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nitsuja wrote:
Oh, maybe you just stopped entering new input before this, but the cannon launch from Carnival Night 2 to Ice Cap 1 should be done faster.
I don't think it is possible without Tails; at least in your run, it is Tails which fires the cannon the first time, making it faster for Sonic; but all input for Sonic is ignored in the tries I made to replicate it.
nitsuja wrote:
(And if we're trying to show off Hyper Sonic's capabilities then Tails would probably be dead weight most of the time.)
Quoted for truth. I have been making a separate "concept demo" of Hypersonic in all levels to get used to TASing Hypersonic, and Tails would only slow Hypersonic down. This concept demo is available here; is through only Angel Island. The first 65984 frames is a copy-paste-rinse-repeat job, collecting all emeralds through the level select code; I recommend fast-forwarding through them and starting playback at frame 65985. Beware: may trigger seizures in susceptible people.
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Now the actual WIP until the end of Carnival Night 2, being a "mere" 25 seconds faster than the existing runs; and now it has a few offscreen slope jumps for extra speed. I guess I just broke the Sonic landspeed record, reaching a whooping 8840 subpixels per frame for over a full second.
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Wow, major new shortcut in Carnival Night 2: the (extremely provisional) WIP showing it is here.
As you can tell from the choices at the beginning, I was aiming for Supersonic; despite the slower start, there was a point that I was over two seconds faster than Nitsuja's run -- that is, until I reached the second pair of rotating cylinders. At that point (and the long diagonal poles afterward) I lost enough time that I finished the level 4 seconds slower.
I then noticed (in one of Upthorn's maps at the Sonic Center) the very convenient location of a ledge that could be bubble-abused; after a couple tries, I got into the wall. There is a set of hidden spikes there that prevent me from zipping immediately; after they get above ground, I can zip at over 8000 subpixels per frame to the end of the level, bypassing the offscreen (hence, inactive) boosters -- which would actually slow me down to 4096 subpixels per frame if they ever got into the screen. Sadly, it does not seem to be possible to skip Knuckles.
I haven't finished the level yet -- and will be redoing it from scratch for the new shortcut -- but I thought I should share this.
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Satoryu wrote:
i like what i see in these WIPs. but i fear for this run's future. what exactly is "low glitched"?
As Nitsuja pointed out earlier in the thread, the only really meaningful "glitch categories" are "anything goes", "anything goes except instantly warping from start to end of act" and "no glitches". There are published runs in all of these rough categories (such as Tompa's Zelda runs). Hence, I opted to use the second category.
upthorn wrote:
If he additionally does not travel above the level cieiling at any time
This is done in Marble Garden 2 to reach Knuckles' boss (and, technically, in Mable Garden 1); so I would have to restrict it as "does not underflow horizontal position" (or maybe "does not warp past levels").
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New WIP up to the end of Carnival Night 1.
The flame shield indeed saves several frames at the end of Angel Island 2.
Subpixel manipulation at the end of Hidrocity 1 allows me to duplicate the start of Hidrocity 2 to be exactly like Nitsuja's second run, saving a ton of frames; the lack of Tails to boost me places the timed objects in exactly the right position to immediately reach the giant ring by delaying the exit from the second wall zip by a few frames (also saving several frames - about 140 compared to the bottom route, which now had the cylinders in the wrong positions). Moreover, I managed to skip Knuckles there too.
Marble Garden and Carnival Night 1 are unchanged.
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nitsuja wrote:
I remember the Hydrocity 2 Knuckles bypass trick being more a matter of perfect timing than anything else, but it was a little hard to get it to work so I wouldn't be surprised if subpixels have something to do with it too.
So far, I have encountered many tricks that require high subpixel precision to pull off like you did in your run (like the jumping-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel trick at the end of Angel Island 2, which requires subpixel position to be off by no more than 3 subpixels -- in either direction -- at the next-to-last spindash before the final tunnel).
nitsuja wrote:
Actually, it could be that this trick requires Tails and I'm telling you to do something impossible, but I thought I was able to do it with Sonic alone too (just with more difficulty and a slightly slower setup.
