force_Field
Giant_Robot_Jets
Hellion_Roof_Fire
Hellion_Window_Fire
Light_of_the_Well
Lightning_Bolt
Roof_Fire_Unselectable
Storm_Void
Storm_Vortex
Window_Fire_Unselectable
Witch_Rift
Witch_Rift_Multi

[Drauger9]

Nice Garble :) Even though I'm not the poster. I can image how helpful this could be. :)

[Noyjitat]

Sadly there's currently no way to use powers inside the maps in Icon. Though, if you're a pro at video editing, you could make video of the powers from inside the costume editor and merge them with video from inside the maps.

Is such a thing possible with sony vegas? That sounds a bit like layering images but how would you go about selecting part of a video to overlay onto an existing video? I only recently picked it up again.

Thank you for the other mov commands, I missed some of those and perhaps I can use them as well.

[Drauger9]

Is such a thing possible with sony vegas? That sounds a bit like layering images but how would you go about selecting part of a video to overlay onto an existing video? I only recently picked it up again.

I have no video editing experience so this may be way off but could you possible do something like a green screen? Where the character doing the animations are at the for front and the scene you want them in is the background? Just a suggestion. :)

[Arachnion]

Sequencer State Bits, maybe?

See this thread.

You'll have to learn how to use them, however.

Which involves digging through a large text file.

Just my suggestion.

:D

[wyldhunt]

Unfortunately, I don't think seqbits can really help here. I have made available a better mapping of MOVs to SEQBITS at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5FhLhcBjWhvMUc0UEtCWVRMUGM/edit?usp=sharing.  What this really shows is that all seqbits are accessible through their mov commands. They seem to have the same effect in Icon regardless how they're called. For example, "/mov 1_ROLLDICE_PRE" and "/seqbits EMOTE ROLLDICE HIGH" both show the same animation/effect.

Just to see what would happen, I went through a few of the Dual Wield movs/seqbits, and I didn't come across any that spawned fx/weapons, even for a character created with the Dual Blades powerset. Here is some more on weapons movs: http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9387.0.html.

Noyjitat, you already have what I know about toggle powers from here http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9216.0.html, so you can animate those in Icon (placing this link here to help others who come across this latest thread).

I am also interested in animating powers via Icon, since my purpose is supporting my sons using Icon to play in the CoX areas (as opposed to making movies), however it doesn't seem we can animate many powers at this point. Even so, just being able to call up the maps, alter their content, and have characters move through the environment is great!

[Arcana]

Its been a while, but if memory serves weapons being visible was a statebit thing, not a sequence bit thing.  Unless there's a way to set statebits from within Icon, I'm not sure a general way to visibly draw weapons exists.  Although technically speaking, Icon has a way to ad hoc set a state bit, so its possible the Icon gods could provide for this functionality in theory.  Its happening when you hit "1" to fly.  Fly is a toggleable statebit.

Its been about four years since I last discussed this with BaB, so I could be a bit rusty here.

[Noyjitat]

Hey so I figured out how to do masking and layering in vegas. Now I could make it almost perfect if it were possible to change the background image in the costume creator, right now I can just use the night and daytime button to make it almost white or almost black but if it were possible to change that image to just a white image it would be great.

Not sure if its possible but if I had to guess a certain pigg file just contains a image for that background and its as simple as swapping out the file

[Arachnion]

Hey so I figured out how to do masking and layering in vegas. Now I could make it almost perfect if it were possible to change the background image in the costume creator, right now I can just use the night and daytime button to make it almost white or almost black but if it were possible to change that image to just a white image it would be great.

Not sure if its possible but if I had to guess a certain pigg file just contains a image for that background and its as simple as swapping out the file

Yes, that's correct.

