Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Rydian wrote:
Warepire wrote:
This was quite fun to watch, and skipping the end boss is always a LOL for me. But...
[...]
I'm sorry but I'm voting reject.
If you found the movie entertaining, then vote yes.
Nice cutting out the context to my reasoning in my first post.
I really feel like this branch is like 16 star or 1 star is for SM64, I am not against branches in general, but this one feels like it's been out-dated, if the current any% TASes had been here I would have voted yes.
Also I think that many of the things seen here will be seen in a future MST or 100% TAS as well, meaning that the remaining tricks that will be seen mainly in this branch gets a lower count. If I am wrong on this, I will change my vote.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
This was quite fun to watch, and skipping the end boss is always a LOL for me. But...
Nahoc wrote:
I don't see it being published here, since it kinda reminds me of a "16 stars" run, which is just an obsoleted goal, but I'm glad you still submitted it for more people to see!
I feel exactly the same thing. I'm sorry but I'm voting reject.
A very worthy candidate for Gruefood delight though.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Quit my job? I don't have a job, that's the sad part... :(
When Greece broke most companies in Sweden stopped expanding. I am often occupied with looking for jobs, and avoiding fines caused by the government changing some laws regarding standards of houses (and related things). This in addition to the Hourglass code being very complex to understand and follow causes things to take a long time... Getting a job would probably make it better overall than as it is now.
Regarding Hourglass: Mouse support is looking promising, we have lots of things in place. The biggest problem is now that things aren't portable between sessions, and even less between computers, all caused by how windows are handled currently. A bigger hurdle than expected, as the window handling has to be entirely re-written, and allowing games to run full screen is a feature that must be removed, requiring a lot of other code changes.
Before the re-write is done (which will probably cause many major regressions to fix), mouse input cannot be finalized.
I did however discover and fix a rather serious bug with ThreadWrapping some months ago, so that should hopefully crash less as well when the new version finally comes out for testing. Which I cannot give an ETA on.
So there you have it.
EDIT: By the way, does anyone know how to contact the author of DXWnd except through his discussion board? I need to talk to him about things that probably should not be public at this time.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
1. depends on the camera.
2. if it shows up, it's red.
Explaining 1: Using a phone camera (or similar) has been a popular technique to debug IR circuits for some time now since it captures the infrared spectrum which allows you to see if the light is actually turning on or not. On recent phones however this is no longer possible as the manufacturers have started to add an IR filter by default.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Hourglass cannot load swf files. Flash games compiled into an exe should work, but a bug prevents the exe-file flash games from running (they seg fault usually, when not, they crash in other exciting ways).
It will be solved some day, but I have other more urgent things to fix, and currently no time to do it.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Seems like the European version is the one to TAS, it's the only version that allows to ignore the tutorial.
Here is a speedrun on Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/senvy/c/3315730
It shows off some pretty cool skips and explains how some of the tricks work.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Warepire wrote:
Another EDIT:
I discovered that the game can sometimes be unfrozen by opening/closing the disc-tray in PSXjin, I have no idea what this means but it might help debug this issue if someone has the time.
Further testing tells me that this can resolve all softlocks caused by obtaining special powers and the save-after-level-exit conversation with Merlin. The clock in Nowhere still cannot be obtained no matter what, and also using special powers is a permanent softlock.
The fact that the game doesn't fully freeze, makes me think it's stuck in a busy loop waiting for something that never comes, either because it comes too early and the game discards it because it's unexpected... or because the emulator never triggers it / doesn't handle it right.
Due to my lack of understanding of how the PSX works internally I cannot debug this problem and I don't have any time to study this console at the moment as all my major spare time goes into trying to make Hourglass more useful.
If anyone is willing to debug PSXjin and fix the accuracy so that this game works it would be awesome. And hopefully this little testing can help narrow down the possible causes to the problems.
I am still puzzled to how I could test the possible trick in Follow The Red Pirate Road the first time.. Gonna try to really make time to dust off my PS2 and see if I can figure this glitch out as it would be nice to be able to do it.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Mothrayas wrote:
Warepire wrote:
Since it is most likely impossible to get out again, this would have to be appended at the end of the level, instead of going through the end-hole, we'd go back, glitch behind the rock and collect the final items.
Yeah, I was already thinking it'd be something like that. Go through the level like usual until the end, get the final clock, deathwarp back (depending on how far back Bugs respawns, that'd save a number of seconds. I think that level has no checkpoints, so it'd put Bugs back to outside, which isn't that far away). Still much better than doing the first few rooms again.
It could also be a platform dependent glitch (like a slight difference in hitbox caused by the PSX inability to use floats compared to the PC)
I'll see if I can play around some more with it in PSXjin. I need to figure out some more RAM addresses for this game anyway. (I found some in case you missed the wch I posted on the previous page)
EDIT:
Well, I was an idiot for not keeping a savestate, because now I cannot give myself super-jump ability without softlocking the game. I'll see if I can find the time to dust off my PS2 and the game disc some day.