Tails didn't seem to be doing anything useful there; I will double-check the timing issue and try a little bit more to see if I can get it to work.
nitsuja wrote:
Also, there's a trick with going through the cross of slides that would start to happen around frame 39500 in your movie that you didn't do, did you decide it wasn't possible somehow due to the route you'd taken? And the zipping near there didn't work well either?
I still have to test whether or not the position of the rotating cylinders is helpful if I zip, or I may end up wasting as much time reaching the big ring as I save with the zip. I hadn't tried it yet because they were in an unhelpful position in your run (and the left cylinder was moving down rather than up); but then again, I don't have Tails to give be a boost around the point you mention either, so it may be that it works well.
nitsuja wrote:
One more thing, I know it doesn't matter too much, but I'd try to prevent the drowning countdown from interrupting the music in that act.
Drowning countdown? What drowning countdown? [watches section in real time] Oh, I had missed it completely! I will see about fixing that. Of course I could leave it if it had gotten close to zero, but it doesn't... (in my first try, I ended up going slightly above the waterline as I turned around, which would have prevented the countdown; but then Sonic died a mysterious death when hitting the corner).
nitsuja wrote:
I think you forgot to keep the camera scrolled down at the end of this act to make the goalpost hit the ground faster.
I missed that, yes; but I am still thinking if I want to grab a 10-ring monitor (for Supersonic) or the bubble shield, so I haven't completely finished Carnival Night 1 yet.
nitsuja wrote:
Carnival Night 2 is packed full of hard-to-do-even-in-a-TAS tricks. I wouldn't worry about it too much yet though, in case Act 1 affects something.
Ah, that is refreshing to know...
nitsuja wrote:
I think it saves a little time to use the fire shield right before entering Hydrocity 1.
Hm. I was aware that using a bubble bounce was faster, but I had thought that you did the fire shield trick for "show"; nevertheless, I will try it.
nitsuja wrote:
If you're not already doing this (my guess is that you aren't), I suggest setting up your emulator to draw ghost images of the other TASes so that you can compete against them more directly and see more precisely where you fall behind or pull ahead, and also so that you can compete against yourself (your other savestates) for general optimization even when the other TASes aren't anywhere near you.
How do I go about doing that? So far, I have been using multiple emulator windows, all synchronized to about the same spot in the different runs so I can compare how things are going (and all watching the relevant RAM addresses); but the ghost images of other savestates would definitely be interesting.
nitsuja wrote:
By the way, did you make this video? Well, that looks like something to look forward to in Ice Cap 1...
No (I don't have an YouTube account yet), but I was immensely amused by it! I will definitely try to replicate it.
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WIP until end of Hidrocity 1.
I have been having problems duplicating the trick to bypass Knuckles in Hidrocity 2 because my subpixel position is in the wrong range, so it is still there for now.
Marble Garden 2 benefits slightly from Supersonic; towards the end of the stage, the junk above the top of the stage is different than in SprintGod's run, but still passable; using Supersonic there helps because of higher acceleration.
In Carnival Night 1, I can go Supersonic on the way by avoiding the fire shield, and it results in a decent improvement; I am still toying with using the wheel glitch.
As Carnival Night 2 (not in the WIP): this level is really frustrating me to no end. The wall zip used in Nitsuja's run is surprisingly difficult to do and it always leaves me either too high or too low in the wall, resulting in me getting stuck. Also, differences in timing (luck?) prevent me from getting to that initial pole as efficiently -- and even though it allows me to get inside a wall (say, by using the bubble shield at the right frame) and zip, it is still slower as I appear in the room with 3 monitors and have to fall to the ground, pick at least one of the monitors and exit right.
I also have been trying to glitch into Knuckles' route, without much success.
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nitsuja wrote:
In that case, don't forget to take into account the (many) Hydrocity 2 glitches in both my v1 and v2 runs. They were very different from each other and from SprintGod's, and neither of them went through the left edge of the level. If nothing else, skipping the Knuckles cutscene should still be possible, since you have the bubble shield then.
I implemented one of them, yes: the initial wall zip from the second run. It had the very nice side effect of placing all timed objects in the best possible position to reach the final giant ring in Hidrocity 2. I haven't tried skipping Knuckles yet, but it is a good idea.
nitsuja wrote:
Also, while I went through the left edge of Carnival Night 1, the bug that made that possible was really weird and might be able to save time in other ways too, at least near the start of the level.
