On this site, we make perfect movies, and then we beat them.
Of course, if we can beat them, they weren’t perfect in the
first place, but who would have known?
This submission beats the published Rockman movie by about 48 seconds (2887 frames).
It breaks down to these improvements:
- Elecman: 88 frames
- New glitch-techniques (~20 frames)
- New playing-techniques (~58 frames)
- Better precision (~10 frames)
- Iceman: 64 frames
- Water scene (better precision): ~35 frames
- Lift scene (better precision): ~20 frames
- Tunnel (better precision): ~10 frames
- Fireman: 697 frames
- Better precision
- New glitch-techniques (MAJOR)
- Bombman: 884 frames
- New glitch-techniques (MAJOR)
- Better precision
- Less refills
- Gutsman: 42 frames
- New playing-techniques (beginning, refill approach)
- Better precision
- Cutman: 454 frames
- New glitch-techniques (MAJOR)
- Wily1: 82 frames
- New playing-techniques (~20 frames gained at refill, ~30 frames gained at the Boss)
- Better precision
- Wily2: 184 frames
- New glitch-techniques (~60 frames)
- Better precision (~40 frames)
- New refill strategy (~60 frames)
- Wily3: 84 frames
- New glitch-technique
- Wily4: about 280 frames
- New playing-techniques (most notably, the Wily fight is very different)
Most of the new strategies come from finalfighter. Some came from Morimoto. Huge thanks to both of them.
A few were discovered by AngerFist and Bisqwit during the making of the movie.
The precision of the making of this movie was greatly improved from
the past. What most influenced that outcome, was an emulator feature,
an FCEU extension, that shows the following things each frame:
- Position and speed of Rockman (X, Y) at subpixel precision
- This allowed to make optimizations that weren't immediately visible, but only affected in the long run
- It also helped solve many mysteries of the game that were previously without answers
- Positions and ages of each Magnet Beam
- Combined with the data collected at Rockman Data, this allowed to predict exactly where and when to place each beam
- Indicator of boss and enemy hits
- This saved a lot of trial&error work.
Other software that were written for the tasks specialized for this game:
- BisqBot, a rerecording robot, was used to manipulate the weapon refills and to fight the Wily3 boss.
- A C++ program was made to predict the randomness needed to make Bombman act in a certain way at Wily4.
A lot of wall-passing / wrapping / zipping techniques are used in this movie.
And this “a lot” means... adjectives are not enough to describe it.
It has became increasingly difficult for even an expert player to comprehend what is going on in this movie.
In a few situations, what appears on the screen is not what happens in the game.
For example, Rockman may appear to pass through a spike unharmed or jump from air.
In such situations, he’s usually temporarily inhabiting the “next screen” that
is different from the one being displayed. Except, when he really actually hits
a spike and still survives (this happens in Bombman stage).
The foundation of all of the techniques used in this movie are explained at Rockman Tricks, but
the applications are myriad and complicated. There currently exists no documentary of those applications,
but if you keep asking, something like that may be built in the progress of answering your questions.
If you are interested in the source code of the programs/tools mentioned in this post, ask Bisqwit.
EDIT: This submission was originally submitted as a Rockman movie,
but as I tried out how it works in USA Mega Man, and noticed it
desyncs in the last battle, I tried to make a compatible USA version
movie on the side of the Japanese version. However, the USA version
movie ended up being faster (due to no particular reason), so I’m
actually replacing the old submission with this new one.
If played on Japanese version, it desyncs in the second part of the last fight. Use the USA version.
If played on Japanese version, it desyncs in the second part of the last fight. Use the USA version.