I did however update the watch file some, some new useful addresses, some less useful but nice to know. Grab here: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/10944999499280942
What I still want to find is: In-level total golden carrots, clocks and boxes, and a better movement-vector, the current one keeps giving a speed even when you absolutely cannot move further because of a wall getting in the way.
Another EDIT:
I discovered that the game can sometimes be unfrozen by opening/closing the disc-tray in PSXjin, I have no idea what this means but it might help debug this issue if someone has the time.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Mothrayas wrote:
That's a very nice find. I'll look into it. If it can be done, it could save having to revisit and redo half the stage over again, and possibly shorten the route further.
Since we only get one extra clock it isn't doing anything to help the route, but it does save having to do half the level twice.
Since it is most likely impossible to get out again, this would have to be appended at the end of the level, instead of going through the end-hole, we'd go back, glitch behind the rock and collect the final items.
TASeditor wrote:
Warepire wrote:
I had to abort the routing calculator, an estimate (not considering the variables) told me that it would take me 5 years with my computing power to calculate the best route. Feels like that would take too long.
Maybe cloud-computing can be a thing, if you get enough process power. I'm sure there are people who'd like to help.
I don't know how to set such a thing up, for this to be done relatively fast through, I'd need somewhere around 14! (! the mathematical operand, not the shouting symbol) computers with an average processing power of 4.5 GHz dedicating a full 24h.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I had to abort the routing calculator, an estimate (not considering the variables) told me that it would take me 5 years with my computing power to calculate the best route. Feels like that would take too long.
Anyway, while waiting for the router (before calculating a possible completion-time), I checked some walkthroughs on YT to remember where everything is. When looking Follow The Red Pirate Road a comment said they managed to use super-jump to get behind the "open sesame" rock without unlocking the magic words. Perhaps breaking this level is possible in the same fashion as The Greatest Escape? I tested quickly in PSXjin and it seems like it can be done. (Using the super-jump spell pad and changing direction towards the rock before the cutscene).
The exact comment was:
"
7:49 if you use the super jump here, with some luck, you can go in that room that requires the magical words, i tried, but i don't remember if you can get out without exiting the level"
Perhaps something to play around with?
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Ilari wrote:
Warepire wrote:
I ran into this problem recently, I'm not sure it actually has an answer as I cannot find one, but perhaps my math simply isn't strong enough.
Given a sequence of 19 pre-defined numbers, for simplicity sake, lets say 1-19. Is there a sensible way (like an algorithm) to get all possible re-ordered sequences of the given numbers?
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I ran into this problem recently, I'm not sure it actually has an answer as I cannot find one, but perhaps my math simply isn't strong enough.
Given a sequence of 19 pre-defined numbers, for simplicity sake, lets say 1-19. Is there a sensible way (like an algorithm) to get all possible re-ordered sequences of the given numbers?
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Well, there has been some progress on the speedrunner side for this game lately with some cool tricks discovered.
http://www.twitch.tv/f_swipes/c/2110737
Time to re-TAS the game Cardboard? :P
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I have now re-written the bot to optimize the random-route calculation further, and added all the variable factors you listed. Will run during the night, and most of tomorrow.
Even with the added optimizations, it will be much slower, as it will loop another million times or so.
Edit: Was bored, so I rewrote the randomizer to a brute-force search. Hopefully it will be able to complete in decent time, as I only need to brute-force 16 level-options. Giving me a 16! loop execution + variables estimation. I am expecting to end up with the same route as you, but one can never know for sure.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I was thinking about that as well, but kept coming up short of either clocks or carrots somewhere no matter how I re-ordered the route. Maybe if you can PM me a copy of your program (assuming it's a Windows program)? It might help me find stuff.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
You updated your route while I was doing the calculations, I started about an hour ago. Your newly proposed route also came across my mind, but I discarded it as impossible, nice job there!
Also the part where I spotted the possible improvement remains unaffected by your change, so my possible improvement should still be up for debate.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I like the looks of this route. I tried delaying things to avoid time jumps, using the hub-carrots to make sure carrot-levels could still be entered, it's simply not possible to eliminate a single visit or time-jump as of now. The first blocker is The Vort-X Room, if we cannot visit that stage, we won't have enough clocks for Witch Way To Albaquerque.
The only possible improvement to the route would be if 4 hub carrots are collected before the gap between The Carrot Factory and Mine or Mine?, which MIGHT save a few frames if it's fewer choice switches between 1930s > Medieval Period > Pirate Years > Dimension X, than 1930s > Pirate Years > Medieval Period > Dimension X.
That's basically the entire possible improvement to the route that I can find.
I also extended your route planning table slightly to help me while doing the calculations
The table now looks like this:
EDIT: Table removed as it was out-dated, see post above this. My time-jump order change proposal is however unaffected by the new table and IMO should still be tested.
If you found the movie entertaining, then vote yes.