Sir_VG
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Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
I've started work on Frogger. Here's the list of levels and I'll keep plugging away to get this thing beaten. (Times below are old - from my v1 attempt and are only here for reference purposes.) 1. Zone 1 - Retro Zone (Truck) - 5 levels a. Level 1-1 - Retro Level 1 (CLEARED - 6s, 5s, 5s, 4s, 6s = 26s) b. Level 1-2 - Retro Level 2 (CLEARED - 5s, 5s, 5s, 6s, 6s = 27s) c. Level 1-3 - Retro Level 3 (CLEARED - 7s, 6s, 6s, 6s, 7s = 32s) d. Level 1-4 - Retro Level 4 (CLEARED - 7s, 5s, 7s, 6s, 6s = 31s) e. Level 1-5 - Retro Level 5* (CLEARED - 8s, 9s, 4s, 8s, 6s = 35s) 2. Zone 2 - Lily Islands Zone (Lily Pad) - 5 levels a. Level 2-1 - Lily Islands (CLEARED - 17s, 17s, 30s, 21s, 21s = 106s) b. Level 2-2 - Bow Wow Falls (CLEARED - 14s, 14s, 09s, 25s, 34s = 96s) c. Level 2-3 - Mower Mania (CLEARED - 13s, 12s, 10s, 17s, 15s = 67s) d. Level 2-4 - Spinning Lilies* (CLEARED - 21s, 29s, 23s, 32s, 30s = 135s) e. Level 2-5 - Bow Wow Revenge (CLEARED - 12s, 15s, 09s, 19s, 30s = 85s) 3. Zone 3 - Tree Zone (Leaf) - 2 levels a. Level 3-1 - Honey Bee Hollow (CLEARED - 10s, 09s, 09s, 08s, 07s = 43s) b. Level 3-2 - Canopy Capers* (CLEARED - 18s, 09s, 22s, 13s, 09s = 71s) 4. Zone 4 - Machinery Zone (Metal Gears) - 3 levels a. Level 4-1 - Scorching Switches* (CLEARED - 12s, 09s, 09s, 09s, 08s = 47s) b. Level 4-2 - Platform Madness (CLEARED - 05s, 11s, 17s, 11s, 06s = 50s) c. Level 4-3 - Lava Crush (CLEARED - 29s, 05s, 08s, 11s, 11s = 64s) 5. Zone 5 - Cave Zone (Bat) - 3 levels a. Level 5-1 - Dark Dark Cavern b. Level 5-2 - Frogger Goes Skiing c. Level 5-3 - Webs Cavern* 6. Zone 6 - Cloud Zone (Cloud) - 4 levels a. Level 6-1 - Looney Balloons b. Level 6-2 - Time Flies c. Level 6-3 - Loonier Balloons d. Level 6-4 - Airshow Antics* 7. Zone 7 - Sewer Zone (Fish Skeleton) - 5 levels a. Level 7-1 - Bang Bang Barrel b. Level 7-2 - Slime Sliding c. Level 7-3 - Uncanny Crusher* d. Level 7-4 - Boom Boom Barrel e. Level 7-5 - Reservoir Frogs 8. Zone 8 - Desert Zone (Cactus) - 5 levels a. Level 8-1 - Cactus Point b. Level 8-2 - Boulder Alley c. Level 8-3 - Tumbling Alley d. Level 8-4 - Crumbled Point* e. Level 8-5 - Big Boulder Alley 9. Zone 9 - Tropical Zone (Banana) - 1 level a. Level 9-1 - Tropical Trouble* I'll aim to collect all golden frogs while beating levels as fast as possible. Some of these levels are a nightmare on the console, so it'll be interesting to see how well I can TAS it. Current status: 01/33 levels cleared. Movie File: Old WIP was based upon PCSX v0.3 format. Currently redoing in the new movie format, and also redoing to fix the desync in the old movies in Retro 2. Times listed above were from the old movie and are currently here for my reference. WIP link removed until I get something good going again. Video Notice: Use Eternal SPU 1.41 for the best quality audio. I'd make an AVI, but I don't know how to make it with sound right now.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Post subject: Re: Frogger (USA)
mz
Player (79)
Joined: 10/26/2007
Posts: 693
The movie looks pretty good so far. :) ----- EDIT: I should have said the rest of this post through a private message, sorry.
