I think they are equally good. But I prefer MrSolidSnake's simply because it doesn't use a midi track in the actual audio to support it, it relies purely on the HDDs to provide the music.
Joined: 10/6/2011
Posts: 1690
Location: RU · ID · AM
feeuzz,
I’ve noticed that your run starts from console reset, while TheYogWog’s goal is a newgame+ ring attack. So if you are planning your contribution to TheYogWog’s WIP, consider planning your route to allow taking the giant ring.
The run itself is very impressive. Extraordinary level of character cooperation, as always from you ^_^
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2
my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Lol, I'm not going to contribute to the project, but if one of them got a question, he is free to ask.
About my run, yes, I'm also a bit surprise that Tails collected more individual rings than Sonic x) and it's not easy to collect them offscreen.
I still think that tensor's talent in cooperation Between the characters + TheYogWog's optimization level and knowledge could lead to a great run ;-)
I wondered how much time could be shaved off that part of the recording when I was done with it, so it was nice to see the optimized version.
I don't think I'd actively take part in creating a run. It would take much more patience and knowledge than I have, and my attention would sooner or later turn to something else. The later levels being much larger and less linear doesn't really help, either. I might throw around ideas every now and then, though, if I have any and if any are needed.
By the way, I took a glance at the act 2 bubble shield/lightning shield issue. I was going to write a longer and more detailed post about the results I got, but noticed that I had assumed a lot more than I thought I had, so I'll just post the following:
I compared these two routes: http://i.imgur.com/Na2WhrN.png (bubble shield) and http://i.imgur.com/LPkJdmK.png (lightning shield).
With these routes, the lightning shield saved ~30 frames (more if the light blue path is used, as should have been) before the z-shaped tunnel. After the tunnel, the savings are lost unless there's some efficient way to get to the water level switch. I couldn't come up with any such method; Tails would take a moment to arrive there. I'll probably test using Tails along with the light blue path someday, that might result in a positive outcome for the lightning shield. On the other hand, there's still one later place where I'd use the bubble to save some time, so maybe I'll have to extend the routes a bit to account for that, too.
I'll post the recordings, if anyone wants to see. I thought these two routes might be among the best routes (not only locally, from the beginning to the water level switch, but globally in the act as a whole), but that's completely open to discussion.
EDIT: The lightning route was simply bad. With some changes, I got to the switch almost 150 frames faster than with the bubble. I'll try to improve the bubble route next.
I don't think I'd actively take part in creating a run. It would take much more patience and knowledge than I have, and my attention would sooner or later turn to something else. The later levels being much larger and less linear doesn't really help, either. I might throw around ideas every now and then, though, if I have any and if any are needed.
I know how you feel. As much as I like the idea and despite my desire to contribute to such a project as much as I can, it does feel very daunting right now just to think about the amount of work that's still needed... literally makes my frame advance finger (thumb) hurt to consider. Yet it's still fun to do in my spare time. So... not saying I wouldn't, but at this point I do feel a little leery of fully committing to such an endeavor.
tensor wrote:
I compared these two routes: http://i.imgur.com/Na2WhrN.png (bubble shield) and http://i.imgur.com/LPkJdmK.png (lightning shield).
With these routes, the lightning shield saved ~30 frames (more if the light blue path is used, as should have been) before the z-shaped tunnel. After the tunnel, the savings are lost unless there's some efficient way to get to the water level switch. I couldn't come up with any such method; Tails would take a moment to arrive there. I'll probably test using Tails along with the light blue path someday, that might result in a positive outcome for the lightning shield. On the other hand, there's still one later place where I'd use the bubble to save some time, so maybe I'll have to extend the routes a bit to account for that, too.
With the bubble shield wouldn't it be faster to perhaps bubble bounce off the Rhinobot, or simply bubble bounce into a Tails carry to reach the platform? Seems like it would be very hard to get the rings by the rock offscreen with Tails in that route, too.
My understanding is that it's possible to finish Act 1 slightly faster with the Bubble Shield? I'm not sure I'm remembering correctly, but if so keep in mind for the sake of route comparison and frame counts that any gains yielded by taking the lightning shield would carry the cost of not taking the bubble shield. Just wanted to mention that in case you weren't already thinking of it.
