fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
OK, so I'm working on a Legendary Axe TAS. People are welcome to compete with me because I'm a total n00b to making these things. Below find several variations on the 1st level. Awright, editing this first post to include all the revisions to avoid spamming my own post count. 1st attempt Mostly walking, skip the spider w/ axe power-up. 2nd attempt Mostly hopping, some walking near the boss, stopping to kill spider and get axe power-up. 3rd attempt Mostly hopping, stopping to kill spider (improved strat). Slower than the fastest run by about 500 frames. This is a decent bit slower but the boss fight is much faster as will be future enemy kills. I'm wondering what the net trade-off will be. 4th attempt Mostly hopping, skip spider w/ axe power-up. Improved boss strat over attempt 1. This is the fastest run but it leaves me without the axe power-up. Not sure how this will affect later levels, though it takes 2 hits with the unpowered axe to open power-up statues and twice as many hits to kill enemies. I can't remember where the next power-up is, but I hope it's not out of the way. ________________________ OK, so I've got frame advance down and I (after several minutes) have perfect frame timing for getting past the title screen and into the game, but I keep screwing up and I feel like I need a rewind button. Do you peeps automatically save a state every 60 frames or so or what? Maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Every time I mess up I have to start over. How do I pick up from where I left off in a recording? To explain further, whenever I make a mistake I play back the movie I just made, set it to read/write, and then play up until I get near where I made the mistake. I stop playback and start recording (cntl+shift+r), but mednafen resets whenever I start recording. I can't figure out how to pick up recording where I left off.
mz
Player (79)
Joined: 10/26/2007
Posts: 693
You're just fucking stupid, everyone hates you, sorry to tell you the truth. no one likes you, you're someone pretentious and TASes only to be on speed game, but don't have any hope, you won't get there.
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
mz, thanks. It seems if you do anything out of order it doesn't work. I wish it wasn't so persnickety but I'm learning. Also, I've completed a somewhat sloppy movie of the first level. Find it here. I think jumping gives a 1 or 2 frame boost when you first leave the ground so it's probably optimal to hop constantly, but I find it too hard to get the timing right so for now I'm walking and just hopping when I need to. When you swing your axe you stop moving (though you can drift a little in one direction or the other) so I try to attack in jumps whenever possible. A limit on the attack is that it only hits one enemy. If there are 3 enemy sprites clustered together it will hit the first one and pass through the remaining ones harmlessly. Also, I don't take the rope down to fight the spider and get the axe power upgrade. It something like doubles your attack power, but you have to wait for the attack bar to fill all the way up to use the full power, meaning conservation of attacks is critical for optimal power results. There are powerups that increase charging speed but I think there is some luck involved in getting those and I have no clue how to manipulate that. I hope I have the patience to mature a run of this game, but at least I hope to motivate someone to do what I may not be able to.
Player (50)
Joined: 4/10/2009
Posts: 226
I was thinking of doing a run on this game now that I'm done with bonk's revenge, there were also a lot of other games I was considering though. I don't remember any items that make you charge your power faster but I havn't played this game in a long time. I thought it would be faster to get hit by the bears a ton and have almost no health left but I'm not sure. also it seems you go slightly faster in the air, not just a small boost at the start. I think power up items will be helpful in the future, but killing the spider for it is clearly not worth it. anyways I think I'm going to do an improvement to the first level at least and let you decide what to do with it. good luck with this. I would really like to see a run of this game. http://www.sendspace.com/file/k20gmm do what you want with this.
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
If you've the patience to TAS this game I won't compete with you, but I can give you advice. I used to own this game and I know it pretty well. There is an item that increases the speed of your weapon charge and it helps a TON. I'll put up a version I did with killing the spider (also lacks proper optimization) and you can see what difference it makes killing the bears. Run with spider. I should note that getting hit is not a winner in this game. The hit stun is significant, so there are very few places it's advantageous to get hit. I do it on the bears a couple times because there's no way to hit them when they're off screen.
