TASVideos

Posted: 10/18/2008 1:53 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

So I wasn't the only one who wanted a piece of this TAS. Some surprising findings here: Wobbling to reduce lag, delayed step hopping, canceling the fall recovery and of course the zipping. Really good work with the subweapon and lag management. Incidentally, Bloodlines is the map of the month for 10/'08 over at vgmaps.

Posted: 10/4/2008 11:34 PM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

GreenaLink wrote:

There is a trick I've found in mission 7 but it might not save any frames because of the position at the end. In the Tetris block area when they are blinking to dissappear you can do a Burner boost Down to get inside every time it blinks, how fast it is to get out to the other side, depends on the burner fuel you have left and stuff for the rest of the level. But if it is faster then you might need to optimise your fuel for the rest of the level.

Tried it. It worked. I did something a little different and made it though in a single blink without using down+burner. I am requesting that the submission file be updated. Since there have been zero votes as of now, it shouldn't be a problem?

Posted: 10/4/2008 2:09 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

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KDR_11k wrote:

In the second to last stage, after the drill arm miniboss you hobble along for quite a while, it looked like you could have afforded to use the burner a bit more there?

The important thing is to make sure the burner is never allowed to stay full, and to use it up just before a boss, waiting area, or refill item. So it doesn't matter that the gauge gets a little high as long as it doesn't get full. (The regen rate is constant.)

GreenaLink in a PM wrote:

... Congratulations with your new completed submission. Were the other 15 frames saved from better optimisation?

I redid the first part of level 5 (the moving platform level) and reached the first boss encounter ~40 frames faster. I had to wait longer for that battle to begin so most of the gains were lost. (Seems to be a frame rule in effect.) I also redid a couple other places that gained 0 frames.

Posted: 8/27/2008 5:22 PM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

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Posts: 103

The Genesis seems to display two modes: wide (320x224) and narrow (256x224). Those two shots are taken during narrow mode display. Gens10, but not Gens9.5, stretches narrow display to wide display, but its screenshotting routine still autocrops the sides off. This is tangentially related to the old problem that Gens outputs WYSIWYG screenshots instead of 1x, unfiltered, no-overlaid-text-or-blue-tint screenshots.

Posted: 8/23/2008 11:01 PM
(Edited: 8/28/2008 2:01 AM)

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

Here is one for Metal Gear NES. http://lua.pastey.net/94532 Here is one for Super Smash TV SNES. ~~http://lua.pastey.net/94707~~ http://lua.pastey.net/94927

Posted: 8/23/2008 8:20 PM
(Edited: 8/25/2008 10:34 PM)

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

Body counter for Snake's Revenge. ~~http://lua.pastey.net/94524~~ Cleaned and unified with the other script: http://lua.pastey.net/94686 Thanks for the tip alden.

Posted: 8/22/2008 3:14 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
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I looked into making a camhack. This was unusual because the camera and the bike are on different coordinate systems. The bike axes are tilted an eighth turn counterclockwise and shifted down:

Watchlist:

address = 0x7e1c00, name = "X camera", size = 2, format = 1
address = 0x7e1c02, name = "Y camera", size = 2, format = 1
address = 0x7e1c10, name = "X camera", size = 2, format = 1
address = 0x7e1c12, name = "Y camera", size = 2, format = 1
address = 0x7e1c60, name = "X camera", size = 2, format = 1
address = 0x7e1c62, name = "Y camera", size = 2, format = 1
address = 0x7e1c64, name = "X camera", size = 2, format = 1
address = 0x7e1c66, name = "Y camera", size = 2, format = 1
address = 0x7e070a, name = "X' bike", size = 2, format = 1
address = 0x7e070e, name = "Y' bike", size = 2, format = 1

So you have to translate (x',y') to (x,y). I did that but I couldn't finish the job because writewording to the cam addresses causes messed up graphics and desyncs. Maybe someone else can do it. Here is a script to display bike/cam info. http://lua.pastey.net/94404

Posted: 8/16/2008 3:05 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
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For reference, there is a WB in ML movie: http://www.speedruns.net/content/view/163/184/

Posted: 8/11/2008 6:40 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

nineko wrote:

Is it just me, or does Gens 9.5 crash when you try to dump an AVI bigger than 2 gigabytes?

This seems to have happened between Gens 9.5b and 9.5c and also afflicts Gens 10.