I will keep it in mind; but how does that bug work?
nitsuja wrote:
And, I'd say "no deaths" should be a goal too.
Agreed. I am planning on getting hit here or there to lose a shield so I can use Supersonic or Hypersonic (primarily the latter), but I will definitely avoid deaths.
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So far, I have been using some minor wall zips, slope jumping and high-speed collision abuse (such as in Hidrocity 2, where high vertical speed allow me to fall through a slide and take a shortcut); basically because many of those can be done in real-time (but may be tricky). But when you put into categories like that, I'd guess it would be (2). That would mean I could fight Knuckles' boss in Marble Garden 2, which is a plus; and there may be a few other things too. I will go over the run again and see what changes can be done.
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WIP until the end of Marble Garden 2
I had an earlier version of it, but decided to polish it a bit as it felt suboptimal at the end. I ended up removing 407 frames from the end, and using the second controller to control Tails at the boss made a huge difference.
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WIP until end of Marble Garden 1. Taking only one emerald in Hidrocity 2 was a lot faster indeed; but most of the savings were in Marble Garden 1, where I can grab an emerald at minimal cost (a bit under 2 seconds). It wasn't worth to become Supersonic in this level, though.
I am still planning my route through Marble Garden 2; this being a low glitch run means I have to avoid all of the well-known shortcuts, and will unfortunately have to avoid Knuckles' boss.
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To be fair, up to this point I am doing little but building upon high quality optimization by Sprintgod, Nitsuja and Upthorn, with a few things in the middle (going out to get emeralds). Things will get tricky quickly now with Supersonic in the game, as I still have to get used to TASing him.
Hypersonic will be a piece of cake to TAS in comparison given his very special unique ability. And boy, how useful it is for a TAS... I almost want to make an all-Hypersonic TAS from the beginning as a concept demo. The only problem is the constant flashing of the screen that results from it... (no, I am not that far ahead, I was just testing Hypersonic TASing in debug mode; and it was great).
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I have made a new WIP for Sonic only; it is here.
A few comments:
I decided to go more 'low glitch'. Small wall zips, like that in Hidrocity 1 are OK (as I had it happen to me in a real console one too many times with bad results).
Dropping through that platform in Angel Island 2 had its cost: unless I waste the frames I gained there in some way, it is impossible to get to the second ring without hitting that wall. The bottom platform needs to vanish, and it kills my vertical speed.
I spent a great deal of time making Hidrocity 1 and 2. I was using Gavin's run as a model, and made several improvements on it (I even managed to duplicate the wall zip from Nitsuja's run in Hidrocity 1, with a few side effects of not having the subpixel position right); until I realized I was using the *first* run he had made of Sonic only. Several parts of Hidrocity 1 were then remade, based on his second run. I used a few of his tricks to get through slides in Hidrocity 2, but everything else was my own.
I am thinking that getting those two emeralds in Hidrocity 2 just isn't worth the time it takes; after all, there are two giant rings practically on the way in Marble Garden 1.
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upthorn wrote:
Add FF to the front to use it in ram search.
The code pointer is the 4 byte value right at that base address.
Thanks, that did the trick! Now to finish Angel Island *again*...
satan wrote:
He is invincible, has a higher jump, double the speed, and has greatly increased acceleration (to the point that he is much harder to control).
Not quite double the speed: Supersonic/Hypersonic has a top floor speed of 2560 subpixels/frame versus normal Sonic's 1536 subpixels per frame. Speed shoes double normal Sonic's top speed, so that he is faster than Supersonic/Hypersonic. For more quantitative values of his stats, the Sonic Tricks page is quite handy (but it doesn't list the super/hyper forms with speed shoes).
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upthorn wrote:
Unfortunately for marzojr, it's SST slot is dynamically determined based on availability, so I cannot simply give him a RAM address to watch.
Just my luck. As it turns out, I can go through that sprite every single time when going to the right, but failed to do it on all tries when going to the left. Thus, if I were to skip that special stage, I could take advantage of that.
