Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
Welcome to The Newbie Corner. These are the tentative rules for posting and helping. More rules/guidelines will likely be added in the future. Rules and guidelines for newcomers:
  1. Recommended reading: Some commonly asked questions by newcomers on the site have been written up by some of our members. This available on the Newcomers Anticipated Questions page.
  2. Search the forum before posting. It's possible your question has already been asked before.
  3. Start simple. Practice on simple games with simple mechanics and simple goals. Super Mario Bros. is an example of simplicity on the surface, with a deep creamy filling of glitches that can be exploited.
  4. Challenge yourself, not publications. Start by setting yourself a target time, and try to beat it. Keep lowering the time, and you might soon discover new ways to improve a published TAS!
  5. Experiment. Most games weren't designed with frame-by-frame rapid fire, ultra-precise button timing and left+right/up+down button holding in mind. Try different combinations of things the game might not expect and see how it reacts! See CommonTricks for more information.
  6. If you're unsure, ask. This section is for helping, so if you are having problems with something, let us know!
    • When asking, use a descriptive subject title. "Help me!" or "A newbie with a question" aren't very informative, and makes searching the forum harder for people who have the same question. Please include your question in some form in the subject. For example: "[FCEUX] How do I use frame advance effectively?"
Rules for Veterans:
  1. Be helpful. The main goal of this section is to encourage TASing by helping those that require assistance. If you have no intention of providing a helpful response, do not post here.
  2. Be nice. Similar to above, providing a cold response to a question will likely result in reluctance to ask another.
  3. Links to the wiki should only be used as a reference to your own answer. Please don't just leave a link without explanation; try to put what the wiki page says in your own words, then if people wish to learn more they can look at the page.
Rules for both:
  1. Any game can have a topic regardless of one in another forum. The primary goal is to have a place for new people's TASes in a place that doesn't intrude on the official topics.
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
Post subject: Re: The Rules of The Newbie Corner
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Raiscan wrote:
Start simple. Practice on simple games with simple mechanics and simple goals. Super Mario Bros. is an example of simplicity on the surface, with a deep creamy filling of glitches that can be exploited.
Ah, this is a good guideline. I've met some newbies who had ambitions to make TASes of long, complicated, 3-dimensional games, just because they were their favorite games to play. Many of our younger members didn't grow up with the simple sidescrollers that make for quick and cool-looking TASes, so we need to look for opportunities to introduce them to the classics now and then!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: Minnesota
This thread is 5 years overdue.
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Player (39)
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 871
Location: Utah
This is very smart, it seems that some of us are in need of TASing practice, I don't know why it came sooner. :P
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
It's good to see this thread active! Perhaps we should have an "answer to anticipated questions" list too? I've a short one here, with questions that occasionally pop up: Hi! I'm new to this site, and I just wanted to introduce myself! Is there anything in particular I should know before posting or submitting a TAS? Welcome to TASvideos! There are a few things you should know before posting in the forum or submitting a TAS: First of all, make sure you've read the forum rules. Secondly, I suggest you read the Why and How page very carefully. It will tell you what you need to know about how and why we make these movies. Basically, the thumb rules are to be polite and articulate, and educating yourself about what the site is about, before posting here. I'd like to make a TAS of a game, but I've never done one before. What specific game can you recommend? This is hard to say, but personally, I'd recommend any simple platformer for any of the older consoles, such as NES or Gameboy. I also suggest that first of all, you learn all the basic tools of the emulator before recording anything. When you decide to start recording, I think it's a very good idea to have picked a game that already has a TAS published, and constantly compare your run to that one, making sure that yours is at least as fast. I personally favor NES games, so here are a few simple NES platformers: *Kid niki 2 *The smurfs *Hudson's adventure Island *Amagon *Flintstones I've started doing a TAS, but it's not going very well... I'm having a hard time getting the same time as the TAS I'm comparing to. Can you guys help me out? Of course! That's what the community is all about. If you have