Posted: 8/11/2008 4:24 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

Try saving the following as a SUB file and loading it in your media player with an avi. I would upload a video but mencoder gives me nothing but errors. This chore makes me wish for a feature to load plain text subtitles into the emulator alongside the movie file.

{0}{300}Might and Magic: Gates to Another World|played by Dammit|Play length: 06:15.33|Rerecord count: 4886
{400}{640}This is a tool-assisted recording.|For more information, visit http://tasvideos.org/
{711}{951}Temple blessing for Walk on Water
{958}{1198}Steal 3.2 million gold from a glitch character
{1212}{1452}Paid portal to Sandsobar town
{1659}{1899}Paid portal to Tundara town
{1979}{2219}Buy Witch's Broom for 1,000
{2366}{2606}Fly to B4, rescue Sherman and Nakazawa
{2870}{3110}Fly to A4, enter Atlantium
{3119}{3359}Pick up Sherman and Nakazawa at the inn
{3555}{3795}Buy 2 Teleport Orbs and 3 Black Tickets for 103,000
{3891}{4131}Black Ticket at Atlantium arena (1 of 3)
{4184}{4424}Fly to B2
{4454}{4694}Portal to Luxus basement
{4808}{5048}Get A1-Tolidor (1 of 4)
{5385}{5625}Portal to Hillstone basement
{5731}{5971}Get N-19 Capitor (2 of 4)
{6158}{6398}Portal to Woodhaven basement
{6796}{7036}Get M-27 Radicon (3 of 4)
{7333}{7573}Portal to Pinehurst basement
{7829}{8069}Get J-26 Fluxer (4 of 4)
{8174}{8414}Sherman quest done
{8563}{8803}Travel to year 800
{8936}{9176}Hide from guards, enter Xabran
{9483}{9663}Get Earth disc (1 of 4)
{9688}{9868}Get Fire disc (2 of 4)
{9877}{10057}Get Air disc (3 of 4)
{10090}{10270}Get Water disc (4 of 4)
{10316}{10556}Temple blessing for Water Transmutation
{10615}{10855}Buy Mountaineering skill x2 for 4,000
{10942}{11182}Fly to A4, enter water plane
{11365}{11605}Get Water talon (1 of 4)
{11722}{11962}Temple blessing for Air Transmutation
{11981}{12221}Fly to A1, enter air plane
{12522}{12762}Get Air talon (2 of 4)
{12847}{13087}Temple blessing for Earth Transmutation
{13091}{13331}Fly to E1, enter earth plane
{13392}{13632}Get Earth talon (3 of 4)
{13721}{13961}Temple blessing for Fire Transmutation
{13986}{14226}Fly to E4, enter fire plane
{14376}{14616}Get Fire talon (4 of 4)
{14731}{14971}Black Ticket at Middlegate arena (2 of 3)
{15034}{15274}Fly to D4, enter Dawn's Cavern
{15502}{15742}Ninja quest: Kill Dawn
{15869}{16109}Get Element Orb, dismiss hireling
{16123}{16363}Run to exit
{16727}{16967}Get back hireling and orb
{17270}{17510}Fly to A2, enter Pinehurst
{18029}{18269}Travel to year 800, give orb and talons
{18472}{18712}Temple blessing for Walk on Water
{18869}{19109}Black Ticket at Sandsobar arena (3 of 3)
{19208}{19448}Fly to D2, get credit for ninja quest
{19709}{19949}Hide from guards, enter Luxus
{20164}{20404}Receive final quest
{20560}{20800}Fly to C2, enter Square Lake
{21862}{22519}We, the people of Terra, in order to form a more perfect union, establish...

Posted: 8/9/2008 4:13 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

You mean stop at about this frame?

The missile will just crash into the far left wall. The target is no more vulnerable on the last hit: You still have to get around the gun pod and hit the orange circle from underneath. Did you mean something else?

Posted: 8/8/2008 4:50 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

Accept:

It's short and high quality.
Rejecting quality runs is bad practice.
Subs like it have been accepted (e.g., MM1).

Reject:

It's unpopular.
Accepting unpopular runs is bad practice.
Subs like it have been rejected (e.g., Aqfaq's Madou movie).

So short of refining the accept/reject dichotomy like alden suggests, you're back to where you started. I'm glad I'm not a judge. In any case, I'm unlikely to do any more of these envelope-pushing TASes.