I am using a self-compiled Gens with S3&K camera + speed hacks (straight from CVS); the information it displays can be used to determine the address to watch? I seem to remember that the Sonic hacks also display the object's base RAM address (or at least that is what the comments in 'SonicHackSuite.cpp' state, but I know how comments can get out of synch with the code...).
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Solon wrote:
Personally, I think you should restart and go low-glitch for this run
I have already restarted; and I have been considering about going low glitch, yes, to show off the super/hyper versions. But that requires defining what "low glitch" means exactly. Zipping through whole levels would be an example of something to disallow, but what about the shortcut in Hidrocity 1 where Sonic enters the slope and zips through the wall? That one can easily happen in a normal play-through on an actual console.
Not zipping through Hidrocity 2 has the advantage that I can pick up the last two emeralds there and go Supersonic early in MG1, possibly even picking the speed shoes *as* Supersonic. I wonder how (if) they stack together...
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mike wrote:
* My gut feel is that the special stages can be faster.[...]
You are probably right; but that was all Upthorn, I just pasted the special stage code. I think he was aiming more for entertainment in those stages.
mike wrote:
* At the end of AI1 you both hit the signpost
If you can believe it, that was a mistake I hadn't noticed. I copied the input from the Nitsuja movie, but Sonic was at a slightly different position; the start of the other stage did not desynch, so I missed it. It was not until you pointed it out and I watched it in real time that I noticed the difference.
nitsuja wrote:
It will make the run less similar to the Sonic+Tails one. [...]For a big example, consider Ice Cap zone...
Aye, a very good point. Originally, I was actually aiming for that similarity; but I hit a few snags that are convincing me more and more to do it otherwise.
One of these 'snags' is that I simply do not have many opportunities to showcase Supersonic: only MG1 (after picking up the emeralds) and LB2, as all other levels are skipped. Even in MG1, I have a shield after collecting the last emerald, and before I can lose it, I am forced to pick some speed shoes; since the shoes are canceled by the transformation, it is ultimately not worth it to be Supersonic in MG1. Suddenly, all of the S3 part is virtually identical to the no emeralds run...
nitsuja wrote:
You won't be "chained" to the actions of the Sonic+Tails run. Right now, it must be a huge pain to get the input to re-sync all the time, and whenever problems come up you're not as free to try new things to correct them as you would be if you were just controlling Sonic.
That is another snag. Synching up the players is hard, true, but not as hard as having to get subpixel positions exactly right. For example, at the end of AI2, after hitting that last spring, I had to manipulate the subpixel positions to be within 3 subpixels (in both directions) of that in your sun so that Sonic can do an early exit of the last tunnel: more than those 3 subpixels meant the trick would not work. And I am still trying to compensate for that in MG1 after the final emerald...
nitsuja wrote:
The above reasons could also be an argument for doing a Tails-only run, except I think Hyper Sonic wins by a landslide as far as TAS potential goes.
Not to mention that you only get the "true" ending and "true" endzone with Hypersonic. But yes, the 'fire shield in any direction' effect is a huge winner: for one, it means a dead stop from any speed in 3 frames (jump, blank, down+jump).
The final snag is how glaring it is when it goes from Nitsuja's & Upthorn's input to my own in a few places :-)
All things considered, I think I will re-start it as a Sonic-only run. But I will leave the WIP until MG1; the stuff after the final emerald is picked up can be disregarded, it was just something I was trying with Supersonic (seeing that different subpixel positions was was desynching the input with regular Sonic).
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I am unsure if this is the best place for it, but this seems to be the most recent S3&K thread in the forum; hence I am taking the risk.
I have begun working on a Sonic + Tails all emerald run. So far, it has been mostly a cut & paste exercise; using the latest Sonic + Tails run and copying the special stages from he Knuckles run, with some input to merge the two. Needless to say, Upthorn and Nitsuja are to receive due credit (and I want to take the opportunity to ask for the required permissions to use their input).
The WIP (which includes all of Angel Island) is here; I am expecting some merciless but much needed comment by the experts :-).
As can be seen, I encounter a few issues. For example, I can't pick up the lightning shield at the end of AI1 as the moving platform is in an inconvenient position (due to the extra time needed to enter the special stages). Also, after the first special stage in AI2, I cannot figure out how to go through the floor except after it has finished falling; I would appreciate any pointers.