What you want is this folder structure:

data/texture_library/GUI/CREATION/HybridUI/CharecterCreationUI/background.texture (Normal Default Creator BG)
data/texture_library/GUI/CREATION/HybridUI/CharecterCreationUI/background_dark.texture (Dark BG)
data/texture_library/GUI/CREATION/HybridUI/CharecterCreationUI/background_light.texture (Light BG)

"Charecter" isn't my typo btw, it's that way in the files.

stage1b.pigg if you're curious, however the pigg that this stuff is in shouldn't matter.

You're going to need to make your white image into a .texture, then make sure it fits dimensions.

1024 x 1024 works.

Here's my working white background image texture, if you want.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53520447/background.texture (right click save as, for whatever reason it opens up in your browser..)

:)

[Noyjitat]

Ok stupid question... how do I make a new pigg file or modify the existing pigg? I found all of that in pigg viewer but I can't seem to delete the existing files within or paste the new ones into the program. I know it's called "Pigg Viewer" hence the name its for viewing only... but it seems to be the only program I can find that opens that file type.

[Arachnion]

Ok stupid question... how do I make a new pigg file or modify the existing pigg? I found all of that in pigg viewer but I can't seem to delete the existing files within or paste the new ones into the program. I know it's called "Pigg Viewer" hence the name its for viewing only... but it seems to be the only program I can find that opens that file type.

What you're asking is impossible, as far as I know.

You don't need to mess with the piggs at all to replace the creator background.

You must create a folder named "data" in the folder of the game version you use to run Titan Icon. The one with your cityofheroes.exe and all.

Then create these paths inside that "data" folder you just made.

texture_library/GUI/CREATION/HybridUI/CharecterCreationUI/background.texture (Normal Default Creator BG)
texture_library/GUI/CREATION/HybridUI/CharecterCreationUI/background_dark.texture (Dark BG)
texture_library/GUI/CREATION/HybridUI/CharecterCreationUI/background_light.texture (Light BG)

If that's confusing, then just create "texture_library" in "data" and keep making the new folders inside each other in "texture_library".

texture_library -> GUI -> CREATION -> HybridUI -> CharecterCreationUI (then place your background.texture here)

Run Icon, and boom, white BG.

My background.texture will only work for the default not dark/light BG though, so yeah.

Sorry, I hadn't realized you didn't know about the data folder before.

Hope this helps.

:-[

[Noyjitat]

Really see that was my first thought when you mentioned folders, but I already had a data folder and a textures library folder. So I created the GUI folder and all the others contained and it kept giving me an error about a mis named fiile when I tried to launch the game. So I looked at the actual pigg file and assumed you were talking about that instead.

[Arachnion]

Really see that was my first thought when you mentioned folders, but I already had a data folder and a textures library folder. So I created the GUI folder and all the others contained and it kept giving me an error about a mis named fiile when I tried to launch the game. So I looked at the actual pigg file and assumed you were talking about that instead.

Hmm.

Are you using the Beta version of the game or another one?

That's strange, I'd need to see the error or you to show me pictures of your data folder, or something.

I tested what I told you on my Icon install earlier, it worked right away, I wasn't even using any GUI folder or creator background changes before.

??? :o

[Noyjitat]

File "texture_library/GUI/CREATION/HybridUI/CharecterCreationUI/background_dark.texture" is misnamed, containing texture named "background"!

It's titan icon 1.71

I would like to point out at some time or other the new power customization stuff that was on the beta server disappeared. The UI for the power pools and epic pools is no longer in my character creator... I downloaded issue 24 beta on the savecoh.com site recently actually when I thought something might be broken

[Noyjitat]

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F1024x768q90%2F835%2Fktxm.jpg

[Arachnion]

Oh.

Well, that seems like a simple enough fix.

Move the dark and light texture files out of there, leaving only the background.texture

Is that background.texture the one you downloaded from my post in this thread, or no?

If it is, it SHOULD work when you go to try Icon with just the one background.texture file.

If it doesn't work, just report back.

:D

[Noyjitat]

It seems to work now. Thanks alot

[Arachnion]

No problem, man.

I don't have a clue about the power pools and such, though.

Odd.