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
Here's an improved level 1 run in which I tackle the spider for the weapon powerup. This time I take no damage and have no axe minions when I take the demon bears. It's only a minimal improvement, you see... Any thoughts on how to better approach this? I may revisit without the axe power up, though then the boss bears will likely take twice as long (twice as many hits). Improved spider level 1
Player (50)
Joined: 4/10/2009
Posts: 226
just tested and by skipping the spider power up you get two power ups in level 2 instead of one. your run is about 15 frames slower to the rope since the small hops messed up your timing on the enemies causing you to wait a bit between jumps. also I'm not sure if you slow down for the few frames you're on the ground or not but if you do the small hops would be slower then the large ones I do. also I think I'm a little bit faster killing the bears then you, but I end up being 200 frames faster at the end of the level due to getting myself hit a lot. I manage to skip the significant hit stun most of the time by going up when I get hit, although I mess up a few times in my run, and the speed that you go at while being hit seems to be about the same as walking. so getting hit hardly wastes any time and saves about 12 frames for each box you lose. I noticed that getting hit by a fireball in level 2 takes out about half your health so if possible getting hit by it would almost surely save time. are you having trouble watching this run too? if not I would suggest using my video as a starting point, and either take the run from level 2 or improve upon my run.
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
Sorry, I didn't try to watch yours yet. I got a little obsessed with my own crap. I'll watch it tonight or tomorrow. If you're indeed already doing better than me at this maybe you should take it. I can always find something different to TAS since it'll take me forever and a day to get through whatever I choose to do.
Player (50)
Joined: 4/10/2009
Posts: 226
I think I want to mess around with some other things first before I decide to do a full run of any game.
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
Well, my desktop (which has all the files for the TASing) just pooped out on me so I won't be working with this for a while. This is on hold for the moment.
Player (50)
Joined: 4/10/2009
Posts: 226
thats a shame. I'm working on the beginning of pretty much every game I own right now before I decide to do a full run. I would like to do a 5 player run of dungeon explorer but there's no way I'll be able to control 5 players at once, and I got sick of trying before I even selected all the characters lol. I'm leaning towards either the legendary axe or neutopia, but I'm also considering doing keith courage.
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
Keith Courage could make for a good TAS. Neutopia I think would be best if there were some Zelda-like sequence-breaking tricks. Welp, back to finding a replacement desktop : (
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
FuzZerd, My desktop decided not to be completely dead just yet so I tried to watch your MCM file. Just like the Bonk's Revenge MCMs it stopped at frame one and I couldn't watch it. I wonder if you're using any custom key commands that might be messing things up. I simply can't watch the file. So far, only MCMs from you have this problem.
Player (50)
Joined: 4/10/2009
Posts: 226
I didn't realize custom key commands would do this. I think the only thing I changed was frame advance as z. I also have most keys for controllers 2-5 as q. I don't see why these would be affecting your ability to view the movie.
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
Well, I don't know for a fact that changed key mappings will cause a problem. I was kinda shooting into the dark. At the same time, I find it odd that only your movies (so far) don't work for me.
Player (50)
Joined: 4/10/2009
Posts: 226
this is kind of pissing me off now, I was hoping I could work with you if I decided to do this run. anyways I just had an idea, I hex edited my input onto the header of your file. if you have the time you should try this video http://www.sendspace.com/file/ggqk3h
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
The way you map keys doesnt matter In the movie file its not map keys who are recorded, its Down/Up/I/II ect... nothing point out a keyboard key (or nobody could watch anything.) Theres only 2 runs so far, bonk & dragon egg If you meant dragon egg work but not bonk, it might not come from the file of fuzzerd, but simply from you I dont have the rom of that game of course, alltought, i can clearly see the input of the file (last one in thread) when i replay it So anyway theres no bug or whatever, its not coming from mednafen I personnaly think you are doing something wrong with the command line and that you dont load the movie at all, that probably the only way to trigger a "zero" movie (reading at mednafen doc it seem logic, if you dont give a movie it will create a dummy one, with a 666 extension, with no input) How do you exactly run this? trough command line or a bat ? if you was on command line i suggest to make a bat so you can correct mistake more easly Heres mine
mednafen.exe -pce.xscale 3 -pce.yscale 3 -mov D:\Emu\Mednafen-rr\movies\legaxe01hex.mcm -author "arukAdo" -pce.cdbios "D:\Emu\Mednafen-rr\bios\Super CD-ROM2 System V3.00 (J).pce" D:\Emu\Mednafen-rr\rom\Granzort.pce
Note that you need to use quotes for long names including spaces and shit, and no quotes for files name that are less exotic and more standart (only the bios contain space in that exemple) Fuz: try not to use special character in movie files name('), obviously you need to type that name manually, so try to keep it short and easy for others ;) just my 2cents advice
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
arukAdo, I appreciate you trying to help, but I DO know how to use a command line. Here is what I use to play movies. This is from my batch file that I use so I don't have to retype it every time. mednafen -pce.xscale 3 -pce.yscale 3 -mov "D:\Console Emulation\TG-16\mcm\bonksrevenge_TAS_FuzZerd.mcm" "D:\Console Emulation\TG-16\ROMS\Bonk's Revenge (USA).zip" Changing the locations or names of Mednafen or the ROM file seems to do nothing. I am using the latest version of Mednafen from the Google Code page. I was able to play the sample MCM file from Dracula X that was posted some time ago somewhere, your Dragon Egg submission, and the Granzort submission (wasn't approved) with no problems. But both from Fuzzerd failed for me.