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The run's publication page (http://tasvideos.org/1318M.html) is missing a description; right now it is "TODO: describe this movie here".
A small edit of the Knuckles description fits well:
This is a hacked version of Sonic the Hedgehog. The title character is replaced by his sidekick, Miles "Tails" Prower. The levels remain unchanged.
There is more than just an appearance change to this game. Tails' abilities remain intact. If you haven't seen Sonic the Hedgehog completed before, you may wish to do so before seeing what a character with a spindash and flight can accomplish.
There is also a [1384S|run for a Knuckles hack] of Sonic the Hedgehog, done by JQX. It replaces Tail with Knuckles and flying with climbing and gliding.
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Translations (traduções):
> GabrielMusuris
Português: "quero emviar[sic] um videos[sic] para tas????"
English: "I want to send [submit?] a video for TAS"
> Kyman
English (quoting forum rules): "The language on this board is English.
Posting in other languages is allowed, but all discussions should be at least translated to English."
Português (citando regras do fórum): "O idioma deste fórum é o Inglês.
Postar em outros idiomas é permitido, mas todas discussões devem ao menos ser traduzidas para Inglês."
He (GabrielMusuris) was actually quite ambiguous even in Portuguese, by the way; but I think he means that he wants to submit a TAS video. ("Ele foi bastante ambíguo mesmo em Português, por sinal; mas acredito que ele quiz dizer que quer enviar um TAS").
To submit a video, check the instructions here. ("Para enviar um vídeo, veja as instruções aqui")
By the way: there are diacritical marks in the Portuguese text; these should appear correctly given that the page encoding is UTF-8, but it is not a given. ("Por sinal: tem acentuação no texto em Português; estes devem aparecer corretamente visto que a codificação da página é UTF-8, mas isto não é certo.")
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For the record, I agree with the decision (and the reasons behind it) and I knew full well that the run was most likely headed this way when it was submitted. This didn't prevent me from working on it, as I wanted to have a Tails TAS even if it were never published; that several people liked it was an added bonus.
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Sorry for the long delay, but over the past few weeks, I have been first without a computer, then without internet and finally out of town. I have just PM'ed one of the admins about updating the GMV; for those that can't wait, the new video is here. The 21-frame difference is at the very end of LZ3, if you blink you will miss it (but the in-game timer proves it is there :-p).
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I have been offline for the past few days, so I could not reply earlier. In any case, thanks all for the comments (and votes).
upthorn wrote:
It's reasonably entertaining, and improved technically from the last one I watched, but there's still a couple of places where it looks like there's improvement yet to be eke'd out. GHZ1, LZ3, and SLZ3, to name a few.
Hm. Though I am unsure about GHZ1 and SLZ3 (would need to know what you think can be improved, as almost everything else I tried was slower), I went to test the only place I could think of in LZ3 that might be improvable and got it down to 0:26:47, a 21-frame reduction. Can a run be revised before it is published or should I wait for it to be published, collect this and any other improvements I get and submit as an improvement?
upthorn wrote:
If this is published, I'd recommend against obsoleting the Knuckles version.
Despite "competing" with the times from the Knuckles run while I was making the movie, I never intended this TAS to obsolete the Knuckles TAS.
upthorn wrote:
I'm pretty sure the Knuckles run would be faster if it were updated.
I had this exact feeling in a few levels while I was making the TAS. I recall thinking that GHZ1, SLZ1, SLZ2 and SLZ3 might be improvable, and that using the shortcuts from the Sonic run, SBZ2, SBZ3 and maybe LZ2.
AKA wrote:
While at times great knowledge and precision is shown during the run, some of the stuff looked a bit improvable, I couldn't help but think about GH2 from my WIP
As Pu7o said, the wall entrance is not possible in the hack or I would have used the same shortcut from the Sonic and Knuckles runs (I mentioned that in the level by level comments). Towards the end, it is slightly faster (by 2 frames) to take the bottom route with Tails. Anyways, the WIP you link to is slightly over 2 seconds slower than the present TAS; Sonic is only faster in this level (as I stated in the comments) by using the wall entrance to overflow the horizontal position and wrap around the level.