I think it should be possible through careful optimization / Tails control to make Tails exit the tube a bit ahead of Sonic and help reach the switch faster. That seems to be the case in my own attempt at Act 2 so far. Here's the video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5akkgOO_vZ0.
If you don't mind posting your videos, please do it; I will take a look at them.
If I ever got around to improving the bubble test, I would've tried using Tails there. And yes, with the lightning shield, Tails can get soon enough to the pre-switch area; that's one of the three improvements I made to the lightning route. The other two were using the light blue path, and starting the Tails carry from higher up, before the downward slope.
Here's the bubble route: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/811955120/aa4.gmv
Here's the lighting route, v2: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/307348212/aa4_lightning2.gmv
Before I tested the shields, I had done a sketch for (almost) the whole zone using the bubble shield. The beginning is slightly less efficient than in the bubble test. There are some details that may or may not be of interest:
-The bubble bounce didn't really bounce at one point. The effect depends on where the bounce hits the ground. This allows a faster descent, and may be useful somewhere, but not here. I'd like to know more about this.
-I bounced through the mechanic stairs directly above the lightning shield box. This is the reason I wanted to extend the tests a bit, but it only matters if you want the lightning shield back as soon as possible.
-Using Tails to get to the highest parts of the level might save some frames, if he's available. This happens slightly after frame 11750.
-To get the five rings with horizontal spikes on both sides, I didn't use Sonic; I dumped Tails there instead. Probably saves a few frames and causes big problems later, since Tails is lost.
And here's the recording: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1607364091/aa3.gmv
I made all of the recordings as continuations to the one I already posted; thus, I didn't collect any of the bonus rings. I'll probably switch to newgame+ in the future. AIZ2 begins somewhere around frame 9500 in each of the recordings.
If I posted the same recording twice or something silly like that, I'll correct it tomorrow - the file names don't really help much in finding the correct file. I should get some sleep now.
EDIT: One thing I probably should mention: I missed one ring in the test run, but didn't bother fixing it - I'd have remade the run, anyway.
-The bubble bounce didn't really bounce at one point. The effect depends on where the bounce hits the ground. This allows a faster descent, and may be useful somewhere, but not here. I'd like to know more about this.
On a semi-related note, that reminds me of something. I remember long ago noticing that Sonic could bubble bounce on certain positions of spikes in HCZ2 without getting hurt. I would also like to know more about this, if possible, please, as well as what you wrote. Unfortunately, I can't tell you any more about what you encountered myself.
tensor wrote:
-To get the five rings with horizontal spikes on both sides, I didn't use Sonic; I dumped Tails there instead. Probably saves a few frames and causes big problems later, since Tails is lost.
Yeah. Well, losing Tails there forces you to have to slow down at the end of the triple loops, as I think you're already aware. You have to go slow enough that you can jump to attract that 1 ring, curiously suspended in the air below the platform, while at the same time still attracting the 3 on the slope below it. In turn this reduces your launch speed off the ramp, as well as several other effects that I won't mention to avoid being tl;dr. As far as if it's worth it or not, I don't know, but I like using Sonic to get the spike rings because I think it looks cooler.
tensor wrote:
I made all of the recordings as continuations to the one I already posted; thus, I didn't collect any of the bonus rings. I'll probably switch to newgame+ in the future. AIZ2 begins somewhere around frame 9500 in each of the recordings.
This brings up a good point I've been meaning to discuss, basically all of my ST movies right now begin from a "dirty" save state. What do I mean by this? Well, what I did to gain access to NG+ mode was to play back Marzojr's verification video in its entirety, then paused Gens at some point on the menu screen before his actual TAS began. From there, I may or may not have unpaused Gens and idled a while before again pausing and creating the "dirty" savestate that I use as the basis for all my ST movies currently. I would really like to establish a clean state to start all future NG+ST movies from, so I know that any movies starting from there could theoretically be acceptable for publication here. Could anyone please help explain how to do that? I have some ideas but I'm not sure I'd be doing it right, and I'd like to be as sure as possible, please.
tensor wrote:
EDIT: One thing I probably should mention: I missed one ring in the test run, but didn't bother fixing it - I'd have remade the run, anyway.
