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Sorry, keeping that a secret until the final release ;)
I'm really motivated on this right now, and I have done all the lair stuff and am in RBB. I spent all day yesterday figuring out the winter route and my feather counts are finalized so I can continue in RBB now.
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Just wanted to update that I am now finished with Freezeezy Peak. I won't be releasing any more public WIPs until the TAS is finished. So at least everyone knows where I am now :)
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So I have some great news! Clipping out of bounds in winter while flying has been found to be possible in a new spot, which actually provides for a faster route, and it works on BizHawk! It is done above the honeycomb window, and when you land inside Gnawty's house, it is also much easier to grab the jiggy without doing a bunch of extra flying. Thanks to a BK runner Benjacastellon who found this, those 45~ seconds are saved again!
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Because of the amount of damage taken to save time throughout the level, I am near death in the church. If I had not killed myself on the witch switch to regain my health, I would have to slowly flutter down onto the note on the pew below to prevent death. Refilling my health there allows me to simply jump and fall very quickly onto the note, saving a bit of time. It also is very quick to die there because of how fast you reach the ground when you beak bust, and it has the added creepy effect of removing the music, which I thought was quite fitting for MMM.
Glad you guys enjoyed this level :)
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MMM is coming along pretty well, and I just have the pumpkin stuff left, so keep posted for a WIP!
Something in the old TAS that I have not been able to replicate on Bizhawk is the beak bust clip through the grate above the purple jinjo in RBB. Isotarge hacked some addresses and was able to clip through it in the middle under the beehive, and he thinks it was the lag that let him do it. Other than that we haven't been able to manage it. It saves a few seconds so if anyone can get it to work, I would greatly appreciate the help. I am on Bizhawk 1.10, and I'm not sure if that matters or not. Mupen and Bizhawk seem to have wildly different clipping behavior.
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Yes, that is where it originally was found. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here's a video.
Link to video
It's roughly 15 minutes in. In any case I decided I am still going to finish my TAS...I've come so far. MMM was at a standstill for a little bit but I have some progress made now and I am almost done with pots, which is one of the hardest sections.
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I wasn't trying to be rude. I apologize if what I said offends the development team. Two years ago I was told by Cronikeys that the emulation/physics issues Mupen had with BK were pretty much fixed and just had to be "rolled into Bizhawk" and that it would happen "soon", and it didn't. I don't know the slightest thing about coding but I do know that the way Rare programmed their game doesn't jive well with N64 emulation in general. I was just hoping for what I was told would happen, and it didn't.
I should have worded my statement better, but all I mean is that the Bizhawk development team might not be interested in specifically fixing emulation issues with Rare games, so I wouldn't expect a fix for them soon.
EDIT: I'm not interested in blaming anyone. I completely understand if nobody wants to dedicate their free time to coding a fix for any game in general. It's just that until that person who wants to DOES come along, then the fix likely won't happen for a while.
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So, back to emulation issues.
A few tricks have been found to not work on Bizhawk only. The most important being the flying clip in Winter to reach Gnawty's house. This trick alone saves 45 seconds and myself nor Isotarge have been able to get it to work, even with insanely high velocities. I should have tested this months ago, but I assumed it would work since it did on Mupen. Guess I shouldn't trust N64 emulation, especially with Rare games.
I don't really know what I am going to do now. It feels blasphemous to create a TAS without the trick in it for 100%, and I don't expect emulation issues to be fixed anytime soon given the history of the Bizhawk development team.
We are also unsure if all tricks required for any% will work on Bizhawk. If we spend the next week figuring that out and all of them work, then an any% TAS might be started instead. If not, then RIP.
If anyone could manage to get the flying Winter clip to work, I will love you forever :D
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He probably tagged it as PAL only because so far nobody has clipped there on an NTSC console. If nobody manages to prove it to be console confirmed on NTSC, then it won't be used in any NTSC TASes. Thankfully the any% run uses PAL, so this can be used.
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Not sure if anyone else here is aware, but a theoretical "Clanker's Early" has been found and is within 3 Y coordinate values of working.
Link to video
The clip is done Door of Grunty skip style, and the closest anyone has gotten to touching the loading zone is Isotarge with a Y coordinate of -77, and -74.5 is needed to reach the loading zone.
However, it's not that simple. If you just do a full jump towards the loading zone, Banjo will just clip back in bounds because he jumps up quicker than he gains X/Z distance. If you jump more to the side to avoid the bars blocking you, then you don't go close enough to the loading zone. The method for getting as close as we have gotten is to clip in talon trot, midair jump for a couple frames, ratatat rap, and beak bust. There is likely a ridiculously precise combination of clip speed and timing on the button presses to make this work.
I myself haven't been able to try it very much this week due to work and illness, but I figured I would post it here so other people can have a whack at it. The clip itself is console confirmed on two separate PAL consoles, however is not console confirmed on NTSC yet. It works on both PAL and NTSC versions of the emu on bizhawk.