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
Well, then i can just confirm the problem doesnt come from him and that his movie files are ok (does contain input...) and do replay here I didnt went to check if they sync tought, since apparently its not realy the trouble here I do wonder how you did for draculaX since NO movie file was ever posted, only youtube links... (the topic is in this forum) It was made with a custom mednafen that wasnt public apparently, actually im whilling to do this game soon, so i looked to get paul_t movie and its not possible to replay it even if i had it Edit: you checked for the 666 file ? (try to look your directory when you start replay)
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
Whoops. Actually, I made a Dracula X movie, to see if the recordings would successfully cross CD access gaps. Sorry 'bout that. There are .666 files anywhere on my hard disks. Some time this week I'll download Mednafen, my ROMs, and FuzZerd's movie files to my laptop and see if there's a problem there. The laptop is much newer and has much less software installed on it. If there's a problem there then it's not me, unless there's something wrong with my ROMs. arukAdo, could you help me test? Make a quick movie file of Bonk's Revenge and include at least a couple re-records. Shouldn't take but a few minutes. I want to see if I can run a movie from you for the same ROM file. FuzZerd, That hex edited movie also stops right at the beginning. And what's interesting is that it actually says "stopped" (as did all the previous movies). I'm going to do a little rearranging and see what happens. I don't think it's a ROM file difference because you've been able to play my mcm files just fine.
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
I did granzort, remember? so you already have one of my file ;) If you have 666 files, it mean i was correct... stop searching further... You know how to use command line, probly, and this is not an insult to say to you to double check coz there is like 99.99% chances the problem is there Im sure if you try just a little more youll make it trought 666 file = unreconized movie argument Its very sensitive on quotes ect... try to change your path and files name to shorter ones (and remove spacing), also try to use relative path (i know your not suppose to... but anyway) I just noticed you use quotes on the movie itself, wrong idea imo, clean your emu path and dont use quotes on the -mov argument
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
arukAdo wrote:
I did granzort, remember? so you already have one of my file ;) If you have 666 files, it mean i was correct... stop searching further... You know how to use command line, probly, and this is not an insult to say to you to double check coz there is like 99.99% chances the problem is there Im sure if you try just a little more youll make it trought 666 file = unreconized movie argument Its very sensitive on quotes ect... try to change your path and files name to shorter ones (and remove spacing), also try to use relative path (i know your not suppose to... but anyway) I just noticed you use quotes on the movie itself, wrong idea imo, clean your emu path and dont use quotes on the -mov argument
I forgot a word there. There are NO .666 files on my hard drives. Sorry 'bout that. No 666 files anywhere. Mednafen is reading in the movie file. I'm using the same script for all my movie files. It's loading the movie file and the ROM and then as soon as it goes to play it it stops. I did some testing with copies of mednafen, ROM files, and MCM files in locations right off C: with proper 8 character directory names and 8.3 file names, no spaces or odd characters, and it still didn't work. For all movies except FuzZerd's spaces and quotes are not a problem at all. No, the command line instructions are correct. If there is a problem on my end it must have to do with the actual execution of the mednafen program itself. But I still find it odd that movie files from you and Adelikat work fine with no problems. Whatever is the incompatibility here appears, so far, to be very specific to me and FuzZerd. FuzZerd, I'm going to keep trying to get this to work. It seems like you'd be good to work with on a Legendary Axe run.
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
Well yeah if you dont have those 666 files it mean it load the movie your giving to him Try this for bonks .... who knows Test this one
fruitbane
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Joined: 3/28/2005
Posts: 216
arukAdo wrote:
Well yeah if you dont have those 666 files it mean it load the movie your giving to him Try this for bonks .... who knows Test this one
That file works perfectly for Legendary Axe. I haven't tried it on Bonk yet ; ) Did you make that one?
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
No, and it make no sence to me, i just copied it dumbly (fuz last file) So its when you download the file you corrupt it, i have no idea how tought Yeah its leg. axe sorry, not bonk (you are successfull to confuse me ! LOL... anyway i dont even have that game haha)