You miss 2 of them when you finish A1 with the lightning shield, is that the part you're referring to? If not, then you're probably already aware/didn't care because it's a test run I guess. I didn't see where else it might have been.
This brings up a good point I've been meaning to discuss, basically all of my ST movies right now begin from a "dirty" save state. What do I mean by this? Well, what I did to gain access to NG+ mode was to play back Marzojr's verification video in its entirety, then paused Gens at some point on the menu screen before his actual TAS began. From there, I may or may not have unpaused Gens and idled a while before again pausing and creating the "dirty" savestate that I use as the basis for all my ST movies currently. I would really like to establish a clean state to start all future NG+ST movies from, so I know that any movies starting from there could theoretically be acceptable for publication here. Could anyone please help explain how to do that? I have some ideas but I'm not sure I'd be doing it right, and I'd like to be as sure as possible, please.
In the submission notes of my newgame+ run I describe a procedure I developed to make the cleanest state possible; you may want to either use that save or generate a new one based on that procedure. The state is clean enough that the movie synchs if you hex-edit the movie to eliminate the savestate dependency and play it using the "dirty" SRAM.
EDIT: One thing I probably should mention: I missed one ring in the test run, but didn't bother fixing it - I'd have remade the run, anyway.
You miss 2 of them when you finish A1 with the lightning shield, is that the part you're referring to? If not, then you're probably already aware/didn't care because it's a test run I guess. I didn't see where else it might have been.
In the 'sketch run' for the (almost) whole AIZ2, between frames 13400 and 13500, Sonic leaves two rings behind, and one of them apparently unloads just before Tails can get it. That's the ring I was talking about. I knew about those two rings, too, but forgot to mention them.
By the way, I did a quick improved test using bubble and the rhino, since I couldn't get Tails soon enough near the floating platform. Saved just over 100 frames, but the lightning shield was still 60 frames faster. Those three rings under the spiky log are quite a problem without the lightning shield.
Joined: 10/6/2011
Posts: 1690
Location: RU · ID · AM
I have no idea who is this YouTube guy with 0 subscribers, but his only video makes me feel he’s just like mike89 or wersterlobe at realtime speedrunning…
Link to video
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2
my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Joined: 10/6/2011
Posts: 1690
Location: RU · ID · AM
Hey, guys! I got a challenge for you :)
You all know that Qwerty’s “super TAS”, which was known to be his best job, has been improved.
As you could have guessed, I have my own “Super TAS by WST”, which I’d like to check for improveableness. Of course, I don’t want to say that it’s perfect — I know that it’s improveable — but I also know that improving it is clearly beyond my current skill — for this moment this is the best I can do. Yes, this is my best run ever made — it’s a result of putting weeks of work into a single stage. So, I am curious to see how much more frames (or maybe seconds — who knows?) can be shaved off.
Enjoy
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2
my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Hey, guys! I got a challenge for you :)
You all know that Qwerty’s “super TAS”, which was known to be his best job, has been improved.
As you could have guessed, I have my own “Super TAS by WST”, which I’d like to check for improveableness. Of course, I don’t want to say that it’s perfect — I know that it’s improveable — but I also know that improving it is clearly beyond my current skill — for this moment this is the best I can do. Yes, this is my best run ever made — it’s a result of putting weeks of work into a single stage. So, I am curious to see how much more frames (or maybe seconds — who knows?) can be shaved off.
Enjoy
Excellent!
Link to video
Sorry upscaling is terrible here, next videos with more content will have better quality.
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
Looking outstanding, WST! Precision-optimized TASes like these look so smooth and crisp.
I seriously think all of you Sonic TASers (WST, marzojr, TheYogWog, feeuzz, Aglar, Tee-N-Tee, nitsuja, Qwerty, Upthorn) should form like a "superfriends" group and demolish every Sonic TAS record on this site :D
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Joined: 10/6/2011
Posts: 1690
Location: RU · ID · AM
ars4326 wrote:
Looking outstanding, WST! Precision-optimized TASes like these look so smooth and crisp.
