TODO: Continue updating the page to reflect modern site standards. Possibly merge the contents of this page into TASingGuide.
So you're interested in creating a TAS? Great, you've come to the right place! This page is intended as a guide for those brand new to the process of creating a TAS to achieve the best results with the least hassle.
Table of contents
Before you begin...
If you don't really know what a TAS is to begin with, the welcome page is intended to provide you with that information, explaining who we are, what we do, and why it's awesome.
If you prefer a more hands-on and conversational approach to learning, it's highly recommend you visit our Forum or join our Discord server.
For visual learners, we have a few user-created video tutorials with good information on how to create TASes for anyone from complete beginners to veterans trying to reach even higher levels.
TASing is Art
One of the most important things to keep in mind early on is that TASing is a form of creative expression, similar to drawing. Because of this, it's hard to directly teach someone how to TAS. Everyone will naturally fall into their own styles and rhythms as they progress. We can teach you techniques, we can teach you about the tools, we can tell you about the history, and we can give you thousands of examples, but it remains on you to develop your own workflow.
We are, effectively, an art school and a museum. We want to see you succeed and we hope to guide you to that success, but we are also curators who may have stricter standards than you're aiming for. We truly believe that TASing is accessible for a large majority of people, but it is because of this that we maintain those standards, as there is less of a barrier to entry to reach them.
You don't have to strictly aim for those standards to be a good TASer. As a creative outlet, your TASing skill will just naturally reach those standards with practice and patience. Likewise, you don't need to be published on TASVideos to be legitimate. Set your own goals, whether or not they include us. Just like any other artform or hobby, the best way to learn is by doing.
Selecting a game
A very common question from new TASers is "What do I TAS first?", and the answer to that is unfortunately both very simple and very complicated: Anything you want, as long as it's accessible to you.
One of the coolest things about TASing is that it's a pretty universal skill. Everything you learn from one TAS will apply to all of your future TASes, regardless of the game. At most you'll have to adjust your thinking to adapt to new genres and controls, but the overall mindset of TASing will always apply regardless of what you do.
Because of that, your goal when starting out should be to have as much fun as possible so you keep feeling motivated to TAS. In that sense, the advice we most commonly give in return is that your first TASing experiences should be with a game that you know well, something close to your heart that you feel comfortable playing around in. The more you know about the game, the more you can focus on the actual TASing.
Don't fall into the trap of picking something because it seems "easy": Even the simplest looking games can have an absolute wealth of techniques and mechanics that need to be learned to keep up with it, and learning a game is often a lot harder than learning to TAS.
Another good idea is to find a game with an active community behind it so you can learn directly from experts with a wealth of knowledge about the game. TASVideos as a whole is a very generalized community: We have experts from many games, but we as a whole do not specialize in anything, so there's a decent chance that you're the first to touch your chosen game, which could be demotivating when you're first starting out. A dedicated community means you're always a small step away from getting exactly the advice you need.
Not every game is going to have a community, but there may still be a way of getting that same effect even without one: Choosing a game that has plenty of TASVideos publications. Since all of our publications come with the actual input files, you can download them and study the inputs directly to learn exactly what you need to do and when you might need to do it. If you're still stuck, then you have all of their submission texts for explanations, and if you're STILL stuck then you should be able to reach out to any experienced TASer to help you out.
Setting up the emulator
Once you have your game (remember, it is strictly forbidden to ask for ROMs and ISOs!), you will need the appropriate emulator or TAS framework to be able to produce the run. This process varies strongly from tool to tool: Some emulators such as BizHawk are built specifically with TASing and TASers in mind and are easier to set up as a result, while other emulators and frameworks may take more work. Regardless, each emulator or TAS tool is carefully documented on the Emulator Resources page. You can always ask for advice on the Forum or Discord as well.
Once you can load your game, set up the emulator however you wish. Change your hotkeys, investigate the tools, maybe even play through the game a bit just to familiarize yourself with the environment.
Starting to record the movie
NOTE: Information past this point may be considered outdated, and is currently in the process of being rewritten to reflect modern practices.