a question about the emulator, such as how a certain feature works or so, ask your question in the appropriate emulator thread. If your question is about the game you're TASing, post your question in the appropriate game thread. Please do not be discouraged if you find it hard to get a good result the first time you TAS a game. I promise you that you'll get better and better the more you try, and eventually you'll find that you can get at least as good, if not better, results than the TAS you're comaring to! And really, don't be afraid to ask questions, especially here in the Newcomer's forum section. As long as you ask nicely, we will answer nicely. I have finished a TAS! Should I go ahead and submit it? If this is your first TAS, I strongly suggest you post your run in the forum before submitting it. If everyone in the forum give their thumbs up, you can go ahead and submit it. The reason we prefer that you post your first TAS in the appropriate forum thread is simply because for your first TAS, even if you've studied the tools and the previous runs thoroughly, it's not certain that it's site material, simply because it often takes a long time to learn TASing. But again, if your run is well made and good material for the site, we will most likely give you thumbs up! Make sure you post your run in the correct forum thread - use the forum search feature to find it. Where can I upload my run if I don't want to submit it just yet? You can upload your run to Microstorage. Just copy the link that it gives you after uploading your movie file, and post the link in a forum post. This way everyone can watch what you've done! I don't know how to use the forum search feature, can you help me out? Sure! At the top of the forum page, you'll see the word "search" with a magnifying glass next to it. Click on that link. In order to search for your game, simply type in your search in the first textbox. If your game contains multiple words, such as Super Mario Bros, put "" around the name when you search, so you search for "Super Mario Bros" instead of Super Mario Bros. You can also select which sub forum to get results from, under the Forum: list under Search Options. If your game is a NES game, for example, set this option to "NES games" to sort out all the hits you're not interested in. ... I might fill this out with more later, but I think you get the idea. Perhaps this isn't exactly what this page is for, but on the other hand, you can replace all these questions with more tool and TAS oriented ones.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Can I suggest making a list of simple games to learn to TAS? I think one would be very helpful for beginning TASers. For example, Mr. Chins Gourmet Paradise is an incredibly simple game (Hell, not even up or down are used) with some very easy to master mechanics, yet I never see it being mentioned as being 'simple to learn' (Not that obscurity helps). But yeah, long story short, can I recommend a 'Learners Choice' list, a 'complete' one?
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
For my part, I suggest trying to get 100% kills in Recca (NES). As an autoscrolling game, there's not a lot of pressure time-wise except on the bosses, but the levels still take a crap-ton of planning if you're going to successfully kill everything given the sheer number of enemies with very small on-screen times. In short, you get a goal that's impossible in normal play but entirely feasible in TAS play, which should make for a nice introduction to TASing. For added fun, turn on the death bullets mode. :) The main thread has some WIPs. I made it about 75% of the way through level 1 (including beating the first boss) before getting distracted by other projects.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
Randil wrote:
A post full of awesomeness
I love these suggestions. Can we make a new wiki page to put these questions on? And a link to them in a thread in this forum.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Is "newbie" really a better fit than "newcomer?" Nine times out of ten, it's used in a negative fashion. Maybe I'm just being crotchety...
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
It certainly wouldn't hurt to change it. I suggest "For Beginners" instead of the current name.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
adelikat wrote:
Randil wrote:
A post full of awesomeness
I love these suggestions. Can we make a new wiki page to put these questions on? And a link to them in a thread in this forum.
Thanks! I added a few more Q&A in that post this morning.
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
No prob. Now just make that a wiki ^_^
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Player (116)
Joined: 5/13/2009
Posts: 700
Location: suffern, ny
I just had a thought. should we post a link to the IRC in here, to get the newbies, or newcomers, onto the IRC to talk to people when they need?
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese [19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Seems like it worked: http://tasvideos.org/NewcomersAnticipatedQuestions.html Thoughts? Suggestions? Should I change an answer or add/remove a question?