This would save probably about 20 seconds in 100% (no, I wouldn't redo the TAS for that sorry :( ) and roughly 1:45-2 minutes in any%.
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Just a little update. I am about 1 minute into MMM. I am taking some time to test some stuff in separate TAS videos to figure out egg and feather counts for certain sections because of new strats. Hopefully some of them will work out well.
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I haven't been no. I don't know how to code or make scripts. I just know a lot about Banjo :>
I'll add you on skype if that's okay with you and we can chat some more there.
EDIT: I just finished redoing the section after the Jinjo jiggy to the end of the level and saved a full second by optimizing the movement and skipping 2 feathers I didn't need. I saved one in the Rubee flying section and I hadn't planned for the feather in the tree by Trunker. Final Game Time for Gobi's Valley: 9:31 OLD: 10:03 (my route is also significantly slower because of the Rubee Early trick.) Though time is saved in FP and the lair, time is lost in Gobi's. 9:31 is that much more insane with that kept in mind. Never thought a time like that would happen!
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As far as I've seen, yeah, RNG is a pretty sensitive thing, though I haven't really reverse engineered it. It seems to be based on Banjo's movement as well as what frame certain events occur. I don't know how to hex edit but if you would like to help I'd be open to figuring it out. I can send you the files later when I get home from work.
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Thanks for finding it at least!
After reviewing my collectibles after Gobi's Valley, it appears that I have a few extra feathers, so I am going to go back and skip the 2 on Jinxy's shoulder at the end of the level, as they are actually kind of slow. Might push this down to 9:31 actually.
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Damn dude, I was suggested that by someone and I thought it would not be possible so I didn't try it. Wish I would have. Good find though! I'm not sure if I want to implement it or not since Gobi's was an extremely difficult and time consuming level to TAS.
EDIT: I just tried this and it's a timesave for sure, but it less than half a second faster. Since it's so little, I am not going to redo it.
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Next is Mad Monster Mansion ;)
I actually do want to make an any% TAS after this one, and since I have a couple people interested in helping me, the plan is to make it more optimized than 100% has been so far.
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As far as cancelling the boots over letting them expire, I don't know and never actually frame counted if it's more of a delay or not but off the top of my head I don't think there is a difference. Either way you still take damage immediately and you have just enough time to get into talon trot before you do.
EDIT: I was thinking more about this and maybe it might have been faster to cancel the shoes earlier to get more regular talon trot distance, since I think I would still take the same amount of damage by the time I reach the timer switch. Not sure if a possible improvement or not but if so it would be probably a matter of a few frames. In Gobi's near Jinxy this doesn't really apply because I need to get more distance to be near the Jinxy clip spot. I might as well update that I am about 2.5 minutes into Gobi's Valley right now.
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Yeah well Vile was basically a 3:30 autoscroller so that didn't take very long, but I really cranked it out over this past weekend. Some areas I just spend a lot of time scrutinizing each little step and by the end I don't really feel like I need to redo it after I watch it a bunch of times. Other areas I feel like I need to redo a bunch. I also am not striving for absolute perfection, since this is a solo project and I would like to spend less than a year on it. When I do any% after I finish 100%, I will have a partner and spend more time perfecting it.
Anywhoo, yeah I have seen all her vids. Since I was waiting on emulator stuff for a while I spent about 8 months routing everything so that is also why I am making progress so fast, because I know what movement is fastest in 90% of the game. I would be lying if I said I figured out everything myself though; TONS of people helped me. It's quite a laundry list. They will all be recognized in the comments when this TAS is submitted :)
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http://www.twitch.tv/hyperresonance92/v/27235358
Here's Bubblegloop :)
A few comments:
Turtles were the best that I could manage. I spent a long time trying to get yellow for the very first turtle but couldn't get it. Turtles can be manipulated by joystick input, and when you cancel Tiptup's text. So you have limited options to work with as you have about 5 frames of opportunity to cancel the text (for the first one), and about 6 different joystick patterns.
I found something weird after Tanktup. I managed to trick the game into thinking I used wonderwing by changing the camera on the same frame I grabbed the jiggy. The game registered that input as both a camera change and wonderwing, so I lost a gold feather. Thankfully though, with a cool Flibbits strategy I came up with, I was able to save a gold feather. I didn't notice the random lost gold feather until after Vile, so I didn't feel like fixing that.
Vile ending position was also the best that I could manage. Not the best, but I also lost some time because I neglected to realize that the dragonfly I killed near the orange croctus influenced the jiggy spawn from Vile in a bad direction, away from the door. Lost a little time due to this. EDIT: Actually this isn't true, I forgot the angle resets after you go through loading zones.
Other than those things, I am happy with how this level turned out!
EDIT: Here's an embedded VOD
Link to video
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Thanks! Yeah it's my first job after college so it's pretty exciting.
So far in Bubblegloop I am up to the boots on top of the giant alligator. I progressed quickly through the timer switch section and the huts area because I knew exactly what movement to do, though flibbits took me a little while. This new area I am in I am unsure what movement is best so I have to try a few things out.