Posted: 8/7/2008 10:07 PM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

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Posts: 103

No good. Even if you redo the boss and finish at the same frame, the level takes 6 more frames to fade out on the good rom. It throws off the rest of the movie. Audit your roms.

Posted: 8/7/2008 6:08 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

Aqfaq wrote:

Better than an average Steven Seagal movie.

I like Seagal flicks so I take that as a compliment. In fact I kept thinking of Under Siege 2 during the train parts. He prefers "takes no damage" runs though.

Cardboard wrote:

Sooo, any reason not to make it... stealth, like Metal Gear is supposed to be played (Read: How much slower would it be to avoid alerts whenever possible)? And this game is just too fubar to be true :( Holding vote.

Not much slower, 2-3 minutes. I certainly would have considered all-stealth if only it was possible.

Posted: 7/24/2008 10:29 PM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

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OK, thanks. Now I am prepared to watch SCD movies. And make them. I discovered another problem: CUEs won't load if they refer to a BIN with a space in the filename, even if you use quotation marks. Workaround: remove or replace space characters.

Posted: 7/24/2008 6:41 PM

Post subject: ASPI ASPI ASPI

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

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Posts: 103

SCD still requires ASPI and ASPI is still unsupported in non-Itanium Win64. Any advice for installing it in XP 64 or Vista 64? I think it's been done before. I tried tinkering with the sys and dll files but still No Drive Detected. Upthorn, can you make a Gens dialog to ask for a CD image directly, without looking at drives? That would be one way around this. We're never gonna use real CDs for recording or playback anyway.

Posted: 7/18/2008 6:00 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

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Not the reply you wanted upthorn, but can you elaborate on those recent developments? Gens homepage seems to be down or maybe it moved.

Posted: 7/12/2008 2:45 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

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IW1 is slow and too long. IW2 is shorter and somewhat faster. IW3 is much better to play and watch. Maybe the nostalgia factor for the audience could spill over to the sequels. You'd have to do 2-player of course. They're all inferior to their arcade originals, but since those are not TASable, it's not your problem.

Posted: 7/8/2008 3:35 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
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My point was not about the morality of acceptance or rejection, or conserving site resources. Those are separate problems. It's about knowing what the audience wants. Making a TAS is a huge amount of work. Huge. It's easy to say, "just TAS whatever you want," or "every game should have a TAS," until it gets down to the work of making them. When a well made TAS gets ignored, that shows a serious disconnect between the maker and the watchers. Even if it doesn't get rejected. The TAS maker needs to know how popular the games to pick them judiciously. If you ask for opinions in the forum, you might get a few enthusiastic replies but that's not a good measure of how wanted the work is. Take out the guesswork. If it also saves judge work and bandwidth, that's an incidental bonus. I don't want to belabor this point, which is just an extension to the original idea of a full gamelist. And thanks for the hosting alden.

Posted: 7/5/2008 6:37 PM
(Edited: 7/6/2008 3:42 AM)

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

Here's an extension to the good game/bad game idea. Add a pair of columns: Thumbs up: good game to TAS Thumbs down: bad game to TAS (blank fields if the game already has a movie) Site users vote by clicking their choice. The game is dynamically designated good or bad depending on the numbers. Red titles, orange titles or missing titles are absent from the submission form list. For example, to avoid the hassle of judging obscure stuff, Bisqwit can set a strict threshold, so that unknown games are bad until proven popular enough to be good. This would also obviate all those wish list threads. Edit: diction (how easy it is to sound hostile) Flagging bad games a priori reduces the workload for judges and helps players avoid wasting their time on a game no one cares about. Edit: explanation

Posted: 7/2/2008 1:51 AM

Post subject: Game list

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

The site could use a directory to tie together forum threads, the tricks pages on the wiki and movies for each game. This would deal with the following:

* The ListOfIdeas page is high-maintenance and not very useful. * There's no list of games that haven't been TASed. * It's a hassle to track the movie history for games. * Superfluous threads get started in the forum because users don't know what's already there.The idea, based on Aqfaq's work, is to list every game and link all related on-site info. The result is manageable because the table is re-sortable: I used this javascript to re-sort the tables, though tasvideos already has its own sorting function. Here is a mockup of the SNES directory. It only has a few titles, and I added fake entries for illustration. The no-intro naming convention was used here, but GoodSNES or the NSRT database would also work. The CSS and icons are copied from tasvideos.org/css. Sorry if the html is unclean. I'm not a web designer and I don't have webspace. If someone wants to put them up for easier viewing, go ahead. Conventions, subject to change:

* Included a version without this column.