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.
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
I did make a mistake in that I should progress though levels with X (when able to) instead of using T. It saves about 80-90 frames (give or take a few). Fortunately, I'm not too far so I don't have much to redo. I'm also gonna look through Retro 1 again to see if I can make it a little faster. Better to do it now before I get too far in, right? Edit: Yep, managed to improve Retro 1 by 4 seconds (1s on green, 1s on brown, 2s on purple.) New WIP up, complete through Retro 5. Frogger no longer will play with traffic. :( Edit (09.22): One change from WIP8, is that I made an improvement for LP3 (purple), saving 1 second in-game time. You'll see it on the PSX file when I release WIP9.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Active player (417)
Joined: 8/22/2008
Posts: 301
Location: Brazil
It's great man.
Active player (253)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 476
A TAS of this awesome game? It's like a dream come true. I can't wait to see the AVI of this.
[URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcuV2JdaBYY]Streets of Rage 3 (2 players)[/url]
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
It'll be a bit before a new WIP shows up. I'm starting over for a couple of reasons: 1. The new PCSX version uses a new movie format. 2. #1 gives me a good reason to start over to fix the desync issues when using anything other then Eternal's sound plugin. This was likely caused by me using it solely instead of null, which I couldn't get to work for some reason initially. I can now, so I'm gonna start over, and test null, peops, and eternal plugins. Currently back through Retro 1, same times. ...*BLEEP* Now it syncs through Retro 2 with Null/peops, but desyncs with Eternal. I guess I'm not gonna win here. (With Eternal I die going for the last one, orange, but I can tell it desyncs much earlier then that, because the gator is in a different position going for the first one, blue). Oh well. Video up of v2 WIP2 for those that want to see. I'm having a hell of a time with Retro 3...getting AWFUL position layout. :( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=732fraBwHxA
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
I'm finally back at this, using 0.0.7 of the emulator. The times listed above are from the old v1 run, but I'm keeping them up for my reference only right now. All golden frogs will have to be collected, because apparently in order to get the ending, you need them. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVqLb6IFDZY - Human Play of Tropical Zone) Current Progress: 1. Zone 1 - Retro Zone (Truck) - 5 levels a. Level 1-1 - Retro Level 1 (CLEARED - 6s, 5s, 5s, 4s, 6s = 26s)
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Active player (253)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 476
It depends on what you classify as being the ending. If you don't get all the golden frogs, the ending movie won't play, but the movie with the credits will. I would encourage you to get them anyway, though. None of them are excessively out of the way. Glad to see you're working on this again.
[URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcuV2JdaBYY]Streets of Rage 3 (2 players)[/url]
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
I'm back at this again, after a long hiatus. I'm back on Retro 4, though I'm running into an issue there trying to figure out how the RNG works. It doesn't appear to be frame based, as I tried delaying actions between frogs and prior to the stage some frames and got the same randomness. I believe it's based upon button presses, but I'm not sure how to really manipulate things. Until then, right now I'm getting stuck with a layout that gives me one frog that's a second slower. I did cut off a couple of seconds on some earlier levels. Will update the times later. Current movie though Retro 3: http://www.imamyth.com/TAS/Frogger-v2/Frogger.pjm
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
With the Frogger 2 TAS out, I'm gonna try AGAIN to figure out the stupid RNG, though help is appreciated. I'm using PSXjin 2.0.2 now. Working on the first stage - and as soon as I save some time somewhere, I lose it somewhere else. Frustrating. Current Progress: 1. Zone 1 - Retro Zone (Truck) - 5 levels a. Level 1-1 - Retro Level 1 (CLEARED - 5s, 5s, 4s, 6s, 7s = 27s) Yeah, I'll need to redo this. But I don't have any more time this morning. So I'll share what I've got. http://www.mediafire.com/?0ulv24dy04p14zv MD5 for the ISO: IMG - ADFEC89428BE1C84DF042F00AE3D33A7 SUB - DBA05AFED0F26F1141390863D59B29F4 CCD - D773E9086F53CA4DE27B4367352E087E
