This video obsoletes my previously submitted video by 3470 frames (57.83 seconds). The entire improvement is a result of two new shortcuts discovered by Aqfaq:
By simply staying very close to the river in the area where you pick up the pebbles, it's possible to get to the area with the mushroom and the hole in the ground without using the eagle. Since you can just as easily leave this area, this means you can use the mushroom to enter the leprechaun lair through the "back door", which means you won't encounter the rat, which also means you don't have to get the cheese needed to bypass said rat.
From the area with the hole in the ground, it's possible to get to the island where the gnome is located without having to cross any of the bridges guarded by trolls. This means you don't need help from the goat to get to the gnome, which also means you don't need to pick up the carrot.
To encoder: use the modified file on Microstorage when encoding.
To publisher: force Bisqwit/DeHackEd/adelikat to switch movie files before publishing.
adelikat: Replaced the submission file with an updated one by the author that uses a new strategy. TODO: explain strat and time difference.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Oh, BZero, despite what I said in the first post, I actually found some room for improvements in the movie:
Before you kill the giant, you should wait and not kill it immediately, because luckily it is walking towards you (which was not the case in you previous movie). If you kill the giant at the last possible frame before it kills you, you save some walking time, about 30 frames.
Also, whenever you use the action menus, you should not release the direction pad for that frame, because the walking is still registered for the frame you activate the menus. To be sure and to make the recording easy, you might want to always hold the D-pad to the direction you are going to walk next, even during screen transitions. That way you never miss those so called "window of opportunity" frames. For example, believe it or not, you can turn the character around on the start location with the D-pad before any other button is pressed and the game has not even started.
Generally, it should always be assumed that a game character is able to move, even during inventory screens, death animations, continue screens, game over screens, ending credits, pause screens or the game title screens. For the purpose of TASing, you might as well assume that the character is able to move when the whole console is turned off and the world has ended. Never assume that the character is unable to do something at a given frame. :)
Oh, it seems that sometimes you can start turning away from an item during the frame you pick it up:
Frame 1: <
Frame 2: > A
The game is made very short now, so I would be glad to see an updated movie before this one gets published. However, I completely understand if you are not going to do it right away, BZero. My "yes" vote still stands.
Also, whenever you use the action menus, you should not release the direction pad for that frame, because the walking is still registered for the frame you activate the menus. To be sure and to make the recording easy, you might want to always hold the D-pad to the direction you are going to walk next, even during screen transitions. That way you never miss those so called "window of opportunity" frames. For example, believe it or not, you can turn the character around on the start location with the D-pad before any other button is pressed and the game has not even started.
Generally, it should always be assumed that a game character is able to move, even during inventory screens, death animations, continue screens, game over screens, ending credits, pause screens or the game title screens. For the purpose of TASing, you might as well assume that the character is able to move when the whole console is turned off and the world has ended. Never assume that the character is unable to do something at a given frame. :)
I tried testing this, but it doesn't seem to improve my time at all. In fact, when holding the directional buttons from start-up and during screen transitions, I was already 2 frames behind this video after only 400 frames.
Oh, it seems that sometimes you can start turning away from an item during the frame you pick it up:
Frame 1: <Frame> A
This doesn't seem to make a difference either. Yes, he'll turn around automatically after I'm done picking up an item if I don't press any directional buttons after picking up the item. But since I'm pressing the directional buttons after picking up the item, he'll turn around on the same frame anyway. He won't start moving any sooner.
Are you watching memory addresses C1F0 and C218 for his position?
As for the giant, I'll redo that.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Hah, sorry, I didn't even know Dega had memory watch feature. It seems that I was wrong about the character movement. Good thing the giant part got improved, though. Good work!
Well, ok, so now I don't have anything else to say about it.
It does, you just need to install Python 2.4, then the Python menu will show up next to "Sound" in the emulator. C1F0 is your x-axis position on the screen, and C218 is the y-axis.
And yeah, I really hope everything is optimal now. >_>
I had nothing to do and felt like encoding it until it's completely published.
Note though that there's no logo or anything as I don't have one.
/It's so big because the video stream is lossless. Might be used by a publisher if he/she wants to.
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
Whoah! Thanks, ShinyDoofy. Big question though: Is this the submission run, or the updated one listed in the submission text? Because if it isn't the updated one, I can't publish it..
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
It is the updated one. The only thing missing of course are the logo and the little text boxes at the bottom in the beginning.
The mmv's crc32 is "fb5f14c4".