A site robot could easily autogenerate the movie links if each game had an ID in the database. The submission form could even be simplified to just show a list of games to pick from. Each TAS-ready platform would get a similar page.

Posted: 6/29/2008 4:56 AM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

Recent releases do not write SRAM files. (.sav files) It seems this happened between version 22 and 23.

Posted: 6/19/2008 6:45 PM

Post subject: troubleshooting

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:

I can't get this to play back, even following the guidelines to do so... I am so bummed out.. I've been waiting ages to see this! Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Does it desync? How far does it get? You have the right version of gens and no SRAM? Does your rom has a crc32 of f509145f?

Posted: 6/12/2008 5:16 PM

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

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Posts: 103

DarkKobold wrote:

This is very typical for SF games. You need to create a zero byte Shining Force 2 (U) [!].srm, and set it to read-only. Then, every time you play back the movie from the start, you MUST re-open the ROM in Gens. Gens doesn't reset the SRM data without re-opening the ROM.

upthorn wrote:

Slight correction and clarification here: it should be Shining Force 2 (E) [!].srm, because you're using Shining Force 2 (E) [!].bin Also, the easiest way to do this is to delete the file which already exists, open the rom in gens, and immediately close it. Then just set the resulting Shining Force 2 (E) [!].srm file read only in the right-click->properties menu. The rest of DarkKobold's solution here is entirely accurate.

I just discovered to my chagrin that these are not equivalent. I began recording a movie for another game with upthorn's method, which worked as long as the 16KB read-only SRAM was present, but found it did not sync when played back with no SRAM or read-only zero-byte SRAM. I'm assuming it's better to use the zero-byte method, since no sharing of SRAM would be necessary to playback the movie...

Posted: 5/31/2008 1:06 AM
(Edited: 6/1/2008 7:21 PM)

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Dammit

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (575)

Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103

fba 0.2.94.98 is 4 years old... If your roms are current you have to rollback ddsom and ddsoma to pre-111u4 versions. Maybe the fr can be hex edited to run on the latest fba. edit sunday june 1:

fba 0.2.94.98.exe 4EE44B1F (= what str8 posted above)

ddsom\dd2.01 99D657E5
ddsom\dd2.02 117A3824
ddsom\dd2.11m 98D0C325
ddsom\dd2.12m 5EA2E7FA
ddsom\dd2.13m A46B4E6E
ddsom\dd2.14m 6D824CE2
ddsom\dd2.15m D5FC50FC
ddsom\dd2.16m 79682AE5
ddsom\dd2.17m 837C0867
ddsom\dd2.18m ACDDD149
ddsom\dd2.19m BB0EC21C
ddsom\dd2.20m 117FB0C0
ddsom\dd2e.03e 449361AF
ddsom\dd2e.04e 5B7052B6
ddsom\dd2e.05e 788D5F60
ddsom\dd2e.06e E0807E1E
ddsom\dd2e.07 BB777A02
ddsom\dd2e.08 30970890
ddsom\dd2e.09 99E2194D
ddsom\dd2e.10 E198805E
ddsom\dd2ex.03e BDBC9B38
ddsom\dd2ex.04e 24D1BE86
ddsoma\dd2.05g 5EB1991C
ddsoma\dd2.06g C26B5E55
ddsoma\dd2.07 909A0B8B
ddsoma\dd2.08 E53C4D01
ddsoma\dd2.09 5F86279F
ddsoma\dd2.10 AD954C26
ddsoma\dd2a.03g 0B4FEC22
ddsoma\dd2a.04g 055B7019
ddsoma\dd2ax.03g 3EACB6C3
ddsoma\dd2ax.04g 2AFAA486

If that's not it I don't know what else is wrong.

Anyway this was awesome. Highly recommended if you can set it up: Pillaging the best items, dismounting wyvern riders with magic missiles, gangraping the dark elfs, outrunning sling stones, glitching the curse off the sword, and every dragon dies fast. Why 3 characters and not 4? A mage could do constant critical hits with the knife. You renamed the thief. Was this to get a different starting item? And why is the Asia version the hardest?

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