City of Heroes Fan-Comic series

[Torroes.Prime]

Greetings all,

Last week end I attended a Meet and Greet. While at the Meet and Greet there were several pieces of information regarding the direction the CoH Story was going to take in the coming issues. I did not think of it at the time and so am only operating from memory at this point but the tidbits were very enticing and more then a little infuriating when it was realized that they were what was going to happen in CoH in a future that is likely never going to happen now.

Still the tidbits stuck with me and before long they started bouncing around in my head and simply would not subside. Then I had an idea for a plan of my own contribution to the City of Heroes Legacy. Fan Comics that continue on from where City of Heroes left off. When City of Heroes returns they will be a monument to our own willpower to keep our City alive no matter the challenges and should the worst truly come to pass and City of Heroes does not return, they shall be our own continuance despite all other factors.

So here is what I am thinking. I'm sure there are other fans out there that have been given other tidbits of intentions for where the story was headed. I would ask that those individuals come forward and supply those tidbits, preferably privately but in truth there is no way to control it. We will then turn the tidbits over to interested writers (Fan writers mind you. Not talking about hiring JMS or anything here) who, using the tidbits as an outline will create the stories and then the scripts for what will become the comics. Then the writers will work with Storyboard artists to put together the storyboard panels and rough plans for the comics. Those Story boards will then be used by Demo editors to create the demo files that will allow us to grab screen caps. Those screen caps can then be edited as needed by interested individuals using Photoshop to address any short falls that we want to address (Facial expressions, fingers pointing rather then hands, lighting, coloring effect ect) to create the actual images that will be used in the comics themselves. From there it's a fairly straight forward matter to assemble the images into the comics themselves.

I have done this before with my own Fan comics, City of Heroes: A Legacy of Sin. The process itself does work. Personally I think it provides considerably creative control over the process and allows us to accomplish more then what would be possibly with just screen caps. It does work. It is however rather labor intensive. So, that is why I am posting here.

I am putting the word out and seeking individuals who are interested in pursuing this effort with me. Who is interested?

Post here or send me a Private message and I'll get back you as soon as I possibly can.

[eabrace]

If it's the meet & greet I'm thinking it was, said former Paragon staffer posted a picture from the gathering on Twitter. 

[The Fifth Horseman]

Some of it was mentioned in the Lore AMA and the recent interview with Matt and Melissa.

I'm interested in this, but have a project to complete first (which may be somewhat relevant to this idea).

[Torroes.Prime]

Some of it was mentioned in the Lore AMA and the recent interview with Matt and Melissa.

I'm interested in this, but have a project to complete first (which may be somewhat relevant to this idea).

Oh? Do I dare ask what that project may be?

[The Fifth Horseman]

A website intended for the express purpose of sharing CoH demos and demo editing reference.

[Torroes.Prime]

A website intended for the express purpose of sharing CoH demos and demo editing reference.

Ah, well it certainly wouldn't hurt the project any.

[Mantic]

A possibly more efficient method would be to create a special "bluescreen" map (perhaps even a set of uniform color sky files so that you can use anti-aliasing without creating problematic artifacts) and take your character screenshots there, using Icon and mov commands. Only using a demo file if you need combat action and effects.

Use Icon or the regular i23+ F2 demo camera detachment to snag backdrops on their own. Then composite in your paint program, scaling and applying other effects (depth of field blurring, etc.) there, rather than in the game engine.

This allows you a lot more control over composition without having to tweak demos and load the game engine over and over. You could still fall back on full scene demo or Icon captures when you have a shot with complicated perspective relationships, but for all else this would be fastest. Especially since you could morgue many captures of the elements and re-use them.

I mention this because I've been playing around with something similar already. In my case I have not made an alternate sky (yet), but I did modify the ..\data\texture_library\GUI\CREATION\HybridUI\CharecterCreationUI\background.texture[/b] (background_dark.texture and background_light.texture also... all found in stage1b.pigg) to a uniform color field for caps taken in the character creation menu. This alone is not ideal, but it works well enough for limited purposes.

[Torroes.Prime]

We're already using a similar method to this for certain shots. It helps when we need to build an image through layers were one toon needs to be entangled in another say in a battle or there's simply no easy way to get several toons in the proper position in a single shot. The big catch with this method for more then those couple shots is that you then have to shoot the back ground separately and composite the shot in Photoshop before you can do much else with it.

[Mantic]

"The big catch with this method for more then those couple shots is that you then have to shoot the back ground separately and composite the shot in Photoshop before you can do much else with it."

I guess I'm just used to working in the paint programs more than hacking demos. Compositing seems far faster and easier to me.

[Torroes.Prime]

"The big catch with this method for more then those couple shots is that you then have to shoot the back ground separately and composite the shot in Photoshop before you can do much else with it."

I guess I'm just used to working in the paint programs more than hacking demos. Compositing seems far faster and easier to me.

Don't misunderstand me. The method you describe does absolutely have it's time and place. It gives some great ways to combines separate elements in ways that can't be done in game, or perhaps to create effects that can't be done in game.

if you look at City of Heroes: A Legacy of Sin issue 1, I can point out points where I did use layers to composite images and places where it was just more effective to demo edit.

Page 3 of the file, frame 2 where Torroes is using the communicator in his arm. Making that entire image from start of demo editing to finalizing the image that would be used in the page took about 2 minutes and about 40 seconds of that was typing in the text and positioning it. Just make the demo, set the coordinates (super freaking easy with Icon now), set the animation, run the demo with screen dump on. Grab the image, drop it into photoshop, run the action script I created for the comicy-effect, apply text as needed. Done.

But in panel 5 of that same page, where the Spec Op is using the wire cam, I used the exact method you describe because I wasn't apply to create the wire effect in such a way that the comic-effect script would apply to the image properly. So I shot the background plate, then the fore ground image of the Spec op, layered 'em together, applied the comic action to each, added a new layer for the wire then comiced that. Once each layer was complete I was able to flatten them into the final image.

Panel 3 on page 10 is another perfect example of using the composite method. I started with 3 seperate images, one of Torroes on a totally blue background, one of the Rikti on a similar background, and then of the background from the arachnos base. Because each part is on a separate layer I was able to apply various effects to them and then composite them into the final image used in the comic.





Also the big problem is I'm presently the only member of my team who does know how to create a composited image from start to finish. I have 3 demo editors who know how to make demos, and I have one photoshop artist who is currently doubling as the storyboard artist. At the moment I'm the only who knows how to demo edit and photoshop.

[Mantic]

Please check your private messages.

[Sin Stalker]

Greetings all,

Last week end I attended a Meet and Greet. While at the Meet and Greet there were several pieces of information regarding the direction the CoH Story was going to take in the coming issues. I did not think of it at the time and so am only operating from memory at this point but the tidbits were very enticing and more then a little infuriating when it was realized that they were what was going to happen in CoH in a future that is likely never going to happen now.

Still the tidbits stuck with me and before long they started bouncing around in my head and simply would not subside. Then I had an idea for a plan of my own contribution to the City of Heroes Legacy. Fan Comics that continue on from where City of Heroes left off. When City of Heroes returns they will be a monument to our own willpower to keep our City alive no matter the challenges and should the worst truly come to pass and City of Heroes does not return, they shall be our own continuance despite all other factors.

So here is what I am thinking. I'm sure there are other fans out there that have been given other tidbits of intentions for where the story was headed. I would ask that those individuals come forward and supply those tidbits, preferably privately but in truth there is no way to control it. We will then turn the tidbits over to interested writers (Fan writers mind you. Not talking about hiring JMS or anything here) who, using the tidbits as an outline will create the stories and then the scripts for what will become the comics. Then the writers will work with Storyboard artists to put together the storyboard panels and rough plans for the comics. Those Story boards will then be used by Demo editors to create the demo files that will allow us to grab screen caps. Those screen caps can then be edited as needed by interested individuals using Photoshop to address any short falls that we want to address (Facial expressions, fingers pointing rather then hands, lighting, coloring effect ect) to create the actual images that will be used in the comics themselves. From there it's a fairly straight forward matter to assemble the images into the comics themselves.

I have done this before with my own Fan comics, City of Heroes: A Legacy of Sin. The process itself does work. Personally I think it provides considerably creative control over the process and allows us to accomplish more then what would be possibly with just screen caps. It does work. It is however rather labor intensive. So, that is why I am posting here.

I am putting the word out and seeking individuals who are interested in pursuing this effort with me. Who is interested?

Post here or send me a Private message and I'll get back you as soon as I possibly can.

If you have artists doing story boards, why not just have them draw the comic? A comic is essentially a storyboarded story.

[Mantic]

My guess is it's a matter of time commitment. Simple breakdown thumbs can be done in a few minutes while a page of final art represents hours of work. Using screenshot elements reduces that also to minutes rather than hours.

That's assuming you have anyone with the ability to actually do finished art in a suitable style. After all, you can still learn enough about composition and convention to do breakdowns without being an illustrator -- some pure writers include breakdown thumbs with their scripts.

[Torroes.Prime]

If you have artists doing story boards, why not just have them draw the comic? A comic is essentially a storyboarded story.

it defeats the entire purpose of using demo edited screen caps from the game engine itself for the images.