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Player (108)
Joined: 7/14/2012
Posts: 22
I've been working on this game for RTA speedruns. Up until this point I was routing on console which can get tedious for a game like this so I decided to try my hand at making a TAS. This is my first time making a TAS but I'm very experienced with this game so I think its going to turn out well. I took some time to work on it today to TAS the first zone (Retro Zone) and uploaded end product. Link to video I managed to make improvements on all five levels over Sir VG's times with: Level 1-1 - Retro Level 1 - 24s Level 1-2 - Retro Level 2 - 26s Level 1-3 - Retro Level 3 - 28s Level 1-4 - Retro Level 4 - 29s Level 1-5 - Retro Level 5* - 34s The only thing I'm not too happy about is in Retro Zone 2 I had an alternate route that I felt had the potential of being 25s or less. (The main reason I wanted to do this was so that all my times beat the best human in game times) Unfortunately the RNG gator spawned on the purple frog frames before I could get to the frog. I don't understand how to manipulate the RNG in this game so there is not much I could do about it. I think the RNG might be seed based from the menus and it affects both where the gator will spawn and the duration at which it will stay there. That being said SSBMstuff's route for the level probably is the same amount of time and avoided the gator in this configuration. The RNG in this game only affects Retro Zones 2, 3, & 4 for speedrunning as well as TASing purposes. Considering my RZ 3 and 4 were not interrupted at all by the gator I would say overall this is a near perfect gator pattern. The only other place where RNG affects anything is if and when the dogs will trip in the Lily Island Zone but I've routed out any real affect that could possibly have so with how good this Retro Zone turned out I may just not worry about it. I don't know if there is anyone who would be interested into looking into it but it might be handy to know though, particularly since we do this RTA that would be my main motivation for finding out how the RNG works. Either way I figured I'd just make a post about me starting this project. Since I plan on speedrunning the longer categories of this game a TAS of it will be pretty handy to have.
Player (108)
Joined: 7/14/2012
Posts: 22
I decided that I was happy with my Retro Zone and decided to continue on and do a 100% TAS of this game. I wanted to make a post about some of the different strategies for achieving the best possible level times. Since this is a full game TAS I am prioritizing real time over in-game time, although there are things that I'm doing to improve in-game time that cost no real time. So Spikestuff helped me put together this video comparing basically 2 different routes, but it ends up being 4 different routes for the level Bow Wow Falls: Link to video In-game times achieved: 57 seconds, 61 seconds 68 seconds, 69 seconds In real time from the start of the video, each route can achieve a real time of 1:17.69 but the in-game times range from 57 seconds to 69 seconds. I originally wanted to compare these routes because I had a 68 and a 69 for in game times and that's not close enough to be confident which is faster real time, but they ended up both being the same length to the frame (because of the some cycles that couldn't be improved). The difference between the 57 and the 68 on the other hand is that I drain time on the score counting scene until the last possible second to hit the necessary cycles. Mashing through the score scene faster allows you to move sooner but cause you to waist time in the level itself. The reason this works is because in the score sceen, most aspects of the level simulate 1 frame per frame. In this level (Bow Wow Falls) the lawn mowers and the balloons simulate slower (<1 frame per frame) but that didn't really matter for the most part. On the blue frog in the route for the top left video I had to sack more time than I originally anticipated to get the balloon in place but that's not a bad thing. In Lily Islands (the level before this one) there are bird cycles that don't simulate 1 to 1 but on the whole, most obstacles aren't affected by draining time on the clock. Also a similar technique was used on the purple frog in Retro Zone 5 where a the jump to the frog was delayed by several frames. This cause the back row gator to be slightly ahead of where it would have been in its cycle, which allowed the jump on the edge of the screen to be made. I don't really understand why this slightly desynced the cycles but this happens all over Retro Zone. The purple frog in RZ5 was the only place where it really mattered in that zone though.
Player (108)
Joined: 7/14/2012
Posts: 22
I made a WIP for anyone interested. Link to video This is from start up through Dark Dark Caverns. The in game times I have achieved on each level are: - Zone 1 - Retro Zone Level 1-1 - Retro Level 1 - 24 Level 1-2 - Retro Level 2 - 26 Level 1-3 - Retro Level 3 - 28 Level 1-4 - Retro Level 4 - 29 Level 1-5 - Retro Level 5* - 34 - Zone 2 - Lily Pad Zone Level 2-1 - Lily Islands - 91 Level 2-2 - Bow Wow Falls - 57 Level 2-3 - Mower Mania - 66 Level 2-4 - Spinning Lilies* - 122 Level 2-5 - Bow Wow Revenge - 67 - Zone 3 - Tree Zone Level 3-1 - Honey Bee Hollow - 40 Level 3-2 - Canopy Capers* - 64 - Zone 4 - Machinery Zone Level 4-1 - Scorching Switches* - 44 Level 4-2 - Platform Madness - 42 Level 4-3 - Lava Crush - 53 - Zone 5 - Bat Zone Level 5-1 - Dark Dark Cavern - 37
Editor, Experienced player (608)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012
Thanks for uploading that WIP encode. This is looking really good, CaneofPacci! I like the decision to go for in-game time (even though waiting at the score screen makes the run longer in real time). Keep uploading those WIPs as you progress.
Warepire
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Going for ingame time is much more impressive for this game than real time in my opinion, so great decision there in my opinion. WIP looks really nice, good luck on the TAS!
Player (108)
Joined: 7/14/2012
Posts: 22
So I finally got around to finishing my 100% TAS of this game. Link to video My final times for each level are as follows: - Zone 1 - Retro Zone Level 1-1 - Retro Level 1 - 24 Level 1-2 - Retro Level 2 - 26 Level 1-3 - Retro Level 3 - 28 Level 1-4 - Retro Level 4 - 29 Level 1-5 - Retro Level 5* - 34 - Zone 2 - Lily Pad Zone Level 2-1 - Lily Islands - 91 Level 2-2 - Bow Wow Falls - 57 Level 2-3 - Mower Mania - 66 Level 2-4 - Spinning Lilies* - 122 Level 2-5 - Bow Wow Revenge - 67 - Zone 3 - Tree Zone Level 3-1 - Honey Bee Hollow - 40 Level 3-2 - Canopy Capers* - 64 - Zone 4 - Machinery Zone Level 4-1 - Scorching Switches* - 44 Level 4-2 - Platform Madness - 42 Level 4-3 - Lava Crush - 53 - Zone 5 - Bat Zone Level 5-1 - Dark Dark Cavern - 37 Level 5-2 - Frogger Goes Skiing - 92 Level 5-3 - Webs Cavern* - 53 - Zone 6 - Cloud Zone Level 6-1 - Looney Balloons - 80 Level 6-2 - Time Flies - 267 Level 6-3 - Loonier Balloons - 71 Level 6-4 - Airshow Antics* - 54 - Zone 7 - Sewer Zone Level 7-1 - Bang Bang Barrel - 93 Level 7-2 - Slime Sliding - 45 Level 7-3 - Uncanny Crusher* - 69 Level 7-4 - Boom Boom Barrel - 91 Level 7-5 - Reservoir Frogs - 67 - Zone 8 - Desert Zone Level 8-1 - Cactus Point - 69 Level 8-2 - Boulder Alley - 103 Level 8-3 - Tumbling Alley - 38 Level 8-4 - Crumbled Point* - 65 Level 8-5 - Big Boulder Alley - 119 - Zone 9 - Tropical Zone Level 9-1 - Tropical Trouble* - 85 Total in game time: 2285 seconds Final time: 47:55.80 Rerecords: 17612 That is 483 in game seconds faster than the cumulative total of my IL times and is about 30 minutes faster than my RTA run of this category (I finished two runs total). I'll be submitting this, just wanted to post here as well.
Player (108)
Joined: 7/14/2012
Posts: 22
Just wanted to make a note of this here In Bow Wow Revenge, I rode the swan around to get the orange frog, but there's no barriers or anything blocking you on the ground so you can just hop around to get it. So that would save time on that frog and potentially allow for an alternate level route to save time overall. Also for Big Boulder Alley, you can go towards the blue frog and hop down to where the bird loops up this eliminating a bunch of junk.