Posts for Whelkman

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Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Two more: Same as what's posted on vgmaps but ~100 KB smaller. 396 KB quarter resolution 256 color dithered version of the above, this time downscaled with fant rather than bicubic. At extreme zoom, fant handles the small boxes more gracefully than bicubic. It also makes for a slightly smaller file size. I used Paint.NET for downsizing, but GIMP should be competitive. GIMP also has good support for color indexing. As for dithering, it's used to fake increased color bandwidth through a method called error diffusion. The algorithm effectively injects digital noise into the image, and the end result is it tricks our eyes into thinking there are more colors than actually present. However, being that random data is being inserted, dithering harms compression and is rarely useful under 256 colors compared to increasing actual color bandwidth, assuming that the original image uses 256 or more colors. TruePNG (and probably most other quantizers) sacrifices the purple region because it is one of the least prevalent colors. Other regions of the map also drop out as the color bandwidth decreases. Keep in mind that any scaling method other than nearest neighbor increases color bandwidth via smoothing. Here's a 24 color dithered version of the full size image. As you can see, there isn't enough color bandwidth to represent objects in the southwest purple region and objects have been replaced by a speckle pattern, otherwise known as dithering. Despite the lack of color bandwidth, dithering drives file size to a hefty 788 KB, the same size as 256 color non-dithered, which is far more appealing looking.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
I wanted to play around with TruePNG and used the world map as a test sample. I generated 8, 7, 6, 5, and 4 bit indexed palettes for full resolution (6145x6145) and quarter resolution (3073x3073). No dithering was used because it increased file size while offering no advantages over increased color space. EDIT: I meant to downscale with nearest neighbor but used bicubic instead. Also, the 256 color options were dithered, so I am adding non-dithered options. full resolution 256 color dithered, 1.05 MB (previously linked) 256 color non-dithered, 789 KB 128 color, 706 KB 64 color, 632 KB 32 color, 558 KB 16 color, 470 KB quarter resolution nearest neighbor 256 color dithered, 339 KB 256 color non-dithered, 290 KB 128 color, 264 KB 64 color, 232 KB 32 color, 213 KB 16 color, 197 KB quarter resolution bicubic 256 color dithered, 399 KB 256 color non-dithered, 378 KB 128 color, 329 KB 64 color, 291 KB 32 color, 258 KB 16 color, 212 KB
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Here's an optimized version of the 6145x6145 file that cuts file size from 4.12 MB to 1.05 MB. I used ScriptPNG to index to 8-bit color depth and recompress. http://i.imgur.com/OtZNSMv.png
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
You need the Sphere to turn into a fish to get out of the undersea sandbox. That's the exact point DragonSD (and Slab) becomes available since the Sphere opens up Tunlan. Since janus confirmed knowledge of early access to DragonSD I assume there is some sort of exploit that has not been documented.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Indeed, Rod5 is the only way I know how. As far as I'm aware, it's a straight equipment check and is not probability based. However, during the time frame specified in kramathorn's post, between acquiring Bo and Karn, all that's available is Rod1, purchasable from Auria.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Is anyone able to describe the method to obtain DragonSD in Breath of Fire hinted at here:
kramathorn wrote:
I'm roughly 60% through the video right now and I realized something that I should have realized much earlier. Why haven't you gotten the Dragon Sword yet? You can get that I believe before you get Bo. If not sometime after. Definitely before you gain your 4th player. EDIT: I couldn't remember where the sword was exactly at the time I said this, but now I know you definitely need Bo to get it. Maybe Ill create a video to show you how to get it early on. I believe you can get the Slab early as well.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
kramathorn wrote:
I'm roughly 60% through the video right now and I realized something that I should have realized much earlier. Why haven't you gotten the Dragon Sword yet? You can get that I believe before you get Bo. If not sometime after. Definitely before you gain your 4th player. EDIT: I couldn't remember where the sword was exactly at the time I said this, but now I know you definitely need Bo to get it. Maybe Ill create a video to show you how to get it early on. I believe you can get the Slab early as well.
Can someone describe how this is done? I scoured the Internet and everyone says Rod5 is required, which was my understanding before reading this comment.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Thanks, chessjerk. I liked the earlier run and wasn't aware you made a new one. I will check it out.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Anyone ever actually get the permanent buffs inn glitch to work? If so, exactly how do you do it? Trying every variation I can think of within the basic instructions, all that happens is the effect lasts for its normal timespan after reloading before expiring without triggering the "[character]'s magic faded" dialog.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
What's the record for lag frames? The Japanese TAS of this game has 80466. That's over 17% of the run and translates into over 22 minutes!
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Try Dr Hell's controller plugin.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
The tracker dies very nearly on a bi-weekly basis. A simple cron job that restarts the service every 7-10 days could mitigate the issue.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Died last night again.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Ah, I never noticed that published, workbench, and gruefood had their own TASVideoAgent GIFs.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Has TASVideoAgent's animated GIF recently changed?
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
DemonStrate wrote:
Why does Rygar have the same sound effects as Clash at Demonhead? They were made by 2 different companies... Did someone plagiarize?
Funny, as much as I played Rygar and as many TASes of this game I've watched, this time I noticed the similarity of sound effects and music to Golgo 13, another Vic Tokai game. There must be some common heritage between sound departments of Tecmo and Vic Tokai.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Tracker down again?
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
You know, I never noticed 4-2 was Lolo-shaped. My favorite part of this video is about half a second before the levels complete where everything stops moving apparently randomly and the Lolos head for the exits all at once.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
That was intense.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
I'm skeptical of the Calculator approach and grinding in general. I hypothesize that manipulating dodges with mantles, perhaps assisted by Faith augmentation, is sufficient and will be a better time value. Of course both methods should be tested, but I'm a bit surprised at how the unanimous consensus seems to be that pushing toward Calculator is the fastest approach. Maybe in an unassisted game like Chessjerk's, but infinite critical hits coupled with infinite dodging is too strong to ignore. Plus, man is obtaining Calculator tedious. I can't imagine making the audience sit through battle after battle on Mandalia. Automated manipulation is the core of my approach. I can't imagine brute forcing this game. I need a new computer, though. Even with scripting it still takes an afternoon to run a bunch of trials, and I need to use my computer for other things. I'm trying to hold out for Sandy Bridge; hopefully "Q1 2011" means January 1st.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Your experience matches mine. Input itself seems to have little effect, but certain actions like calling menus does. However, calling and dismissing dialogs probably takes more time than simply waiting in just about every case. I have not rigorously tested all possibilities, however. As for the value of manipulating stats by waiting alone, it should still be viable given that sign optimization should shave off at least one attack for several seconds of savings. At five seconds you'd get 300 rolls before you break even time-wise. Surely one of those is better than whatever you get entering on the earliest possible frame.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
BadPotato wrote:
you have to be outside of the blue menu, before "running the script" or it crash.
Son of a bitch. Thanks for the tip.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Possibly. I noticed that not all the releases came with all the files. I tried mixing and matching lua51.dll files to no effect. Assuming pcsx-rr-v013a is the current recommended version, are any changes needed to the default fileset?
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
Yeah, every version since the August 2009 release crashes if I attempt to use savestates in Lua.
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