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I don't know... Most of that stuff looks helpful, but I'm still not sure it's written for the right mindset. I think you should try harder to imagine what it's like when "tool assistance" is new and surprising, feeling all bewildered about how such a movie could be made and what could be done with it. Make it sound exciting! "Many emulators let you 'save the state' of a game, no matter where you are or what you're doing. Have you ever tried this? When you 'load' the state, it's like going back in time! Save before a difficult part of the game, so you can always go back and try it again right away. Cheat all you want with this, and the game will never care! "Many emulators also let you record a 'movie' of you playing the game. You can play it back and see everything you did. Now imagine combining movie-making with state-saving. You can undo your mistakes by loading states, and the emulator will undo those mistakes from the movie too! The movie will look perfect, even though you're not a perfect player! "But the movie may still not be as perfect as possible, because some moves would be too fast to pull off right away every time. But emulators fix that too! Make the game as slow as you want! Pause it, even! If a game only accepts 60 button presses a second, you can pause the game and press a key for 'frame advance' which makes the game play for just 1/60th of a second and then pause itself again. Hold a button you want pressed in the game while you tap the 'frame advance' key, and you'll have held that button for a mere 1/60th of a second from the game's point of view! You can be one fast player now!" Also, number 3 on your list sounds too discouraging. Just link to what resources there are and/or give a brief overview for now.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Rule 8 is kind of silly, in a way. I broke it publicly for several months and well... never got touched.
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
But I always feel a little freaked out when some work of mine pops up on YouTube and nobody even asked me about it.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
But I always feel a little freaked out when some work of mine pops up on YouTube and nobody even asked me about it.
In my defense, I always announced it in the forum topic.
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Yeah, I'm a little unsure about #8. What I basically wanted to point out was that some players take offense when their TASes are put on Youtube without them knowing about it. In a way, getting more of our runs on Youtube is a good thing, as long as the description contains the usual necessary information. Well, I guess I'll remove #8. And I really didn't intend for the list to sound discouraging, though after reading through it a couple of times, I can see your point. I'll try to reword some of it to make it sound more encouraging!
Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 103
Zurreco wrote:
Is "newbie" really a better fit than "newcomer?" Nine times out of ten, it's used in a negative fashion. Maybe I'm just being crotchety...
no, that's noob.
Player (116)
Joined: 5/13/2009
Posts: 700
Location: suffern, ny
I like the questions they were good, but do you mind If I make a suggestion? We get alot of new people here who sign up and lurk. maybe they post in some of their favorite games about things that they have found but don't publish runs or start a TAS. Would it be better if we have a question like: Do i have to TAS to be on the site? or WHat if i just want to Lurk? Maybe something to that extent. I feel like people might see those questions and feel like its saying HI welcome to TASvideos, NOW MAKE A TAS. I know when i first came here, I just wanted to see progress and read about the games. It was just a little bit before i actually wanted to start TASing.
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese [19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
funnyhair wrote:
I like the questions they were good, but do you mind If I make a suggestion? We get alot of new people here who sign up and lurk. maybe they post in some of their favorite games about things that they have found but don't publish runs or start a TAS. Would it be better if we have a question like: Do i have to TAS to be on the site? or WHat if i just want to Lurk? Maybe something to that extent. I feel like people might see those questions and feel like its saying HI welcome to TASvideos, NOW MAKE A TAS. I know when i first came here, I just wanted to see progress and read about the games. It was just a little bit before i actually wanted to start TASing.
Good point, I added this as question #8. I also changed the language a bit to sound less discouraging. I thought Bag of Magic Food's post was so well phrased that I simply put it in as part of the answer to the new question #3 (I hope you don't mind). Hopefully these changes were for the better! I was also wondering, perhaps I should make a separate thread for discussing this Wiki page? Although this discussion is somewhat related to this thread, it might be a good idea...
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
For question 8, can I suggest adding that several long time members have never made a proper TAS? *Points at himself*
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
I think it's important to suggest that you don't need to TAS here to contribute. Encoding, Coaching, even voting on submissions is helping out.
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
Raiscan wrote:
I think it's important to suggest that you don't need to TAS here to contribute. Encoding, Coaching, even voting on submissions is helping out.
Good point. They should be linked to this page: http://tasvideos.org/Helping.html Also that page could have some stuff added to watching. Like a user could watch WIPs on the forum and give helpful feedback or just general encouragement.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects