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I never upgraded to IE7 because I heard somewhere you needed SP2 for that, and I reuse to upgrade to SP2. I have a laptop, so if drivers get messed up or something, I can't just replace my hardware... my laptop turns into a paperweight.
Earlier today, I actually saw a computer running IE7 for the first time. My initial reaction was "Whoa... this looks just like FireFox."
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I learn things to an intermediate level very easily, but seem incapable of ever advancing to the elite level. I'll never be the best in the world at anything.
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That's unfortunate, I was looking forward to helping you with this.
I guess I'll go look for some memory locations for you. Be sure to say when you get your computer issues straightened out.
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Hey, I just thought of something. It might be worth it to think about skipping Minnie's weapon. The extra time spent on the boss fights might be canceled out by skipping the 3 rooms and the flashing screen needed to pick up the weapon.
My main concern would be the really, really laggy rock-throwing monsters in the Forest level. Other than that, this theory seems plausible. Just a thought.
Edit: Also, don't forget to try manipulating a fairy to get past the falling light fixture faster.
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In my old run, I stopped at the Witch room. I'll see if I can dig it up off my external drive sometime this week.
Edit: looks like all that remains of my old Mickey run is a scrap from the first three rooms. Still, it's about 1.33 seconds faster than yours at that point.
http://www.rphaven.org/cad/1mickey.fcm
The first room manipulates the snakes into a more desirable position. I'm sure you could do a better job with the ladders, though.
The third room shows how you can keep Minnie in front of you so that she exits the room before Mickey gets to the door. You can use this trick in all the chest rooms.
There is actually a trick for making Minnie and Mickey walk in opposite directions, using L+R. However, it's a slow process and I never found a use for it.
Edit 2: And here's a rough demonstration of killing the final boss with fairy. I'd imagine you'd be able to manipulate the window in which the fairy appears to be farther away from the entrance so that you won't have to wait as long to shoot it open.
http://www.rphaven.org/cad/honey_girl.fcm
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Fun. I was running this game once, but quit at one point.
- Did you try using the reset button or pressing start on the title screen a few frames later to get the snakes in the first room into a better position? It's really not necessary to wait that long in the first room.
- Did you try manipulating fairies at all? I know that you can manipulate one to help you kill the final boss faster. What about crystals that make all the enemies in the room vanish to reduce lag?
Good improvement, but still far from perfect. Yes vote.
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nitsuja wrote:
I don't think the "let the viewer play around here" part is very important, since they can already do that if they want to
I kinda agree, but that was kind of an afterthought from the suggestion of having the movie stop automatically to let you watch skipped parts like cutscenes. Trying to follow the story yourself while trying to enjoy the movie at the same time is really annoying. An auto pause/resume feature would be very useful.
Example: I watched the FF1 movie, and I found it really boring for the most part. The only reason I found it interesting was the luck manipulation and the fact that it showed how to get directly from one critical point to the next. However, having never played the game myself, and having no desire to play it, I would have loved to have the movie tell the game's story along the way. I probably would have read every dialogue had they been visible. Trying to stop the movie at just the right times, taking savestates, and reloading the movie constantly is difficult work and is certainly not entertaining to do.
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Wow, less than 12 hours and this thread really gets off-topic.
Tub wrote:
I think the suggestion involved that the creator of the movie could set those points, to tell the viewer "hey, this is a good area to look around".
If you don't know the game, you won't be able to judge where to place your savestates. On dialoges, you'll realize you should have placed a savestate right after the dialog has been skipped, when it's too late.
That's exactly the idea.
For those of you who say "Just take your own save states!" I say, heck, why not just do the whole TAS yourself? The idea is to introduce a new way to allow the movie maker to entertain the watcher, not for the watcher to entertain themselves. TASes would become like DVDs with built-in behind the scenes footage and video commentary.
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Problem: While you say you strive for entertaining TASes on this site, TASes can leave out some of the most entertaining parts of a game in exchange for being as fast as possible. This might include skipped dialogue, cutscenes, unused tricks or glitches, among other things. What I'm proposing is a small and simple addition to emulator movie formats. I've heard talk about adding subtitles and such, but I think this idea would be much easier to implement, and it would make watching a TAS on the emulator a much more fun experience.
The idea is a "movie stop" command to be placed inside of the emulator movie format as an input. Upon executing this command, the emulator would take a savestate then stop the movie input, allowing the player to temporarily take over. This could be used for allowing the user to read dialogue or watch cutscenes without hurting the movie's framecount. When finished, the watcher could hit a resume button, which would reload the movie and the state, and continue playing from that point.
It might also have other uses, such as "Why not explore this glitched area for a while before I zip through it?" or "Try beating this boss yourself and see how hard it is before you watch me decimate it in two seconds!"
Of course, if you just wanted to watch the movie without having the whole interactive experience, you could disable an option and cause the emulator to completely ignore all these commands and just play the TAS. Also, it might be fun to allow the watcher to stop the movie themselves and play around for a bit, without having to wait for a place the movie creator suggests they do this.
An extension on this idea: Replay branches. This might be more difficult to implement, but would exponentially increase the entertainment level of TASes. A similar command would be issued and a savestate would be taken, but instead of stopping the movie, it would start playing a series of input which is flagged off from the main movie. Upon finishing these inputs, it would either stop the movie and wait until the watcher presses the resume button, or it would automatically resume after a specified amount of frames. Resuming would load the state and cause the movie to continue from the end of the flagged area. I'd imagine it would be difficult to accurately measure the movie's framecount with all the extra data in the file, but it sounds like it could be done with some extra effort. Also, the emulator should show the watcher some kind of indication that it is playing a branch instead of the main movie.
To recap, here are the applications these ideas might have:
-Allow watchers to view parts of the game which the TAS would normally skip, such as dialogue or cutscenes, without damaging the movie's time
-Allow watchers to play parts of the game for themselves to better appreciate the TAS
-Allow movie makers to show off tricks and glitches that are entertaining but not fast as possible
-Create instant replays of cool tricks
-Create blooper reels
A downside to this would be the difficulty in programming the tools necessary to create this extra content, not to mention the difficulty on the movie makers to actually record the extra content. Besides that, it sounds like a neat idea that would add a new level of satisfaction and interactivity to the whole TAS experience.
Thoughts?
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That was really fun to watch. Their timeline was believable, except for the part about OoA and OoS being on the separate timelines. I mean, Link goes back and forth through those games with the password system, completing fetch quests for people in one game located in the other.
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That's not a game GIF! :P
I had another idea for one, but I didn't have the patience to import AVIs and crop them and stuff.
* Scene of playing SMB1. Mario jumps into a pit. Screen freezes for a second.
* Mario is seen falling down an endless pit. He shifts around a bit, then says "..." and just continues to fall
* Cut to a Teen Girl Squad character saying "When you fall in a bottomless pit, you die of starvation."
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theenglishman wrote:
My favourite Mega Brain quotes:
"Hey! Have you found all the items?"
"Hoo! Hoo! Wasting your MP is not a smart move!"
and, of course, my favourite,
"Do be do be do be do be do be do be do!"
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hopper wrote:
At the end of the input, the game pauses for me. Mario doesn't collect the star until I press the Start button on my controller. Is that just me, or does that need to be fixed?
Strangely enough, this run actually completes for me. I thought I had a bad ROM when the rest of the Mario64 runs would end with Mario standing beneath the final star, waiting for me to hit A to make him collect it. This time, he actually grabbed the star for me.
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So, I just found out how to make animated GIFs. I find looping scenes from games to be funny, so I made some myself.
http://www.rphaven.org/cad/boring.gif
-The most boring part of Boulder Dash. I was going to make this my avatar, but it's too big.
http://www.rphaven.org/cad/megabrain.gif
-Mega Brain from NES Widget, illustrating just how weird this game is. Unfortunately, you never get to see this in the run I submitted.
http://www.rphaven.org/cad/monstersdance.gif
-This one took some effort to make, but I think it came out fairly amusing. Although I did screw up the slime. Oops.
I'd like to see some that other people have made.
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I saw this movie for the first time about a month ago, and for a good portion of it, I just couldn't help but think "screen saver."
I found the movie to be thought-provoking in some areas, at best.
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IdeaMagnate wrote:
How hard were the following glitches to find and execute?
* invisible ladder to glitched area (and completion of the glitched area)?
* invisible platforms
* very familiar walking through walls
The ladder glitch was easy to do. After finding the effects of U+D on a ladder and the "secret world", I accidentally stumbled upon the quick exit. Although, it took me a while to realize I had to get the screen to scroll right then left before the exit would open up. Walking through walls wasn't so hard either. Finding the invisible platforms was very difficult. Sometimes they'd be where I'd want, sometimes they wouldn't be, and sometimes the game would crash. Also, it requires a very specific key sequence to jump off one, or else I'd just fall off or bump my head against an invisible ceiling.
DonamerDragon wrote:
I am having a hard time understanding when the warp glitch can be used. You just seem to use it randomly, as if you could do it any time. Why can't the warp glitched be used the entire time or close to it?
If you mean the zipping, there are lots of reasons. Zipping only works from left to right. Also it doesn't scroll the screen, so it can only be used at the beginning and ending of levels and on single screen rooms. If you zip to the right side of the screen then try to walk right, you'll be warped back to the center of the screen.
If you mean the "exit before you reach a door" glitch, this is the result of what pressing L+R does: It applies the wrong collision detection to you, effectively warping you to somewhere else in the level data. The reason I can't use this constantly is because I can't access the glitched exits from too far away.
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Tafatt wrote:
Would it be faster if the ladderglitch is used on the first ladder?
Did this in real time so it looks bad but it's the concept thats important. FCM File. The idea is to reduce the climbtime.
That's a good idea, but it doesn't work unless you can get the glitch to activate on the first try. Otherwise, the extra load time eats up the time saved. In the new movie, I just zipped to the ladder on the first frame it became climbable, which is probably faster either way.
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I actually finished this a few days ago, but I was participating in a "Get Offline Week" event.
I was really aiming for sub-6 here, and I nearly cried when I finished the movie and got 6:04. That's when I watched theenglishman's run again and noticed how he skipped the final dialogue (pressing B on two consecutive frames, instead of just once)...
So, I'm happy.
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First, it has to get accepted, then it has to wait in the queue for several months, then it will get published. Be patient.
Of course, if you manage to beat my time before then, it'll wind up canceled.
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I was actually aiming for Sub-6, but I couldn't get that. If only some new glitched doors could be found, this could be possible.
About the slug, just jump over the first Slug without taking damage. Since the slug and two alligators are on the screen at the same time, the second slug won't appear.