Thank you very much
ars4326 wrote:
I seriously think all of you Sonic TASers (WST, marzojr, TheYogWog, feeuzz, Aglar, Tee-N-Tee, nitsuja, Qwerty, Upthorn) should form like a "superfriends" group and demolish every Sonic TAS record on this site :D
Don’t worry — we really communicate a lot (using PM and Skype) and share our experience.
Sadly, nitsuja and upthorn already left the community. However, there are newcomers — Kiske and tensor, at least :)
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2
my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
So after a lot of experimenting I'm fairly certain Sonic and Tails can 100% every level in the game, including giant rings, with the following exceptions:
-97 in AIZ2 KTE area
-20 ICZ signposts
-10 LBZ signposts
I've also developed at least functional routes for most levels, too. It's all mostly unverified right now in the sense that I haven't done actual test runs for proof but theoretically I don't anticipate there will be any major issues that affect ring totals or route paths.
If anyone would like to help me out with doing test runs or has any ideas how to get any of the missing rings, let me know.
Edit: Managed to get the macros I needed working well enough on my own, probably no need for help with that anymore.
Hey, guys! I have a very worrying problem. I happen to stumble upon a very strange glitch in Sonic 3 (Sonic 3 only, rom: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - U[!]).
http://rghost.ru/8JL6Xx7mm here's a savestate in which this glitch is present. I'm currently training for a Sonic 3 tournament and while training I sometimes trigger this glitch.
So what's the glitch is about: in the glitch state Tails can break wall by simply walking through them, without any need for spindashing, like Knuckles. The other thing that glitch breaks is invincibility monitors. If you break a monitor nothing will happen. No invincibility. And also this glitchy state remains until you reset the console/emulator. It stay even between zones and acts. Even after dying or entering a special stage.
This particular one happened when I chose the second save slot and started a new game with Tails. And I figured out this glitch is present after I've beaten the first act's mini-boss. I spindashed through the first wall on my way, then there's another wall that leads to a special stage right after a tunnel. I switched to running phase instead of rolling, meaning not to break the wall, but it broke anyway and I got into the specail stage. That's when I realised the glitch activated again.
It's just driving me nuts. This glitch is so irritating when you do a live speedrun.
Does anybody have any idea as of what on earth triggers this nightmare?
For figuring out what triggers the glitch, a movie from the start of the zone where the glitch happens would be better than a savestate. The savestate is useful for figuring out what is going on, though.
To understand what is going on, it is important to know what causes those walls to break; in addition to touching it, you must fulfill at least one of:
being Super Sonic;
being Knuckles;
being in ball form (air or ground) with a fire shield and enough speed;
and being in ball form on ground with enough speed.
When you are Super Sonic, invincibility monitors also behave like what you describe. Moreover, putting a RAM watch on $FFFFFE19 (byte) shows it is 1.
The conclusion is obvious: Tails has become Super Sonic :-)
No, seriously: the Super Sonic flag has been set somehow. This does not give you invincibility or a rotating palette; but it is checked when colliding with such walls and a few other things.
Thanks for the explanation =) From now on I'll be starting a new movie each time I make another try.
The glitch is actually quite surprising and makes perfect sense. Super Sonic flag is something alright xD Too bad it doesn't do anything really useful for Tails.
While I was speedrunning I happened to find a lot of strange glitches in Sonic 3.
For example, if you do this glitch https://youtu.be/rJrEpfby_yg?t=9m31s (shown in the video on the left, which is my run for the 1/8 of the tournament) in the wrong way, starting moving left while offscreen too early, you can either softlock the game, or the screen will go dark and either start the multiplayer music or there'll be the sound of counting the score, and the score will be so high it'll give you two one ups and a continue, and after the invisible score is done counting, you'll be loaded back into act 2 of MG, but the background will be all glitchy. I believe that this glitch is actually a screen of a perfectly completed special stage, that can get the same effect if you collect all the rings in it.
I've seen it a few times, thanks) I even rewatched it a few days ago, trying to see if I missed any glitches that would prove helpful for Sonic 3 speedrunning.
It's actually quite hard to find anything regarding Sonic 3 alone, since S3&K is so much better in every aspect, but I read this whole topic as well and found a few very useful tips) I also watched every video on Sonic Center, but a lot of them are S3&K as well.