Once you have the game loaded in the emulator, pause the game (such that recording starts paused) and choose the appropriate option to begin recording a movie. 'Be sure to select 'start from reset' or 'start from power-on' or similar; the run is unlikely to be accepted if it is started from a savestate.'
Once you have begun recording, you should take the time to familiarise yourself with the two most important tools available to assist you.
Frame advance
The frame advance feature of an emulator allows the game to be played one frame at a time. For many emulators, this is bound by default to the \ key (look in the hotkey configuration to see if this is what the key is). By holding down the keys representing the input for that frame, you are able to move the game forward frame-by-frame, allowing for the greatest possible precision.
Save states (re-recording)
The emulators accepted on the site allow not only for save states, but to allow for preservation of input within the movie being recorded up until the point where the state is saved (this is known as re-recording). By using save states as normal during the recording process, you are able to undo mistakes that you have made at will.
(If you load a state earlier than a good segment you have recorded, do not worry; most of the emulators support the notion of 'bullet-proof recording' where the input leading up to a save state is stored within the state itself, allowing you to just load the later state and proceed as if nothing had happened.)
Experienced TASer's have different workflows for how they use their savestate slots.
Applying the tools - the title screen
Most games have a title screen requiring you to push a button (in general or a specific button) to advance to the main menu or to the game itself. As an exercise in basic tool-assistance, try to find the first frame at which pushing a button will advance the game in this fashion. This works as follows:
- Save a state well before it is possible to advance the screen (this can be as early as starting to record the movie).
- Run the game (frame advance or otherwise) until it is clearly possible to advance. Using the frame number display, make a note of that frame number.
- Load your earlier save state.
- Advance until shortly before the frame number you found earlier and try to cause the game to advance past the title screen by pushing the appropriate button and advancing a few frames to see if it will fade out.
- If this works, make a note of the frame number, reload your earlier state and proceed as above. If it doesn't work, note the frame number and try a later frame.
- By repeating the above, narrow down the range of frames using a binary search until you reach the desired target frame.
Use of more save states during this process is encouraged, as it can help things go considerably faster.
Much of TASing can be boiled down to this basic procedure - repeating a short segment over and over again until the best possible result is achieved. Here the desired input is relatively trivial (finding the best frame at which to push one button).
Other techniques
The method above is the traditional repetitive process of holding down the buttons you want to press on that frame and then tapping the frame advance button, chorded-input style. An alternative method is to use an input editor, sometimes called a piano roll editor, assuming the emulator you're using supports it. FCEUX has a stable input editor with good documentation on how to use it.
Depending on the kind of TAS you're making you may find the input editor / piano roll editor method is a more intuitive interface.
Getting feedback on your run
Once you have completed a TAS, if it is your first time submitting a TAS it is strongly recommended that you post your input file on the forums prior to using the site's submission feature; this allows our expert players to give feedback on your run and point out flaws that you might have missed. Every player makes mistakes now and again, and it is a lot easier to do this if you do not have as much experience creating runs to the site's standards.
TODO: more justification for submitting to the forums first, and more on submission process
More information
Other useful pages for new players:
Basics
- Newcomers' anticipated questions - Other questions from new users.
- Movie Rules - When making movies and submitting them, you must read this page first.
- Guidelines - Good ideas for things to do and not do with your run.
- Submission instructions - When submitting movies, read this page first.
Techniques
- Common tricks - Some tricks that work in many games. Good general education.
- Luck Manipulation - How to manipulate favorable outcomes in a game.
- Boss fighting guide - Boss tactics.
Advanced techniques
- Memory search - How to find interesting values in the RAM and use them to your advantage. Many games have useful addresses that can be downloaded as .wch files for the supported emulators. And you can contribute your own.
- Input file editing - How to edit early parts of the movie without destroying what comes after that (does not always work, though).
Run planning
- List of ideas - Any idea which movie I should create next?
- Game resources - Tricks, glitches, and password generators for Mario series, Mega Man series, Rygar, Metroid, Umihara Kawase, and others.
- Route planning - A small guide for the making of a route or course a game.
Other
- Userfiles - runs currently being worked on by other players.